John Beauchamp, 1st Baron Beauchamp (fifth creation)

At about the same time he seems to have inherited his father's estates, with their centres at Powick and at Alcester in Warwickshire, and became the major power in the west midlands.

While the powerful interests clustered around the duke's female heirs ensured his failure, Beauchamp was able to exact a handsome price for his acquiescence.

Amid a series of grants made in 1446–7, including his father's old office of Constable of Gloucester and the post of Justice of South Wales, he was on 2 May 1447 elevated to the peerage as Lord Beauchamp of Powick.

Beauchamp maintained a low profile during the crisis of 1453–1454: he stayed at Henry VI's side during the latter's madness, and was allotted a place as one of two 'barons' of the household in the Yorkist ordinances of November 1454.

A poem of 1458 identified him as a member of the royalist party, but this is almost certainly to be explained by his long-standing place at court, where he became Steward of the Household in the second half of 1457.

In February 1462 Beauchamp received a pardon, and in October of that year an exemption from the obligations of office, on the grounds of his great age.