BERDE, Robert

This MP was a namesake of the Southampton shipwright who was directly in charge of the building of Henry V’s great ship the Gracedieu under the general supervision of William Soper*, and took responsibility for her two balingers, the Valentine and the Falcon. The importance of his work can be gauged by the wages he received, for these amounted to £73 at the rate of 1s. a day, and he continued in the Crown’s service as a clerk of the works from 1421.3 CPR, 1416-22, pp. 84, 317, 421; CAD, iii. C3128; E159/199, brevia Trin. rot. 14; Navy of the Lancastrian Kings (Navy Recs. Soc. cxxiii), 230, 247, 250, 252. Yet the absence of references to a Robert Berde between 1423 and the 1440s suggests that the MP was a different man.

Although his origins are obscure, most of the records of Berde’s brief career place him in Kent. He was a friend and executor of William Burys* (d.1444) of Halstead, a prominent servant of Archbishop Chichele, and later assisted one of Burys’s sons to file a petition in Chancery.4 Lambeth Palace Lib., Reg. Stafford, ff. 124-5; C1/13/167-71, 15/91. At an unknown date before 1443 he attempted unsuccessfully to purchase some land in Eltham from the executors of William Gosse,5 C1/40/124. and it may be the case that he first entered royal service at the King’s manor there. Perhaps he had done so by 1 July 1445 and is to be identified with the Robert Barde who then obtained letters patent of exemption for life from serving on royal commissions or in any other office against his will.6 CPR, 1441-6, p. 350. By that date he had taken up office as one of the coroners of Kent, and was becoming well known to other members of the gentry of the south-east. In the following February he was associated with the Kentish esquire William Isle* in the acquisition of rents from property in the parish of St. Nicholas Cole Abbey, London,7 Corp. London RO, hr 174/25. and in March 1446 he witnessed a deed for Margaret, widow of Reynold Curteys and daughter of Sir Reynold Cobham of Sterborough, relating to the Cobham family estates. He was also establishing himself as a landowner, and it was as ‘of Sevenoaks’ that in March 1448 he entered recognizances to the King in £100, guaranteeing that Thomas Pende come to the Chancery to answer charges laid against him.8 CCR, 1441-7, p. 381; 1447-54, p. 58.

Yet the key to Berde’s rise was the patronage of the royal favourite (Sir) James Fiennes*, newly-created Lord Saye and Sele, and it had been no doubt due to Fiennes that a few months earlier he had been granted for life the office of steward of Eltham, with a fee of £2 p.a.9 CPR, 1446-52, p. 77; CCR, 1447-54, p. 81. The two men were associated in the spring of 1449 as joint holders of a messuage in Tunbridge,10 CAD, vi. C4579. and it seems likely that by then Berde was already acting as clerk of Dover castle (that is, receiver of the revenues from the Cinque Ports), where Lord Saye was his superior (as warden of the Ports and constable of Dover castle). In the autumn the men of Rye paid him 6s. 8d. as part payment of 40s. due for unspecified services as clerk, and he was also associated at that time with the steward of Dover, John Greenford*.11 Rye mss, 60/2, ff. 11v, 12.

It was apparently Saye who arranged for Berde to have a seat in the Parliament summoned to meet on 6 Nov. that year, although not without encountering opposition. Initially, Saye and his lieutenant warden, Gervase Clifton*, requested that Berde be elected for Hythe, but Hythe seems always to have elected resident barons, so although the townsmen dutifully elected Berde on 28 Oct. they stipulated that this should not be a precedent and that he must come to Hythe and pay for his admission to the freedom before he went to Westminster. The price of their compliance was that his parliamentary wage would be limited to 1s. a day. However, Berde withdrew his candidacy, after securing instead his return for Rye, whose jurats were probably prepared to elect him without conditions. Richard Rykedon* of Hythe took the Hythe seat, for a payment of 1s. 6d. per day.12 The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 267; E. Kent Archs., Hythe jurats’ acct. bk. 1441-56, H 1055, f. 28v.

It is not hard to guess why Lord Saye wished to have his henchmen in the Commons in this Parliament. The government was facing severe criticism as English rule in Normandy came to a disastrous end, and the King’s ministers, notably the duke of Suffolk and Saye himself, as treasurer, were under attack. It may have been during the first session that the men of Rye sent Berde a letter regarding the franchises of Tenterden, perhaps requiring him to do some business for them at Westminster,13 Rye mss, 60/2, f. 12. but he was also required to do the bidding of the treasurer: before the end of the session Saye sent him on an assignment to Dover and Sandwich ‘with certain matters committed to him expedient for the King’.14 E403/777, m. 6. This was on 11 Dec., the same day that Berde was appointed escheator in Kent and Middlesex, a position which would further enable Saye to exert control over the administration of the region.

He was not to hold the post for long. He died before 20 Jan. 1450, when the sheriff of Kent was ordered to find a replacement coroner, and three days later a new escheator was appointed and Berde’s executors were ordered to deliver up to the Exchequer the rolls, writs and memoranda which had been in his possession.15 C242/11/12; CFR, x. 146; CCR, 1447-54, p. 146. It would seem that his seat in the Commons remained empty during the parliamentary sessions in London and Leicester, for no one was paid by Rye to take his place. Berde left a daughter, Isabel, wife of Peter Westbroke, who petitioned the chancellor for redress when the surviving feoffee of a messuage and 100 acres of land in Sevenoaks which her father had purchased from a London fletcher refused to hand the property over to her.16 C1/27/57. Alice Berde of Gravesend, who died before 5 Oct. 1476, may have been the MP’s widow.17 CFR, xxi. no. 330. No inq. post mortem survives.