Beaumont, Francis c.1584-1616
English Elizabethan dramatist

Born in Gracedieu, Leicestershire, the brother of Sir John Beaumont, he was educated at Broadgates Hall (now Pembroke College), Oxford, and entered the Inner Temple in 1600. He soon became a friend of Ben Jonson and John Fletcher. With the latter, Beaumont was to be associated closely until he married Ursula Isley (1613) and retired from the theatre. He and Fletcher are said to have shared everything: work, lodgings, and even clothes. Their dramatic works, compiled in 1647, contained 35 pieces, and another folio, published in 1679, 52 works. Modern research finds Beaumont's hand in only about 10 plays, which include, however, the masterpieces. The Woman Hater (1607) is attributed solely to Beaumont, and he had the major share in The Knight of the Burning Pestle (1609), a burlesque of knight errantry and a parody of John Heywood's Four Prentices of London. Philaster (1610), The Maid's Tragedy (1611) and A King and No King (1611) established their joint popularity. Other works include The Masque of the Inner Temple, written by Beaumont in honour of the marriage of the Elector Palatinate Frederick V and the princess Elizabeth (1613).

Bibliography: W W Appleton, Beaumont and Fletcher: a critical study (1956)