Beaumont, Agnes (1652-1720)

English religious autobiographer. She became a friend of the writer John Bunyan after joining his congregation at Gamlingay in 1672. Forbidden by her father to attend a meeting in 1674, she defied him and was locked out of the house for two days. Although reconciled, he died soon after, and she and Bunyan were accused of conspiring to poison him until cleared by a coroner's jury.

The story is related in her autobiography, the ‘Narrative of the Persecution of Agnes Beaumont’, which still survives in manuscript form and was published in a collection called An Abstract of the Gracious Dealings of God with Several Eminent Christians (1760). Her birthplace was Edworth, Bedfordshire.