Life
fl. 1590; b. Suffolk, ed. St. John’s College, Cambridge, matric.
1567; incorp. Oxford, 1594; MA 1575, Gray’s Inns 1577, bar, 1585;
attorney on Munster provincial council, 1586-91, defended plantation allocations
on successive commissions to 1592; acquired Desmond lands in Bantry and
met legal opposition from Nicholas Walshe; likewise in Waterford, where
the MacCarthys resisted physically sold up and quit Ireland; issued Solon
His Follie; or, Political Discourse Touching the Reformation of
Commonwealth Conquered, Declined, or Corrupted (1594) in which he
complains about the degeneration of the Old English; Solon, in his title,
represents Sir William Russell whose actions are thus [compared with]
the pretended madness of Plutarch’s character. FDA
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Works
‘Solon His Follie’, or a Politique Discourse, touching the
Reformation of common-weales conquered, declined or corrupted (Oxford
1594), and Do., rep.as Clare Carroll and Vincent Carey, ed., An
Annotated Edition of Richard Beacon’s ‘Solon His Follie’
[... &c] [Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies] (Binghamton,
NY: Renaissance English Texts Society 1996), 166pp.
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Criticism
Sidney Ang[e]lo, ‘A Machiavellian Solution to the Irish Problem,
Richard Beacon’s Solon His Follie (1594)’, in Edward
Cheney & Peter Mack, eds., England and the Continental Renaissance:
Essays in Honour of J. B. Trapp (Woodbridge: Boydell 1990), pp.153-64;
Michael McCarthy-Murrogh, The Munster Plantation, English Migration
to Southern Ireland 1583-91 (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1986). See also
John Venn and J. A. Venn, eds, Alumniae Cantabriensis (Cambridge
UP 1922); Andrew Hadfield, review of Solon his Follie
(1990; rep. edn., in Times Literary Supplement (13 June, 1997)
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Notes
Seamus Deane, gen. ed., Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing
(Derry: Field Day 1991), Vol. 1, selects passages from Solon
His Follie (1594) [203-10]; BIOG [233-34], notes that Beacon was attorney
on provincial council, Munster, 1586-91, involved in defending allocation
of plantation lands in successive commissions up to 1592; acquired Desmond
lands in Bantry, and Waterford, the former impeded by suit of Old English
lawyer Nicholas Walshe, the latter by the attacks of the Clancar[?ty]
and other members of the MacCarthy sept; sold out to Henry Goldfinch of
London; after leaving Ireland he wrote Solon His Follie; or,
Political Discourse Touching the Reformation of Commonwealth Conquered,
Declined, or Corrupted (Oxford 1594), showing bitterness towards all
elements the Irish population, speaking of the ‘declination’
of the Old English; his title makes no allusion to Ireland, being based
on Plutarch’s tale of Solon’s pretended madness as a means of
circumventing the current embargo on discussions of Irish colonial projects.
[Beacon is not listed in the Dictionary of National Biography.]
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)