Robert Beale (diplomat)

The opinion which Beale formed he subsequently maintained in a Latin tract; a royal commission, with Archbishop Matthew Parker at its head, pronounced the marriage void at the time, but its validity was established in 1606.In April 1575 he was sent to Flushing to recover goods which the Flushingers had seized, consisting partly of merchandise and partly of property of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford; and in the following year he accompanied Admiral William Winter to the Low Countries to demand the liberation of the English merchant ships on which the Prince of Orange had laid an embargo in the Scheldt River in retaliation for acts of piracy committed by English privateers on Dutch shipping.After the Formula of Concord of 1577 had defined so-called Cryptocalvinists as heretics, Beale and Paulus Knibbius toured nine German courts for Queen Elizabeth, to intervene with Lutheran princes for religious toleration.In the autumn of 1580 he took part in the examination of Richard Stanihurst about the conveying of Gerald Fitzgerald, Lord Offaly, to Spain at the instigation of Thomas Fleming.[9] Mary wished for an "Association" between herself and her son James VI as rulers of Scotland, but Elizabeth's advisors hoped she would concede her title, having abdicated in 1567.Early in the following year, Beale carried the warrant to Fotheringay and performed the duty of reading it aloud in the hall of the castle by way of preliminary to the execution, of which he was an eye-witness, and wrote an account.He published a work impugning the right of the crown to fine or imprison for ecclesiastical offences, and condemning the use of torture to induce confession, and followed it up at a later date with a second treatise (by 1584) on the same subject.In 1589 he was employed in negotiation with the Dutch States, and next year with Burghley and Buckhurst adjusted the accounts of Peregrine Bertie, Lord Willoughby, commander in the Netherlands.In 1592 the attitude which Beale assumed in a debate on supply with another speech against the inquisitorial practices of the bishops, gave so much offence to the queen that he was commanded to absent himself both from court and from Parliament.
This sketch of the execution of Mary Queen of Scots was drawn to accompany Robert Beale's official record of the proceedings.
Mary Queen of ScotsantiquaryElizabeth IClerk of the Privy Councilexecution of Mary, Queen of ScotsmercerSir Richard MorisonCoventryJohn HalesCambridgeMarian exileStrasbourgJohn AylmerZurichLord John Grey of PyrgoLady Catherine GreyEdward Seymour, 1st Earl of HertfordOldendorpiusMatthew ParkerLord Burghleymassacre of St. BartholomewRobert MonsonTotnesFlushingEdward de Vere, 17th Earl of OxfordWilliam WinterLow CountriesPrince of OrangeScheldt RiverFormula of ConcordPaulus Knibbiusreligious tolerationHubert LanguetSir Philip SidneyRichard StanihurstEdmund CampiontortureMary, Queen of ScotsSheffieldAssociationJames VIabdicated in 1567Captain ErringtonDorchesterLord BuckhurstFotheringayPuritanJohn WhitgiftRobert Dudley, 1st Earl of LeicesterPeregrine Bertie, Lord WilloughbyLostwithielRobert Devereux, 2nd Earl of EssexCouncil of the NorthSir Julius CaesarGuernseySir Thomas LeightonBoulogneBarnesAllhallows Church, London WallSir Henry YelvertonEaston-MauditBritish MuseumEasington, GloucestershireElizabethan Society of AntiquariesThomas MillesNorth-west PassageJohn DeeJohn DavisPriors MarstonWarwickshireSomersetSir Francis WalsinghamCambridge University LibraryMS. Cott. GalbaBartholomew ClerkeCott. GalbaJohann OldendorpJohn Hosackpublic domainDictionary of National Biography