BEARD, JOHN RELLY, D.D. (1800– 1876), unitarian minister, born at Southsea, Hants, in 1800, was sent, at the age of twenty, to the unitarian college at York, where he was fellow-student with Dr. Martineau. In 1825 he took charge of a unitarian congregation at Salford, Manchester. Shortly afterwards he opened a school, where his son, the Rev. Charles Beard (Hibbert lecturer, 1883), was educated. In 1838 the university of Giessen bestowed on him the honorary degree of D.D. in recognition of his services to religious and general literature. In 1848 he removed to a chapel built for him in Strangeways, Manchester, from which he retired in 1864. During his ministry there he started a scheme for educating young men for home missions, which originated the Unitarian Home Missionary Board or College, of which Beard was the first principal. In 1862, at his suggestion, was founded the Memorial Hall, Manchester, to commemorate the non-compliance with the Act of Uniformity of 1662 of two thousand English clergymen. From 1865 to 1873 he was minister of a chapel at Sale, near Ashton-on-Mersey, where he died in 1876.

Beard's zeal in the cause of public education led to the reforms adopted of late years in the Manchester grammar school, and to the formation of a Lancashire association for popular education. By the labours of Beard and his friends this subject was constantly brought under the notice of the government, until Mr. Forster's bill was introduced. The latter was largely suggested, and in the main drafted, by some of the earlier members of the association, founded, chiefly by the exertions of Beard, thirty years before. By his writings he also contributed to the cause of education; he wrote the papers on Latin, Greek, and English literature for Cassell's 'Popular Educator,' and, with the Rev. Charles Beard, compiled the 'Latin Dictionary' for the same publishers. His topographical description of Lancashire in Knight's Illustrated England,' and a 'Life of Toussaint l'Ouverture' (1853), complete the list of his writings on general subjects.

His theological fervour, inherited from his ancestor Relly, a universalist preacher of the eighteenth century, was shown in his various religious writings. Chief amongst these are his controversial works in defence of christianity (1826, 1837, 1845); many papers in the Christian Reformer,' the Westminster Review,' 'Journal of Sacred Literature,'

Kitto's Cyclopædia of Biblical Literature," Kitto's Papers for Sunday Reading,' and 'People's Dictionary of the Bible' (1847). He also published Handbook of Family Devotion from the German of H. Zschokke (1862), Life and Writings of Theodore Parker from the French of Dr. Réville (1865), Autobiography of Satan' (1874), and many minor theological works, original and translated. Beard was the first editor of the 'Christian Teacher,' now the 'National Review,' and also started the ‘Unitarian Herald.'

[Manuscript autobiographical sketch in the possession of C. W. Sutton, Esq.; Unitarian Herald, 1 Dec. 1876, and 4 May 1877; Manchester Guardian, 24 Nov. 1876; Manchester Weekly Times, 25 Nov. 1876; Ireland's List of Dr. Beard's Works, 1875.] E. I.

BEARD, RICHARD. [See BEEARD.]

BEARD, THOMAS, D.D. (d. 1632), puritan divine, and the schoolmaster of Oliver Cromwell at Huntingdon, was, it is believed, a native of Huntingdon, but the date of his birth is unknown. He received his education at Cambridge, and probably took there his degree of D.D. On 21 Jan. 1597-8 he was collated to the rectory of Hengrave, Suffolk, which he held for a very short time. Not very long afterwards Beard became master of Huntingdon hospital and grammar school. It was at this school that Cromwell was educated in the early years of the seventeenth century. In a letter dated 25 March 1614, in the Cottonian MSS. (Julius, C. iii.), Beard asks Sir Robert Cotton for the rectory of Conington, being tired of the painful occupation of teaching. In 1625-6, as we learn from an indenture, made 23 March, between the bailifs and burgesses of the town of Huntingdon, patrons of the hospital of St. John in Huntingdon, of the one part, and Thomas Beard, doctor in divinity, and master of the said hospital, and Robert Cook of Huntingdon, gentleman, of the other part,' Beard was holding a lectureship at Huntingdon, and his puritan zeal in his mastership and preaching had given great satisfaction to the townspeople. All the said parishes and town of Huntington were,' runs the document, 'for a long time before the said Thomas Beard became master of the said hospital, utterly destitute of a learned preacher to teach and instruct them in the word of God; but sithence the said Thomas Beard became master of the said hospital, being admitted thereunto by the presentation of the said bailifs and burgesses, the said Thomas Beard hath not only maintained a grammar school in the said town, according

to the foundation of the said hospital, by himself, and a schoolmaster by him provided at his own charges, but hath also been continually resident in the said town, and painfully preached the word of God in the said town of Huntington on the Sabbath-day duly, to the great comfort of the inhabitants of the said town' (Add. MS. British Museum, 15665, p. 126; SANFORD's Studies and Illustrations of the Great Rebellion, 1858, pp. 240-1). In 1633 Laud, then archbishop, succeeded in putting the lectureship down.

