Cardinal Beaufort

“ Forshall and Madden, some handwriting of his appears on a manuscript at Trinity College, Dublin, containing a memorial to Cardinal Beaufort, and Henry Beaufort was not raised to the cardinalate till 1427. ”

“ Resolving [152] to aid the emperor with the temporal and spiritual power of the church, he proclaimed a crusade against the heretics, and sent a commission to cardinal Beaufort, authorizing him, in quality of legate, to wield the sword of the church, and chastise her rebellious sons. This commission was by no means disagreeable to the turbulent spirit of Beaufort. In pursuance of the instructions which he received from the pontiff, he appropriated to the purposes of the crusade, a tenth part of the revenues which accrued from England to the Roman see. ”

“ Grandi, the Italian colour-grinder, sat to him for King Henry VI. in the Death of Cardinal Beaufort, and he looks not much better than a train-bearer or one in a low and mean station: if he had sat to him for his portrait, he would have made him look like a king! That was what made Fuseli observe in joke that “Grandi never held up his head after Sir Joshua painted him in his Cardinal Beaufort!” But the pictures I speak of are poor dry fac-similes (in a little timid manner and with an attempt at drapery) of imbecile creatures, whose appearance is a satire on themselves and mankind. ”

“ The whole church was new built about this time; Henry Beaufort (second son of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, son of Edward III.) , Cardinal of St. Eusebius, and Bishop of Winchester from the year 1405 to the time of his death in 1447, might have contributed towards the building, being a man of great wealth, for which he was called the rich Cardinal, as the arms of the Beauforts are carved in stone on a pillar in the south cross aisle; and by the remaining sculpture on each side it appears to be done for strings pendant from a Cardinal's hat placed over them. ”

“ Pray, monsieur, considering your reputation and capacity, who can pretend to act this part with more dignity, than yourself? M. de Beaufort and I are already the favourites of the people, and if you declare for the exclusion of the Cardinal, you will be tomorrow as popular as either of us, and we shall be looked upon as the only centre of their hopes. All the blunders of the ministers will turn to our advantage, the Spaniards will caress us, and the Cardinal, considering how fond he is of a treaty, will be under the necessity to court us. ”

“ In compliance with the regent’s request, Beaufort repaired with his army to Paris, whence he soon afterwards proceeded to Bohemia. The terrors of the crusade, thus aided by the power of the cardinal legate, did not dismay the heretics, who rushed to the combat with unabated fury, and routed the army of the church. The pontiff, sensibly mortified by this disaster, and attributing the ill success of his arms to the imprudence of Beaufort, recalled that haughty prelate, substituting in his place Bartolomeo da Piacenza. ”

“ M. de Beaufort, a man of very mean parts, was so much out of temper because the Queen had put her confidence in Cardinal Mazarin, that, though her Majesty offered him favours with profusion, he would accept none, and affected to give himself the airs of an angry lover. He held aloof from the Duc d’Orleans, insulted the late Prince, and, in order to support himself against the Queen-regent, the chief minister, and all the Princes of the blood, formed a cabal of men who all died mad, and whom I never took for conjurers from the first time I knew them. ”

“ He had probably been studying divinity between 1420 and 1426 at Spalding or Oxford. At some time between 1426 and 1429 Waynflete received from Cardinal Beaufort presentation to the mastership of the Hospital of St. Mary Magdalen, situate upon a hill a mile east of Winchester. The preferment was worth about 9l. 12s. a year, or approximately 110l. of our money. ”

“ However, he could not always check Monsieur de Beaufort; who having assembled them once very unnecessarily, and without any determined object, they ran riot, would not be kept within bounds by their leaders, and did their cause a great deal of harm: upon which the Cardinal observes most judiciously, ‘Que Monsieur de Beaufort me savoit pas, que qui assemble le peuple, l’emeut’. It is certain, that great numbers of people met together, animate each other, and will do something, either good or bad, but oftener bad ”

