Richard Beauchamp 13th Earl of Warwick Framed Print

Richard Beauchamp, 13th earl of Warwick, born January 25 or 28, 1382 in Salwarpe, Worcestershire, England and died April 30, 1439, in Rouen, France. He was a soldier and diplomatist, a knightly hero who served the English kings Henry IV, Henry V, and Henry VI. Richard Beauchamp succeeded his father, Thomas II de Beauchamp, the 12th earl of Warwick, in 1401. He fought for Henry IV against Sir Henry Percy (“Hotspur”) in the Battle of Shrewsbury and he assisted in the suppression of Owain Glyn Dŵr’s rebellion in Wales. On his return from a pilgrimage to Rome and the Holy Land, Warwick was made a member of the king’s council in 1410. One of the greatest English landowners, Warwick enlarged his estates by successive marriages to two heiresses. He founded (1422–23) a chantry at Guys Cliffe, Warwickshire. A chaplain there, John Rous, in the second half of the 15th century wrote a biography of the earl, stressing his deeds of chivalry. The Beauchamp Chapel in the Church of St. Mary, Warwick, was built (1443–64) by the earl’s executors. In the chapel is the earl’s tomb (a brass recumbent effigy on a Purbeck marble tomb chest), one of the finest medieval monuments in England.