Robert Beaumont

Robert Beaumont ( – 1567) was an English cleric and academic, Master of Trinity College, Cambridge from 1561 to 1567 and twice Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge (1564, 1566). During this time, he commissioned Hans Eworth to copy the 1537 Hans Holbein portrait of King Henry VIII. This copy was bequeathed to Trinity College where it hangs to this day.

He was known to be a reformer, and in February 1565 wrote to the then Archbishop of Canterbury complaining of "profane comedies or tragedies". He also bequeathed to the College nine works by John Calvin, which were either refused by his successor or lost before 1600.

Life Beaumont was educated at Westminster School and Peterhouse, Cambridge. He graduated B.A. in 1544, and became Fellow of his college; in 1550 he took the degree of M.A.

Beaumont was a Marian exile, in Zurich. In 1556 he joined the English congregation of Geneva. Returning to England after the death of Queen Mary, he was admitted Margaret professor of divinity (1559). He proceeded B.D. in 1560, and on 28 September of that year was presented by the Earl of Rutland to the archdeaconry of Huntingdon. In 1561 he became master of Trinity College, and vacated his professorship. He commenced D.D. in 1564, and in that year disputed a thesis in divinity before Queen Elizabeth on her visit to Cambridge. and prevented Walter Travers from gaining a fellowship also for problems of attitude, though Travers survived at Trinity, to be expelled by John Whitgift, the next Master.

On 26 November 1565 Beaumont with Roger Kelke, master of Magdalene, Matthew Hutton, master of Pembroke, Richard Longworth, master of St John's, and John Whitgift, then Margaret professor, wrote to William Cecil as chancellor of the university for a remission in the orders just issued by the queen through Parker for enforcing the use of the surplice at Cambridge. The letter angered Cecil, and Parker was contemptuous. Beaumont then wrote in his own name a submissive letter to Cecil.