[82]Carta Fundationis per Regem Johannem, given in Dugdale (Ed. 1825, vol. v. p. 683); and Confirmacio Regis Edwardi tertii super cartas Regis Johannis, Brit. Mus., Bib. Cott. Nero, A. xii., No. v., ff. 8-15, quoted in Warner (South-West Parts of Hampshire, vol. ii., Appendix, pp. 7-14). There are, however, no less than three dates given for its foundation. The Annals of Parcolude, according to Tanner (Notitia Monastica, Ed. Nasmyth, Hampshire, No. vi. foot-note h), say 1201, which is manifestly wrong; whilst John of Oxnede, better known as the chronicler of St. Benet’s Abbey at Hulme (Chronica. Ed. Ellis, p. 107), with the Chronicon de Hayles et Aberconwey (Brit. Mus., Harl. MS., No. 3725, f. 10), and Matthew Paris, according to Dugdale, say respectively 1204 and 1205, though I have not been able to verify the last reference.
[83]Roger of Wendover. English Historical Society. Ed. Coxe, vol. iii. p. 344.
[84]See the previous chapter, pp. [57], [58], foot-note.
[85]Curiously enough, as Warner remarks (vol. i. 267), Matthew Paris gives two dates for the dedication, the first 1246 (Hist. Angl., tom. i. p. 710, Ed. Wats., London, 1640); and the second (p. 770) 1249; not, however, 1250, as Warner says, and who, followed by all later writers, totally misunderstands the passage, which means that, although the abbot spent so large a sum, yet the King would not remit him the fine he had incurred by trespass in the Forest,—“Nec tamen idcirco aliquatenus pepercit rex, quin maximum censum solveret illi pro transgressione quam dicebatur regi fecisse in occupatione Forestæ.”
[86]See Matthew Paris, in praise of the Cistercian Order. Same edition as before, tom. i. p. 916.
[87]Not Margaret of Anjou, as the common accounts say, who, landing at Weymouth, took refuge at Cerne Abbey. See Historie of the Arrival of Edward IV. in England, pp. 22, 23, printed for the Camden Society, 1838; and Hollinshed’s Chronicles, vol. iii. p. 685; and Speed, B. ix. p. 866. Hall, however (The Union of the Families of Lancaster and York, p. 219), with Grafton, in his prose continuation of Hardyng (Ed. Ellis, 1812, p. 457), says it was to Beaulieu that Margaret fled. But they are evidently mistaken, as Speed and Hollinshed, and the explicit and circumstantial narrative of the author of the Historie, show.
[88]The following list of books at Beaulieu, taken by Leland (Collect. de Rebus Brit., vol. iv. p. 149), just before the dissolution, will show what was in those days an average ecclesiastical library:—“Eadmerus de Vitâ Anselmi, et Vitâ Wilfridi Episcopi. Stephanus super Ecclesiasticum, Libros Regum, et Parabolas Salomonis. Joannes Abbas de Fordâ super Cantica Canticorum. Damascenus de Gestis Barlaam eremitæ, et Josaphat regis Indiæ. Libellus Candidi Ariani” (most probably the De Generatione Divinâ). “Libellus Victorini, rhetoris, contra Candidum” (the Confutatorium Candidi Ariani, written against the preceding work). “Tres libri Claudiani de Statu Animæ ad Sidonium Apollinarem. Gislebertus super Epistolas Pauli. Prosper de Vitâ contemplativâ et activâ.”
[89]Ellis’s Letters, second series, vol. ii. p. 87. For Henry VIII.’s enforcement of Wolsey’s levies on Beaulieu, see State Papers, vol. i., part ii., p. 383.
[90]Accounts of this palace—probably, as Mr. Walcott says, the King’s hunting lodge—may be found in the Proceedings of the Archæological Institute, 1846, p. 32, and the Rev. Makenzie Walcott’s Church and Conventual Arrangement, p. 115.
[91]Her remains were lately discovered near the high altar, with part of the inscription on her gravestone. (See the Rev. F. W. Baker’s account in the Gentleman’s Magazine, vol. ccxiv. p. 63.) A carved head with a crown in the refectory preserves the memory of her husband, crowned at Aix-la-Chapelle King of the Romans, and whose heart was buried, in a marble vase, beside his wife. (Leland, as before, iv. 149.) Tradition says that Eleanor of Acquitaine was also buried here, but she lies with her husband at Fontevraud.