Robert Beale was an English diplomat, administrator, and antiquary

Antiquarian

An antiquarian or antiquary is an aficionado or student of antiquities or things of the past. More specifically, the term is used for those who study history with particular attention to ancient objects of art or science, archaeological and historic sites, or historic archives and manuscripts...

 in the reign of Elizabeth I

Elizabeth I of England

Elizabeth I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana, or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty...

. As Clerk of the Privy Council

Clerk of the Privy Council (United Kingdom)

The Clerk of the Privy Council is a civil servant in the government of the United Kingdom. He or she is the most senior civil servant in the Privy Council Office....

, Beale wrote the official record of the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, to which he was an eyewitness.

Early life

His parents were Robert and Amy. He married Edith, daughter of Henry St. Barbe of Somerset

Somerset

The ceremonial and non-metropolitan county of Somerset in South West England borders Bristol and Gloucestershire to the north, Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the south-east, and Devon to the south-west. It is partly bounded to the north and west by the Bristol Channel and the estuary of the...

, and sister of the wife of Sir Francis Walsingham. Apparently he was a Marian exile. In 1562 Lord John Grey of Pyrgo consulted him concerning the validity of the marriage of his niece Lady Catherine Grey

Lady Catherine Grey

Lady Catherine Grey , Countess of Hertford, was the younger sister of Lady Jane Grey. A granddaughter of Henry VIII's sister Mary, she was a potential successor to her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I of England, but incurred Elizabeth's wrath by her secret marriage to Edward Seymour, 1st Earl of Hertford...

 with Edward Seymour, 1st Earl of Hertford

Edward Seymour, 1st Earl of Hertford

Sir Edward Seymour, 1st Baron Beauchamp of Hache and 1st Earl of Hertford, KG was the son of Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset, by his second wife Anne Stanhope....

, and Beale made a journey to the continent to lay the case before Oldendorpius and eminent Italian canonists. The opinion which Beale formed he subsequently maintained in a Latin tract; a royal commission, with Archbishop Matthew Parker

Matthew Parker

Matthew Parker was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1559 until his death in 1575. He was also an influential theologian and arguably the co-founder of Anglican theological thought....

 at its head, pronounced the marriage void at the time, but its validity was established in 1606.

Diplomatic career

In 1564 he obtained a post with the English embassy in Paris, and travelled into Germany. Walsingham found him in Paris on his appointment as ambassador-resident there in 1570, and made him his secretary. In the correspondence between Lord Burghley and Walsingham of this period he is frequently mentioned as carrying despatches between Paris and London. A witness to the massacre of St. Bartholomew two years later (24 August 1572), he wrote a Discourse by way of Letter to the Lord Burghley shortly after the event. The same year he succeeded Robert Monson

Robert Monson

Robert Monson was an English politician and judge. He was Member of Parliament for various constituencies from 1553 to 1572 and also became Justice of the Common Pleas....

, then raised to the bench, as M.P. for Totnes

Totnes (UK Parliament constituency)

Totnes is a county constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament , using the first-past-the-post voting system....

. About this time he was appointed clerk to the council.

In April 1575 he was sent to Flushing

Flushing, Netherlands

Vlissingen is a municipality and a city in the southwestern Netherlands on the former island of Walcheren. With its strategic location between the Scheldt river and the North Sea, Vlissingen has been an important harbour for centuries. It was granted city rights in 1315. In the 17th century...

 to recover goods which the Flushingers had seized, consisting partly of merchandise and partly of property of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford

Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford

Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford was an Elizabethan courtier, playwright, lyric poet, sportsman and patron of the arts, and is currently the most popular alternative candidate proposed for the authorship of Shakespeare's works....

; and in the following year he accompanied Admiral William Winter to the Low Countries

Low Countries

The Low Countries are the historical lands around the low-lying delta of the Rhine, Scheldt, and Meuse rivers, including the modern countries of Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and parts of northern France and western Germany....

 to demand the liberation of the English merchant ships on which the Prince of Orange

Prince of Orange

Prince of Orange is a title of nobility, originally associated with the Principality of Orange, in what is now southern France. In French it is la Principauté d'Orange....

 had laid an embargo in the Scheldt River in retaliation for acts of piracy committed by English privateers on Dutch shipping. The ships were set free at once, but an indemnity for the detention, which Beale was instructed to claim, was disputed. After the Formula of Concord

Formula of Concord

Formula of Concord is an authoritative Lutheran statement of faith that, in its two parts , makes up the final section of the Lutheran Corpus Doctrinae or Body of Doctrine, known as...

 of 1577 had defined so-called Cryptocalvinists as heretics, Beale toured nine German courts for Queen Elizabeth, to intervene with Lutheran princes for religious toleration

Religious toleration

Toleration is "the practice of deliberately allowing or permitting a thing of which one disapproves. One can meaningfully speak of tolerating, ie of allowing or permitting, only if one is in a position to disallow”. It has also been defined as "to bear or endure" or "to nourish, sustain or preserve"...

