Background
He was born at Grace Dieu, near Thringstone in Leicestershire, the second son of the judge Sir Francis Beaumont by his wife Anne Pierrepont. His younger brother was the dramatist Francis Beaumont.
He was born at Grace Dieu, near Thringstone in Leicestershire, the second son of the judge Sir Francis Beaumont by his wife Anne Pierrepont. His younger brother was the dramatist Francis Beaumont.
John matriculated at Broadgates Hall (later Pembroke College) in the University of Oxford on 4 February 1596/1597, entered as a gentleman commoner. He was admitted to the Inner Temple in 1598 or 1600.
He believed that poets should express thought in clear and natural language. A classicist in literary style, he spoke for order and precision:Pure phrase, fit Epithets, a sober
Metaphors, descriptions cleare, yet rare. In his later years, Beaumont became friends with James I, for whom he wrote a dramatic entertainment, The Theater of Apollo. He was made a baronet by Charles I in January 1627. Beaumont died in April of that year and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His earliest work was probably The Metamorphosis of Tabacco (1602), a poem in the manner of Ovid. He wrote a religious poem in 12 books, The Crowne of Thornes, which he intended to present to the earl of Southampton, who had been Shakespeare's patron. This poem was long believed to have been lost, but it survives in British Museum. In 1629 Beaumont's son, Sir John the younger, published Bosworth-field: with a Taste of the Variety of Other Poems, Left by Sir John Beaumont. "This book, " Ben Jonson wrote, "will live; it hath a genius. " Wordsworth praised Bosworth-field for the "spirit, elegance, and harmony" of the verse.
Beaumont lived in Leicestershire for many years as a bachelor, before eventually marrying Elizabeth Fortescue, daughter of John Fortescue and paternal granddaughter of one of the only two married daughters of Sir Geoffrey Pole and Constance Pakenham. By his wife he had four sons.