John Beaumont (judge)

John Beaumont (fl. 1550) of Grace Dieu in the parish of Belton in Leicestershire, England, was a judge and Master of the Rolls.

He was the great-grandson of Sir Thomas Beaumont, of Bachuile, in Normandy, and great-great-grandson of John Beaumont, 4th Baron Beaumont (1361–1396), Knight of the Garter. The Beaumont barony had already fallen into abeyance in his time through the death of the 7th baron and 2nd viscount without issue in 1507. The viscounty then became extinct. The sixth baron had been distinguished as the first viscount ever created in England.

The earliest mention of John Beaumont appears to be a memorandum in the books of the corporation of Leicester, under date 1529-30, to the following effect: 'Agreed to give to John Beaumont, gent., 6s. 8d. fee to answer in such causes as the town shall need and require". In 1534, on the abbot of Leicester subscribing to the king's spiritual supremacy, a commission was appointed to take an ecclesiastical survey of the county, and Beaumont was placed thereon. In 1537 he was appointed reader at the Inner Temple, and in 1543 double reader (duplex lector), as a person appointed for the second time was then called. In 1547 he was elected treasurer of that society. His name is not to be found in the year books of Henry VII's reign, nor in any of the reports belonging to the reign of Edward VI.

In 1550 he was appointed Recorder of Leicester, and in the same year Master of the Rolls, in succession to Sir Robert Southwell. In this capacity he was commissioned to hear causes for Lord Chancellor Rich (26 November 1551) and for Lord Chancellor Goodrich (21 January 1552). He had not, however, long sat on the bench before he abused his position for his own advantage in the grossest possible manner.

He concluded a corrupt bargain, known to lawyers as champerty, with Lady Anne Powis, who was suing in his court to recover possession of land to which she claimed to be entitled from Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, by which Lady Anne Powis agreed to sell the benefit of her suit, if she should be successful, to the judge for a sum of money. The selling of titles by persons not having possession of the lands was, even as between private individuals, a corrupt practice by English law, and a statute of Henry VIII renders either party to the contract liable to forfeit the full value of the lands. Beaumont, however, did not stop short at champerty. He endeavoured to corroborate Lady Powis's title by forging the signature of the late Duke of Suffolk to a deed by which that nobleman purported to grant the lands in question to the lady. He was also guilty of appropriating to his own use funds belonging to the royal revenues coming into his hands in his capacity of judge of the court of wards and liveries (established by Henry Viii in 1540-41) to the amount of £20,871 18s and 8d, and of concealing a felony committed by his servant.

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