. He impressed Hubert Languet

Hubert Languet

Hubert Languet was a French diplomat and reformer. The leading idea of his diplomacy was that of religious and civil liberty for the protection and expansion of Protestantism...

, who gave him an introduction to Sir Philip Sidney.

During Walsingham's absence in the Netherlands in the summer of 1578 Beale acted as secretary of state, as also in 1581 and 1583, on occasion of Walsingham's missions to France and Scotland in those years. In the autumn of 1580 he took part in the examination of Richard Stanihurst about the conveying of Gerald Fitzgerald, Lord Offaly, to Spain at the instigation of Thomas Fleming. In 1581 he was one of the commissioners who took the depositions of Edmund Campion

Edmund Campion

Saint Edmund Campion, S.J. was an English Roman Catholic martyr and Jesuit priest. While conducting an underground ministry in officially Protestant England, Campion was arrested by priest hunters. Convicted of high treason by a kangaroo court, he was hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn...

 before his trial; his commission extended only to threatening with torture

Torture

Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...

. The same year Walsingham was appointed governor of the Mines Royal, and made Beale his deputy.

Between 1581 and 1584 he was employed in negotiating with Mary, Queen of Scots, at Sheffield

Sheffield

Sheffield is a city and metropolitan borough of South Yorkshire, England. Its name derives from the River Sheaf, which runs through the city. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and with some of its southern suburbs annexed from Derbyshire, the city has grown from its largely...

, and was suspected of secret partiality to her cause. Eventually (1584) he wrote to Walsingham of a lack of progress. In 1585 Beale was returned to Parliament for Dorchester

Dorchester (UK Parliament constituency)

Dorchester was a parliamentary constituency centred on the town of Dorchester in Dorset. It returned two Members of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1295 to 1868, when its representation was reduced one member....

, which he also represented in the two succeeding parliaments (1586 and 1588). In November 1586 he was despatched with Lord Buckhurst

Thomas Sackville, 1st Earl of Dorset

Thomas Sackville, 1st Earl of Dorset was an English statesman, poet, dramatist and Freemason. He was the son of Richard Sackville, a cousin to Anne Boleyn. He was a Member of Parliament and Lord High Treasurer.-Biography:...

 to Fotheringay

Fotheringay

Fotheringay was a short-lived British folk rock group, formed in 1970 by singer Sandy Denny on her departure from Fairport Convention. The band drew its name from her 1968 composition "Fotheringay" about Fotheringhay Castle, in which Mary, Queen of Scots had been imprisoned...

, to notify the Queen of Scots of the fact that sentence of death had been passed upon her. Early in the following year, Beale carried the warrant to Fotheringay and performed the duty of reading it aloud in the hall of the castle by way of preliminary to the execution, of which he was an eye-witness, and wrote an account.

Though a Puritan

Puritan

The Puritans were a significant grouping of English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries. Puritanism in this sense was founded by some Marian exiles from the clergy shortly after the accession of Elizabeth I of England in 1558, as an activist movement within the Church of England...

, Beale maintained the principle of toleration, both in Parliament and as a writer. He published a work impugning the right of the crown to fine or imprison for ecclesiastical offences, and condemning the use of torture to induce confession, and followed it up at a later date with a second treatise (by 1584) on the same subject. John Whitgift

John Whitgift

John Whitgift was the Archbishop of Canterbury from 1583 to his death. Noted for his hospitality, he was somewhat ostentatious in his habits, sometimes visiting Canterbury and other towns attended by a retinue of 800 horsemen...

 then drew up and laid before the council a 'schedule of misdemeanours' alleged to have been committed by Beale; no notice was taken of it. Beale had shown the archbishop the manuscript of another work on the prerogative of the bishops, which caused a clash.

In the summer he served on logistics under Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester

Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester

Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester, KG was an English nobleman and the favourite and close friend of Elizabeth I from her first year on the throne until his death...

 in the Netherlands during the attempt to relieve Sluys. In 1589 he was employed in negotiation with the Dutch States, and next year with Burghley and Buckhurst adjusted the accounts of Peregrine Bertie, Lord Willoughby

Peregrine Bertie, 13th Baron Willoughby de Eresby

thumb|Peregrine Bertie, 13th Baron Willoughby de EresbyPeregrine Bertie, 13th Baron Willoughby de Eresby was the son of Catherine Willoughby, 12th Baroness Willoughby de Eresby, and Richard Bertie. Bertie was Lady Willoughby de Eresby's second husband, the first being Charles Brandon, Duke of...

, commander in the Netherlands. In 1592 the attitude which Beale assumed in a debate on supply with another speech against the inquisitorial practices of the bishops, gave so much offence to the queen that he was commanded to absent himself both from court and from Parliament. In 1592 he addressed a lengthy letter to Burghley as Lord Treasurer vindicating his opinions on church government. The same year he was returned to Parliament for Lostwithiel

Lostwithiel (UK Parliament constituency)

Lostwithiel was a rotten borough in Cornwall which returned two Members of Parliament to the House of Commons in the English and later British Parliament from 1304 to 1832, when it was abolished by the Great Reform Act.-History:...

.