“ Of its foundation by Henry of Blois we have already spoken, but in its associations another historic name figures, of equal prominence with Bishop Henry’s—that of Beaufort, Bishop and Cardinal in Henry VI.’s reign. Beaufort was a second founder, and the domestic buildings and the fine gateway are his work. Along with the Brethren with black gown and silver cross will be seen some wearing a mulberry gown, with the Beaufort Rose as{172} emblem; these are Brethren of the order Beaufort founded—the Order of Noble Poverty. St. Cross is not a place to describe at all in words ”

“ But when he reminded the Cardinal of his promise, and claimed its performance, Beaufort receded from his position. "To trust the speeches of such persons," said Bracciolini, "is like holding a wolf by the ears," (quoting what the old Greeks used to say, [Greek: ton oton echein ton lukon] when they wanted to denote the awkward position of a man holding on to something when it was difficult for him to cling to it, and still more dangerous for him to let it go) . ”

“ Knowing how to use money, and using it with boldness, careful to maintain his credit, and not afraid of making his credit serve him, Beaufort gained immense wealth. While he guarded this wealth carefully, he never refused to lend it for the support of the crown. In 1416 he lent the king 14,000l., secured on the customs, and received a certain gold crown to be kept as a pledge of repayment. Having been relieved of his office in the July of 1417, the bishop left England, nominally on a pilgrimage. The real object of his journey was to attend the council then sitting at Constance. ”

“ During the course of his long life he did little for himself, much for others; nothing for money, scarcely any thing for fame; much for hiscountry, more for virtue and religion. Many have said, and more have felt, that they never spent an hour in Dr. Beaufort’s company without leaving it wiser and better, more disposed to do their duty to God and to their neighbour. ”

“ Beaufort’s peculiarly conciliating politeness increased the power and effect of his benevolence, not only upon the highest but upon the lowest class of his friends, acquaintances, and parishioners. He lived to be an example of uncommon intellectual vigour in advanced age. When he was nearly eighty-three, in the last year of his life, he was occupied in preparing from a large mass of materials an improved edition of the Memoir accompanying his Map. His sight was so acute that he could, at that age, superintend the most delicate revisions of his Map. ”

“ Sir Francis Beaufort died on the 17th December 1857, aged eighty-three. Harriet Martineau in her “Biographical Sketches” says of him, “He was short in stature; but his countenance could nowhere pass without notice,” being characterised by “astute intelligence, shining honesty, and genial kindliness.” ”

“ Beaufort's residence on the avenue, the world was now a vast arena, into which he was going, armed and knighted with his lady's colors on his helm. His heart beat high in his bosom. He would be a factor in great affairs; the hour would come when he would return, famous, wealthy past belief, announced by the heralds. He could not know that he was but another character in that sweet old fairy story which men and women have striven to act over and over again before they learn with dumb horror how pitiless and how practical are the ways of Providence. ”

“ As became the high-priest of form, he had formed a wife so completely to his own convenience that, in the most conspicuous moments of his frequent love-affairs with other men's wives, she went about in smiling unconsciousness, saying that "Lawrence was so frightfully strict"; and had been known to blush indignantly, and avert her gaze, when some one alluded in her presence to the fact that Julius Beaufort (as became a "foreigner" of doubtful origin) had what was known in New York as "another establishment." ”

“ So it came about that in 1486 Bishop Waynflete was compelled to reduce the recipients of Beaufort's charity to one priest and two brethren. Fortunately, St. Cross was spared at the Reformation, and its endowments were not confiscated. The Vicar-General reported that there were "certain things requiring reformation", and that sturdy beggars were to be "driven away with staves"; also that the Lord's Prayer and the Creed were to be taught in English, and that relics and images were not to be brought out for the devotion of pilgrims. ”

“ At last he took courage to ask me if I was firm to him, and after I had assured him of my fidelity he desired that, as a proof of my attachment and affection for him, I would be reconciled to M. de Beaufort. "With all my heart," said I. Whereupon he embraced me, then opened the gallery door by his bedchamber, and out came M. de Beaufort, who threw himself about my neck, and said, "Pray ask his Royal Highness what I have been saying to him concerning you. I know who are honest men. Come on, monsieur, let us drive all the Mazarins away for good and all." ”