In 1628, when the Bishop of Winchester (Neile), who, while Bishop of Lincoln, had been Beard's diocesan, was accused before the House of Commons of anti-puritan practices, Beard was summoned as a witness against him. According to Cromwell's speech in the debate on the subject, Beard had been appointed in 1617 to preach a sermon on the Sunday after Easter in London, in which, according to custom, he was to recapitulate three sermons previously preached before the lord mayor from an open pulpit in Spital Square. Dr. Alabaster was the preacher whom Beard had to follow, and so far from agreeing to repeat Alabaster's sermons, he announced his intention of exposing his support of certain 'tenets of popery.' Thereupon,' Cromwell continued, the new Bishop of Winton, then Bishop of Lincoln, did send for Dr. Beard and charge him, as his diocesan, not to preach any doctrine contrary to that which Alablaster had delivered. And when Dr. Beard did, by the advice of Bishop Felton, preach against Dr. Alablaster's sermon and person, Dr. Neile, now Bishop of Winton, did reprehend him, the said Beard, for it' (GARDINER'S History (1884), vii. 55-6). Before Beard could give his 'testimony from his own lips,' the parliament was dissolved.

In 1630 he was made a justice of peace for the county. He was married, and had issue. In the parish registers of Huntingdon are entries of his own and of his wife's death- Mr. Thomas Beard, Doctor of Divinity, was buried 10 January 1631[-2],' and Mrs. Mary Beard, widow, 9 December 1642.' She seems to have been a Mary Heriman, and to have been married 9 July 1628. Brayley (in his Beauties of England and Wales, vii. 354) gives the inscription on a brass in the nave of All Saints Church, Huntingdon, to Dr. Beard's memory: Ego Thomas Beard, Sacræ Theologiæ Professor: In Ecclesiâ Omnium Sanctorum Huntingtoniæ Verbi Divini Predicator olim: Jam sanus sum: Obiit Januarii 8°, an. 1631.'

Beard's earliest and most famous book first appeared in 1597. Its title-page runs thus: The Theatre of Gods Iudgements; or, a

Collection of Histories out of Sacred, Ecclesiastical, and Prophane Authors, concerning the admirable Iudgements of God upon the transgressours of his commandements. Translated out of French, and avgmented by more than three hundred Examples, by Th. Beard. London, printed by Adam Islip,' 8vo. It was in the 'Theatre of Iudgement' that first appeared the tragical account of Christopher Marlowe's death. Other editions followed in 1612 and 1631, with additions. A fourth edition in folio of 1648 is well known. In 1625 he published 'Antichrist the Pope of Rome; or the Pope of Rome is Antichrist. Proved in two treatises. In the first, by a full definition of Antichrist, by a plain application of his definition agreeing with the pope, by the weaknesse of the arguments of Bellarmine, Florimond, Raymond, and others, which are here fully answered,' 4to. Beard left in manuscript an 'Evangelical Tragoedie: or, A Harmonie of the Passion of Christ, according to the four Evangelistes' (Royal MS., 17 D. xvii; CASLEY'S Cat. of MSS. of the King's Library, 270). A full-length portrait of Beard is prefixed to the only other literary production of his calling for notice, viz. Pedantius, Comoedia olim Cantab. acta in Coll. Trin. nunquam ante hæc typis evulgata,' 1631.

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BEARD, WILLIAM (1772-1868), bone collector, the son of a farmer at Banwell, Somerset, was born on 24 April 1772. He received such education as the parish clerk, who was also the schoolmaster of the village, could give him. Like his father, he worked on the land. He married and bought a small estate, which he farmed himself. Excited by the tradition that Banwell Hill contained a large cavern, he persuaded two miners to join him (September 1824) in sinking a shaft. At a depth of about 100 feet they came to a stalactite cave. While making a second opening lower down the side of the hill, in order to form a better approach to this cave, he discovered a smaller cavern containing animal bones. With some help procured for him by the Bishop of Bath and Wells (G. H. Law), to whom the land belonged, Beard dug out the cavern, and found among the débris a number of bones of the bear, buffalo, reindeer, wolf, &c. Captivated with his discovery, he let his land, and spent all his time in searching for bones and putting them together. He acted as guide to the many visitors who came to see the cavern and the bones he collected.

