Beale, Robert

, or Belus, who was the eldest sou of Robert Beale, a descendant from the family of Beale, of Woodbridge, in Suffolk, appears to have been educated to the profession of the civil and canon law. He was an exile on account of religion, in queen Mary’s days, but some time after his return, married Editha, daughter of Henry St. Barbe, of Somersetshire, and sister to the lady of sir Francis Walsingham, under whose patronage he first appeared at court. In 1571 he was secretary to sir Francis when sent ambassador to France, and himself was sent in the same character, in 1576, to the prince of Orange. Heylin and Fuller inform us that he was a great favourer of the Puritans, and wrote in defence of their principles. About the year 1564 he wrote in defence of the validity of the marriage between the earl of Hertford and lady Catherine Grey, and against the sentence of the delegates, which sentence was also opposed by the civilians of Spire, and of Paris, whom Beale had consulted. Strype, in his life of Parker, mentions his “Discourse concerning the Parisian massacre by way of letter to the lord Burghley.” His most considerable work, however, is a collection of some of the Spanish historians, under the title “Rerum Hispanicarum Scriptores,” Francf. 1579, 2 vdls. fol. He was | by the interest of Walsingham appointed secretary for the northern parts, and a clerk of the privy council. Camden seems to think that his attachment to Puritanism made him be chosen to convey to Fotheringay the warrant for heheading Mary queen of Scots, which he read on the scaffold, and was a witness of its execution. He was also one of the commissioners at the treaty of Bologne, the year before his death, which event happened May 25, 1601, at Barnes, in Surrey. He was interred in the parish church of Allhallows, London Wall. 1

1

Tanner. Lodge’s Illustrations. Lysons’s Environs, vol. I. Antonio Bibl. Hisp.