“ Whilst saying that to himself, Monsieur de Beaufort smiled pleasantly and imagined himself already outside, breathing the air of the plains and the forests, pressing a strong horse between his knees and crying out in a loud voice, "I am free!" ”

“ It would have given him pleasure even on his dying bed, noble, generous creature as he was; he would have rejoiced for his friend, and have felt that merit is sometimes rewarded in this world. This appointment is, in every respect, all that Captain Beaufort wished for himself, and all that his friends can desire for him. As one of the first people in the Admiralty said, "Beaufort is the only man in England fit for the place." ”

“ Dr. Beaufort. — Daniel Augustus Beaufort, born in 1738, was the only son of Daniel Cornelius de Beaufort, Provost of Tuam (see chapter xviii.) . He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and ultimately received the degree of LL.D. Dr. Beaufort was during nearly sixty years a beneficed clergyman of the Church of Ireland, having been Rector of Navan, County Meath, and Vicar of Collon, County Louth. His name was widely known as the author of “The Civil and Ecclesiastical Map of Ireland.” ”

“ Beaufort, “is so extraordinary—so unexpected, and still, to me, seems so improbable, that I must have time to consider. If you will call on me in a week, and produce your facts, I will give you my answer. I am not the man, sir, to wish to keep any one out of his true rights, but I will not yield, on the other hand, to imposture.” ”

“ You are the first person I write to upon returning from church after the accomplishment of Honora and Captain Beaufort's marriage. Captain Beaufort was affected more than any man I ever saw in the same circumstances, yet in the most manly manner. ”

“ It would have been a curious study for such men as love to gaze upon the dark and wily features of human character, to have watched the contrast between the reciter and the listener, as Beaufort, with much circumlocution, much affected disdain and real anxiety, narrated the singular and ominous conversation between himself and his visitor. ”

“ M. de Beyons sought the king, and loudly complained to him of the infatuation and obstinacy of M. de la Roche Aymon. Louis XV however commanded that M. de Beauvais should be appointed to the first vacant see, and when the grand almoner repeated his objections to the preferment, the king answered, “Monsieur le cardinal, in the days of our blessed Saviour the apostles had no need to present their genealogical tree, duly witnessed and attested. It is my pleasure to make M. de Beauvais a bishop ”

“ But folly is as often justified of her children as wisdom, and two years after young Mrs. Beaufort's marriage it was admitted that she had the most distinguished house in New York. No one knew exactly how the miracle was accomplished. She was indolent, passive, the caustic even called her dull; but dressed like an idol, hung with pearls, growing younger and blonder and more beautiful each year, she throned in Mr. Beaufort's heavy brown-stone palace, and drew all the world there without lifting her jewelled little finger. ”

“ This church numbers seventy-five members, and makes a specialty of temperance and music. It has to meet in the community a theological coloring taken from the Hard-shell Baptists and the Quakers. In the Ku-Klux times a good many Freedmen came in here for safety.
At Beaufort I found the church and school making headway under Mr. Michael Jerkins, a graduate of the Theological Department of Howard University. At Morehead City, a town once of great expectations, now blighted, our school and the city lie dead side by side. ”

“ Beaufort was to grasp the hand held out to him; to pour forth an incoherent torrent of praise and protestation, of assurances that he could not hear of such generosity, that what was right was right, that he should be proud of such a son-in-law, and much more in the same key. ”

“ Purposely avoiding all attraction that may savour of extravagance, patiently subduing every tone and every hue to the aspect of those whom we meet daily in our thoroughfares, I have shown in Robert Beaufort the man of decorous phrase and bloodless action—the systematic self-server— in whom the world forgive the lack of all that is generous, warm, and noble, in order to respect the passive acquiescence in methodical conventions and hollow forms. ”