jewels,' as he styled his rarities. Beloe, who knew him, has described Beatniffe as a shrewd, cold, inflexible fellow, who traded principally in old books, and held out but little encouragement to a youth who rarely had money to expend. . . . The principal feature of this man's character was suspicion of strangers, and a constant apprehension lest he should dispose of any of his libri rarissimi to some cunning wight or professed collector. If any customer was announced as coming from the metropolis, he immediately added at least one-third to his price' (Sexagenarian, 1818, ii. 246). Booksellers have not unseldom thought it necessary to cultivate blunt and eccentric manners; but Beatniffe's knowledge of books, skill as a bookbinder, and business habits, made him a prosperous tradesman. For many years he owned the best collection of old books among provincial dealers, and was long the first secondhand bookseller in Norwich. He published a few works. His first catalogue was printed in 1779, and his last in 1808; they contained many rare volumes, which he knew how to price at their full value. Among the libraries purchased by him was that of the Rev. Dr. Cox Macro, of Little Haugh in Suffolk, who died in 1767, after having brought together a rich treasure of early-printed books, old poetry, original letters, and autographs. The library remained unexamined for forty years, when it came into Beatniffe's hands at the commencement of the century for the small sum of 150l. or 1607. On being sold piecemeal the collection realised nine or ten times as much.

Beatniffe married Martha Dinah Hart, who died in 1816, daughter of a writing-master and alderman of Bury St. Edmund's, by whom he had a son and a daughter. Having amassed a considerable fortune, Beatniffe retired from business a short time before his death, which took place 9 July 1818, in the seventy-ninth year of his age, at Norwich. He was buried in the nave of the Norwich church of St. Peter at Mancroft.

[Biography by the Rev. James Ford in Nichols's Illustrations, vi. 522-8; see also iv. 746, viii. 491; Nichols's Lit. Anecdotes, iii. 672, viii. 467, ix. 365; Gent. Mag. 1818, ii. 93, 286.]

H. R. T.

BEATON or BETHUNE, DAVID (1494-1546), cardinal archbishop of St. Andrews, was the third son of John Bethune of Balfour, elder brother of Archbishop James Bethune. He studied at the universities of St. Andrews and Glasgow, and in his sixteenth year was sent to Paris, where he studied both the civil and the canon law. About that time his uncle presented him to the rec

VOL. IV.

tory of Campsie, and in 1523 he resigned in his nephew's favour the abbacy of Arbroath, though the pope dispensed the young abbot from taking orders till two years later. In 1537 David Beaton was consecrated bishop of Mirepoix in Foix, and very shortly after Pope Paul III made him cardinal of San Stefano on Monte Celio. He succeeded his uncle as archbishop of St. Andrews in 1539, and was murdered at St. Andrews in 1546. From a very early age he was resident for Scotland at the court of France, was made lord privy seal in 1528, and chancellor in 1543. He was also proto-notary apostolic and legate a latere from 1543. Till he became primate Beaton was frequently employed on foreign diplomatic service, for which his education and abilities specially fitted him. He negotiated the marriage of James V with Magdalen, daughter of Francis I, and on her death he was sent on the commission to bring to Scotland the king's second wife, Mary of Guise. He continued his uncle's policy of knitting closer the alliance with France, and standing on the defensive against England. It was due to his influence that James V rejected all his uncle Henry's proposals, and refused to act in concert with him in religious reforms. On the death of James V in 1542, Beaton produced a will appointing himself and the earls of Huntly, Argyle, and Arran, joint regents. This will his opponents rejected as a forgery. Arran was declared governor of the kingdom by the estates. Beaton was arrested; but his imprisonment was more nominal than real, as Lord Seaton, to whose custody he was committed, was one of his sworn partisans, and very shortly restored him to his own castle. It was suspected that his arrest was merely a pretence to secure him against being kidnapped by the English. For a short time the English party, which was also that of the reformers, triumphed. The governor drew the preachers round him, and two treaties with England were set on foot. One in July 1543 arranged the marriage of Mary with Henry's son Edward; the other concluded an alliance with England. But no sooner did the cardinal find himself at liberty than he raised a faction against the governor and the English marriage. His party mustered in great force, and escorted the queen and her mother from Linlithgow to Stirling Castle in July 1543, a proceeding which was approved at the next meeting of the estates. Arran, too, dismissed the preachers, and went over to the cardinal's party on 8 Sept. 1543. The English treaties were repudiated 24 Sept. 1543, a step which provoked a declaration of war from England; and when Hertford invaded Scotland in 1544

he had special instructions to seize the cardinal and raze his castle of St. Andrews, which Beaton had meanwhile been busily fortifying, and had made so strong that he feared neither English nor French. When the English fleet was seen in the Firth of Forth, both the cardinal and the governor hastened out of reach of the invaders, 1544.

