Beaulieu, Hampshire, England

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In 1205 King John founded Beaulieu Abbey, endowing it with lands in the New Forest, which remained to it until the Dissolution. In 1220 the abbot and monks obtained permission to mark off their land from the forest with a dyke, and in 1235 the forest officers were instructed to assign them a carucate of heath in the bailiwick of Richard Foillet, containing 100 acres by the king's perch, to make up 5 carucates, four of which had been assigned to them in another part of the forest. Such close proximity to the forest must have been a sore temptation to abbots of sporting proclivities, and in 1278 Abbot Dennis obtained pardon—on payment of 40 marks—for making three breaches in Beaulieu Close and placing there stakes and engines for taking deer, as well as for hunting a stag and taking a buck in the forest. In 1300 the monks had licence to inclose 8 acres of waste of their own soil at Black Down, near Holbury, and in February 1324 they had a grant to hold 223½ acres of waste land in the south bailiwick of the forest, for which they had received no charter. These comprised 80½ acres in ' Node,' 22 in 'Codelesdon,' 38 in Otterwood, 25 at 'la Gunildcrofte,' on both sides of the water, 50 at Culverley, and 8 at 'la Fermcroft.' A rent of 4d. an acre was charged, and the abbot and convent were to inclose the land with a small dyke and a low hedge, leaving free ingress and egress from the nearest highway. They were further to claim no common outside this area. These inclosures were not, however, permitted to be made without protest. The abbot's dykes were filled up, and his hedges and stakes uprooted and burnt. His men went in fear of their lives, and at 'Notle' were so badly beaten that he lost their service for a long time. The matter had not been settled completely two years later, in June 1326, when those who had not appeared to answer these charges were pardoned of outlawry on condition that they surrendered themselves to prison and stood their trial if the abbot should proceed against them.

The abbey lands were held in free alms, and on this ground the abbot in 1341 obtained for himself and his successors freedom from attending Parliament. In 1405, and again in 1438, the Beaulieu manors, because of waste and impoverishment caused by misrule, were put in the hands of trustees.

In April 1538 the abbey and all its possessions were surrendered to the Crown, and, notwithstanding the desires of Arthur Plantagenet Viscount Lisle, they were at once granted to Thomas Wriothesley, afterwards Earl of Southampton. This grant comprised the house and site of the monastery, the church, steeple and churchyard, the manor and the great close of Beaulieu, with another close lying near by, and the three chapels of Boverey, Througham and St. Leonards within the limits of the great close, tithes in the grange and farm called Leonards.

In 1544 Wriothesley gave an annuity of £60 from the manor to Richard Cox, clerk, and in the following year one of £100 to Robert Peterson, clerk. He was created Earl of Southampton in 1547 and died in 1550, being succeeded by his only son Henry, who died seised of Beaulieu in 1581. His son Henry, third Earl of Southampton, forfeited all his honours in 1601 for his part in the rebellion of the Earl of Essex. He was restored, however, on the accession of James I, who regranted him the Beaulieu estate, of which he died seised in 1624. His son Thomas, the fourth earl, was a faithful servant of the Stuart cause, and Charles I was often at Beaulieu in the early days of his reign. In August 1635, however, the king laid claim to Beaulieu as Crown property, and in October the earl was deprived by a forest court of land worth £2,000 a year. The following year Charles consented to nullify this unjust decree, granting the earl absolute freedom from the forest laws over the site of the abbey and certain other lands in the manor.

On the earl's death without surviving male issue in 1667 his honours became extinct and Beaulieu passed to his youngest daughter and co-heir Elizabeth, wife firstly of Jocelyn (Percy) eleventh Earl of Northumberland and secondly of Ralph (Montagu) first Duke of Montagu. Thence it passed to the son of the second marriage, John second Duke of Montagu, whose honours became extinct on his death in 1749. Beaulieu was then equally divided between his two daughters and co-heirs, Isabel wife of Sir Edward Hussey (afterwards HusseyMontagu), created Lord Beaulieu of Beaulieu in 1762 and Earl of Beaulieu in I784, and Mary wife of George Brudenell, afterwards Montagu, fourth Earl of Cardigan and first Duke of Montagu of a new creation. The entire property was, however, subsequently vested in Lord Beaulieu, but on his death without issue in 1802 it passed to Elizabeth, only daughter and heir of Lord Montagu (ob. 1790) and wife of Henry (Scott) third Duke of Buccleuch. The estate continued to be held by the Dukes of Buccleuch and Queensberry until 1884, when Walter Francis (Montagu-Douglas-Scott), the fifth duke, left it to his second son Henry John, who was in the following year created Lord Montagu of Beaulieu. His son John Walter Edward (Douglas-Scott-Montagu) second Lord Montagu of Beaulieu is now lord of the manor.

Fairs for horses and cattle are held at Beaulieu on 15 April and 4 September.

A mill is mentioned in 18th-century conveyances of the manor. To-day there is the site of a mill close to Palace House and a corn-mill at the north end of the village.