Jean Belmain

Who is Jean Belmain?

Jean Belmain, also John Belmain was a French Huguenot scholar who served as a French-language teacher to future English monarchs King Edward VI and Queen Elizabeth I at the court of their father, Henry VIII.

A zealous Calvinist, Jean Belmain was a refugee from the persecution of Protestants in France. Large and austere, he was well rewarded for his services, and may well have had a major role in forming Edward's Protestant views.

Belmain began his teaching duties in 1546 and also completed a French-language translation of the prose devotion Lamentacions of a Sinner written by Henry's last queen Catherine Parr, in which his most noticeable adaptation was to add exclamations.