John Beauchamp, 1st Baron Beauchamp

Who was John Beauchamp, 1st Baron Beauchamp?

John Beauchamp, 1st Baron Beauchamp of Powick, KG, was a nobleman and administrator. He was the son and eventual heir of Sir William Beauchamp of Powick in Worcestershire, Constable of Gloucester, and his wife, Katherine Usflete.

Beauchamp's father, a near kinsman of the Earls of Warwick, had been a royal retainer under Richard II, Henry IV, and Henry V. On his father's death he also entered the king's service in the Hundred Years' War. During the 1420s Beauchamp served under the Duke of Bedford in medieval France : he was captain of Pont-de-l'Arche in 1422–1429, lieutenant of Rouen Castle in 1429, a participant in the Maine–Anjou campaigns, and a counsellor to the duke and member of his household. About the time of Henry VI's visit to France for his coronation, in 1430–1432, however, he seems to have taken up a permanent post within the king's domestic establishment. Some time before 1434 he married Margaret de Ferrers, possibly daughter of Edmund de Ferrers, 5th Baron Ferrers of Chartley.