Hugh de Beauchamp

Hugh de Beauchamp (sometimes Hugh of Beauchamp; No connection has been established between Hugh and Walter de Beauchamp, founder of the Beauchamp family which later acquired the Earldom of Warwick.

Career Hugh was a tenant-in-chief with landholdings in Bedfordshire. These lands have been considered to have made him the first feudal baron of Bedford. At the time of the Domesday Book he held 43 manors in Bedfordshire and additional landholdings in Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire. The core of Hugh's lands were those held before the Conquest by Eskil of Ware and men sworn to Eskil, with additional lands coming from thegns and sokemen in the county.

Hugh witnessed a charter of King William the Conqueror, which can only be dated to sometime between 1070 and 1089, where he is named as "sheriff", but it is unclear whether he was sheriff of Buckinghamshire or of Bedfordshire. Judith A. Green argues that it is more likely that he was sheriff of Buckinghamshire. Frank Barlow also assigns that office to Hugh in the early part of the reign of King William II. Katharine Keats-Rohan, however, claims that he was sheriff of Bedfordshire.

Hugh married Matilda. She was probably the daughter and heiress of Ralf Tallebosc (or Ralph Taillebois), who was sheriff of Buckinghamshire before Hugh. Hugh probably had two sons – Simon and Robert. Simon was probably the elder son. Matilda is named as Simon's mother in a document dating to around 1124 to 1130.,