John de Beauchesne

John de Beauchesne, also known as John de Beau Chesne, Jean de Beauchesne and Jehan de Beauchesne (c.1538 in Paris – May 1620 in London) was a French Hugenot writing master (that is, a teacher of penmanship) and calligrapher. He relocated to London around 1565, in the reign of Elizabeth I. In 1570 he co-authored A Booke containing divers sortes of hands, the first writing manual published in English. He traveled to Italy and France, where he published additional writing manuals, returning to England by 1583. In his later years he was appointed writing master to two of the children of James I, Elizabeth and Charles (later King Charles I). Beauchesne died in London in May 1620.

John de Beauchense was born in Paris around 1538, and was probably raised a Huguenot. He is likely related to a group of printers and booksellers active in Paris in the 16th century named Beauchesne: Abraham Beauchesne (active around 1532), Julien Beauchesne (1545) and Jeanne Beauchesne, wife of the Parisian printer Jean Plumyon, killed In 1572 during the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre.

He emigrated to London around 1565 (perhaps to find a more favorable environment for Protestant opinions); in 1567 he had been living in the ward of Farringdon Without, home to Chancery Lane and St Bartholomew's Hospital, for two years. That year he was working as a scribe for William Bowyer, Keeper of the Records in the Tower of London. Berthold Wolpe identified Beauchesne as the creator of the calligraphic pages in Bowyer's Heroica Eulogia, a manuscript dedicated (but perhaps never presented) to Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester combining "paintings, coats of arms, Latin poems, 14 distinctive styles of handwriting, and historical documents".

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