He was born at
Broadchalke, in
Wiltshire, about 1496; his father was John Bekinsau, of
Hartley Wespell,
Hampshire. Bekinsau was educated at
Winchester School, and proceeded to
New College, Oxford; he was made Fellow of his college in 1520, and took the degree of M.A. in 1526. At Oxford he was, according to
Anthony Wood, esteemed ‘an admirable Grecian;’ and on proceeding to Paris he read the Greek lecture in the university, probably soon after 1530, the year in which
Francis I of France founded the royal professorships and revived the study of Greek at Paris. Having returned to England, Bekinsau married, and so vacated his fellowship, in 1538. He was a friend of
John Leland, who addresses a poem to a forthcoming work of Bekinsau, and refers to the learning and Parisian studies of its author.
John Bale gives a hostile account of Bekinsau, alleging that his work on the supremacy was only written for money, and adding that he returned to the Roman church in 1554, ‘like a dog to his vomit.’ In Mary's reign he was a Member of Parliament for
Downton and
Hindon. On the accession of Elizabeth, Bekinsau retired to
Sherburne, a village in Hampshire, where he died, and was buried on 20 December 1559. ==Works==