As a persecutor the cardinal was even more zealous than his uncle. His memory has been held up to execration for his cruelties to the reformers, especially for the burning of Wishart. But as the reformers were in secret treaty with England, their political as well as their religious creed made it impossible to let the preaching of their doctrines pass unnoticed; and it has now been ascertained that Wishart was a willing agent in the plots laid by Henry against the cardinal. George Wishart was the most popular of the preachers, and had many powerful supporters among the nobles who upheld them. In 1546 the cardinal called a provincial assembly of the clergy at the Blackfriars, Edinburgh. George Wishart was at Ormiston, a laird's house in the neighbourhood. There he was arrested by the Earl of Bothwell, acting for the cardinal, and brought to St. Andrews, where he was tried on a charge of spreading heretical doctrines, condemned, and burnt on 2 March 1546. At this time the cardinal was at the height of his power. Most of the nobles were bound to him by bonds of manrent or promises of friendship, and he had just married his natural daughter Margaret to David Lindsay, afterwards ninth earl of Crawford. But the friends of Wishart, the lairds of Fife, were determined to avenge his death and secure their own safety by getting the cardinal out of the way before he could carry out a scheme he had in hand for their destruction. John Leslie, brother to the Earl of Rothes, had sworn on the day of Wishart's death that his whinger and hand should be priests to the cardinal.' This bloody threat he fulfilled. Entering the castle by stealth in company with his nephew Norman, and Kircaldy of Grange, they surprised the cardinal in his bedroom, murdered him, and took possession of the fortress, 29 May 1546. Beaton's greatest gift was the power he had of gaining ascendency over the minds of others. He ruled in turn the councils of James V, of the governor and the queen dowager, and had great influence with Francis I. He left several natural children, and the immorality of his private life, as well as his pride and cruelty, has been much enlarged upon by his religious opponents. After his body had lain nine months in the sea tower of

the castle, it was obscurely buried in the convent of the Blackfriars at St. Andrews.

[Knox's History, ed. Laing; Sir David Lyndesay's poem of The Cardinal; Keith's Catalogue of Bishops; Spottiswood's History of the Church of Scotland; Sir James Balfour's Manuscript Account of the Bishops of St. Andrews; Register of the Diocese of Glasgow, edited by Cosmo Innes; Sadler's State Papers; Chambers's Biographies of Eminent Scotchmen.] M. M'A.

BEATON or BETHUNE, JAMES (d. 1539), archbishop of Glasgow and St. Andrews, was the sixth son of James Bethune of Balfour in Fife. He was educated at St. Andrews, where he took his master's degree in 1493. His first preferment was the chantry of Caithness, to which he was presented in 1497. He rose by rapid strides to the highest honours in the church and state. He was made provost of the collegiate church of Bothwell in 1503, prior of Whithorn, and abbot of Dunfermline in 1504. He also held the two rich abbacies of Kilwinning and Arbroath. He was elected bishop of Galloway, but was translated to the archbishopric of Glasgow in 1509, and became archbishop of St. Andrews and primate in 1522. He then resigned Arbroath to his nephew David, reserving half the revenue for his own use for life. He also held the offices of lord treasurer from 1505, and chancellor from 1513; but he resigned the treasury on his advancement to the see of Glasgow, and was nominally deprived of the chancellorship in 1526, though his successor was not appointed till some years later. During the minority of James V, Beaton is one of the most prominent figures in Scottish history. Albany, the regent, withdrew to France whenever he could; and though the government was nominally in the hands of a commission of regency, the country was distracted by the feuds of the factions of the Douglases and the Hamiltons. Beaton, who was one of the regents, was more apt to stir the strife than to stay it. When appealed to by Bishop Douglas of Dunkeld to avert a fray that seemed imminent, Beaton swore on his conscience he could not help it; but as he laid his hand on his heart to give weight to his words, the ring of the coat of mail he wore beneath his vestments betrayed that he had come ready armed for the fray, and provoked the retort: Methinks, my lord, your conscience clatters.' In the tumult which followed, known as 'Clear-the-causeway,' the Douglases won the day. Beaton sought sanctuary at the altar of the church of the Greyfriars, and would have been torn from it and slain but for the timely interference of Bishop Douglas. At this period the nation