Family and Education

b. by 1522, s. of Thomas Beverley of Selby, Yorks. by Alice, da. and coh. of John Stocke.1

Offices Held

Chief clerk of the kitchen, household of Prince Edward by 1543-7; second clerk of the kitchen by Feb. 1547-53 or later; chief clerk of the spicery by 1558.2

Biography

Robert Beverley claimed gentle birth. He was a minor Household officer whose advancement after a spell in Prince Edward’s household followed the usual progression from the kitchen to the spicery. His failure to transfer from the spicery to the green-cloth suggests not inefficiency, which would have been ground for dismissal under Mary, but no opening there before his death. During 1547 he received warrants for money amounting to 1500 for the use of Princess Elizabeth. In 1548 he obtained from the crown the reversion of the lease of the manor of Cainhoe in the parish of Clophill, Bedfordshire, and five years later that of the manor of Birdsall in Yorkshire which within 18 months he had surrendered for reasons unknown. With Randolph Burgh of Huntingdonshire he bought for £1,040 in 1548 various properties in Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire, keeping some for his own use but disposing of the rest. He had no personal ties with Cornwall and his return for boroughs there twice in 1553 was probably sponsored by the 1st Earl of Bedford as steward of the duchy, with Reginald Mohun, an esquire of the privy chamber, as the sheriff acting as intermediary. The Journal does not mention Beverley but on the list of Members for October 1553 he is noted as an opponent of the initial measures to restore Catholicism.3

Early in 1557 Beverley and his brother Thomas entered into a recognizance to guarantee Thomas’s appearance before the Council. As clerk of the spicery he attended Mary’s funeral in December 1558, he himself perhaps dying of the current epidemic not long after. In August 1563 his brother obtained a renewal of his lease of the manor and capital messuage of Eaton Socon where Beverley had lived until his death. If he made a will it has not been found.4

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: J. J. Goring

Notes

• 1. Date of birth estimated from first reference. Vis. Beds. (Harl. Soc. xix), 82.
• 2. E179/69/31a, 48; information from J. Murphy; Stowe 571, f. 31v; LC2/4/2.
• 3. APC, ii. 92, 122, 143; information from J. Murphy; CPR, 1547-8, p. 387; 1554-5, p. 133; 1558-60, pp. 114-15; VCH Beds. ii. 322; Bodl. e Museo 17.
• 4. APC, vi. 387; CPR, 1560-3, p. 482.