In 1595 Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex

Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex

Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, KG was an English nobleman and a favourite of Elizabeth I. Politically ambitious, and a committed general, he was placed under house arrest following a poor campaign in Ireland during the Nine Years' War in 1599...

  tried to deprive Beale of his office of clerk to the council in favour of one of his own creatures; Beale wrote (24 April 1595) to the Lord Treasurer. He was also clerk to the Council of the North

Council of the North

The Council of the North was an administrative body originally set up in 1484 by king Richard III of England, the third and last Yorkist monarch to hold the Crown of England; its intention was to improve government control and economic prosperity, to benefit the entire area of Northern England...

; Beale concluded his letter by begging that he might be allowed a deputy to do the business of the office at York during his absence. His request was granted, one John Ferne being appointed in the following August. In 1597 he was with Sir Julius Caesar in a commission to examine into complaints by the inhabitants of Guernsey

Guernsey

Guernsey, officially the Bailiwick of Guernsey is a British Crown dependency in the English Channel off the coast of Normandy.The Bailiwick, as a governing entity, embraces not only all 10 parishes on the Island of Guernsey, but also the islands of Herm, Jethou, Burhou, and Lihou and their islet...

 against Sir Thomas Leighton, their governor. In 1599 he was placed on a special commission to hear and adjudge the grievances of Danish subjects who complained of piratical acts committed by English subjects.

In 1600 he was appointed one of the envoys to treat for peace with the King of Spain at Boulogne. The negotiation fell through, the representatives not being able to agree on the question of precedency.

Private life

In 1601 Beale died at his house at Barnes, at eight o'clock in the evening of 25 May. He was buried in Allhallows Church, London Wall. He left two daughters, of whom one, Margaret, married Sir Henry Yelverton, who had Beale's books and papers at Easton-Maudit. The library was sold in 1784, and the manuscripts went to the British Museum

British Museum

The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...

. The other daughter, Catherine, married Nathaniel Stephens, of Easington, Gloucestershire.

He had been a member of the Elizabethan Society of Antiquaries, and is mentioned by Thomas Milles

Thomas Milles (bailiff)

Thomas Milles was an English customs official, known for his economic writings, in which he defended the staple system.-Life:...

 in the epistle dedicatory to his Catalogue of Honour. In 1582 he discussed the North-west Passage with John Dee

John Dee

John Dee was a Welsh mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, occultist, navigator, imperialist, and consultant to Queen Elizabeth I.John Dee may also refer to:* John Dee , Basketball coach...

, John Davis

John Davis (English explorer)

John Davis , was one of the chief English navigators and explorers under Elizabeth I, especially in Polar regions and in the Far East.-Early life:...

 and Adrian Gilbert. He had another house at Priors Marston

Priors Marston

Priors Marston is a village in Warwickshire, England, southwest of Daventry. The Oxford Canal and Jurassic Way both run nearby. According to the United Kingdom Census 2001 the population of the parish is 506, most of whom live in the village....

, in Warwickshire

Warwickshire

Warwickshire is a landlocked non-metropolitan county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, although the largest town is Nuneaton. The county is famous for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare...

, and is described as of that place in the inscriptions on the tombstone of his wife and daughter Catherine.

Works

Throughout life Beale was a collector of books. His written works include:

• Argument touching the Validity of the Marriage of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, with Mary, Queen-dowager of France (sister to King Henry VIII), and the Legitimacy of the Lady Frances, their daughter. In Latin, MS. Univ. Libr., Cambr. Dd. 3, 85, art. 18.
• A Large Discourse concerning the Marriage between the Earl of Hertford and the Lady Catherine Grey. In Latin, MS. Univ. Libr. Cambr. Ii. 5, 3, art. 4. This work contains also the opinions of the foreign jurists consulted by Beale upon the case.
• Discourse after the Massacre in France, 15 pp. MS. Cotton, Tit. F. iii. 299.
• A Book against Oaths ministered in the Courts of Ecclesiastical Commission from Her Majesty, and in other Courts Ecclesiastical. Printed abroad and brought to England in a Scotch ship about 1583.
• A Book respecting Ceremonies, the Habits, the Book of Common Prayer, and the Power of Ecclesiastical Courts, 1584
• The Order and Manner of the Execution of Mary Queen of Scots, Feb. 8, 1587.
• A Summary Collection of certain Notes against the Manner of proceeding ex officio by Oath.
• A Consideration of certain Points in the Treaty to be enlarged or altered in case Her Majesty make a new Treaty with the States, April 1589. MS. Cott. Galba, D. iv. 163. In this Beale was assisted by Dr. Bartholomew Clerke
  Bartholomew Clerke
  -Background:He was grandson of Richard Clerke, gentleman, of Livermere in Suffolk, and son of John Clerke of Wells, Somerset, by Anne, daughter and heiress of Henry Grantoft of Huntingdonshire. He was born about 1537 in Surrey. He received his education at Eton College, and was elected to King's...
  
  .
• A Deliberation of Henry Killigrew and Robert Beale concerning the Requisition for Restitution from the States. London, August 1595. MS. Cott. Galba, D. xi. 125.