Benedictine abbot, took the Oath of Supremacy. But his reverence for John Fisher and Thomas More and for the three martyred Carthusian priors of 1535 gained the resentment of Henry VIII's spies. When Beche refused to grant that the king had any authority to confiscate St. John's Abbey, Colchester, he was thrown in the Tower on charges of treason. Though weak, he gained the crown of martyrdom in 1539.