BERE, John III

Bere was probably a kinsman, perhaps even the son, of his namesake, a merchant of Berwick-upon-Tweed active in the 1420s and 1430s, for he himself is described in 1455 as, among other things, ‘late of Berwick-upon-Tweed, merchant’.3 CP40/656, rot. 387; 685, rot. 75; C67/41, m. 15. But although like the older John he had mercantile interests, he rose to prominence as a servant of the great family of Neville of Middleham. In the early 1440s he acted as attorney for Richard Neville, earl of Salisbury, in arrangements for the division of the lands of Edmund Holand, late earl of Kent, the uncle of Neville’s wife.4 CFR, xvii. 265, 271; CCR, 1441-7, pp. 100, 256, 258-9; CIPM, xxv. 65. This connexion helps to explain his sudden emergence in the records as a man of some standing, yet even so, the series of appointments that came to him between 1439 and 1443 is surprising. In November 1439 the Crown nominated him as customs collector in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in company with Roland Tempest;5 CFR, xvii. 111, 112. In Nov. 1440 and 1441 they shared two payments of 20 marks as reward for their diligent service: E403/740, m. 7; 743, m. 5. in the autumn of 1440 he was appointed to the more important offices of steward and receiver of the duchy of Lancaster lordship of Dunstanborough;6 R. Somerville, Duchy, i. 538; DL37/9/12. and on 18 Oct. 1443 he added the receivership of the nearby lordship of Bamburgh and controllership of the customs in Berwick-upon-Tweed.7 CPR, 1441-6, pp. 206, 219, 235, 266; 1446-52, p. 408; Somerville, 539. Although the Bamburgh office was quickly lost to the King’s serjeant John Fenwick in June 1444, these appointments mark him out as a man of some local importance.

Bere’s nomination in November 1445 to purvey provisions for the castle of Roxburgh was probably another facet of his service to the Nevilles, for the keeper was then the earl of Salisbury’s brother, William Neville, Lord Fauconberg.8 CPR, 1441-6, p. 390. His appointment as escheator of Northumberland a year later is probably to be seen in the same terms, although it may have been justified by his property holdings in the county. Bere’s lands are almost entirely undocumented, but he probably inherited lands from his father in Berwick-upon-Tweed. Further, in 1448 he appeared in person in the court of common pleas to sue four local men for depasturing his grass and crops at Embleton, in the shadow of Dunstanborough castle, and in 1450 he pursued similar actions with respect to Dunstanborough itself (although it may be that he held this property ex officio as steward of the castle). More important to Bere than the profits of land were those of office and trade, and he did not allow his duties as escheator to prevent him from maintaining his mercantile interests. On 23 May 1447 he was in London purchasing 26 woollen cloths from a draper for the sum of £7 8s. 9d. No doubt this deal was one of many: it is known only from the fact he was later sued for non-payment.9 CP40/749, rot. 146d; 759, rot. 97d; KB27/782, rot. 60d.

Bere was elected for Carlisle to the Parliament of November 1449 in company with a more important member of the Neville retinue, Thomas Colt*. He took advantage of his time in Westminster to secure a pardon of outlawry that he had incurred for failing to answer the King for a debt of £100, probably in connexion with his duties as customer.10 C219/15/7; CPR, 1446-52, p. 306. Later he was among the 154 attestors to the Cumberland election of 13 Mar. 1453, seemingly a contested election at which the Neville interest was victorious. He was himself again returned for Carlisle (with another Neville man, Thomas Derwent alias Derwentwater*) to the Parliament summoned in the wake of the Yorkist and Neville victory at the first battle of St. Albans, and also attested the election for the county of two more senior Neville men, Colt and Thomas de la More*, to the same assembly.11 C219/16/2, 3. As in his previous Parliament, he used his time at Westminster to forward his own affairs. On 5 Dec. 1455, during the second session, he sued out a general pardon to protect himself against harassment by the Exchequer. To this end he also sued writs of non molestetis directed to the treasurer and barons on the day of the pardon and again on 28 Apr. 1456.12 C67/41, m. 15; E159/232, brevia Mich. rot. 27d; 233, brevia Mich. rot. 24.

In that pardon Bere was described as ‘of Dunstanborough, gentleman, alias late of Berwick, merchant, alias of Carlisle, gentleman, alias esquire’. Whether the penultimate alias in his pardon shows he held property in Carlisle is an open question. If he did not, his position as an outsider may explain why he had difficulty in securing payment of his parliamentary wages from the mayor, John Blennerhasset*, whom he sued in King’s bench for the sum of £13 2s., that is, for service of 131 days in the Commons at a daily rate of 2s. The matter was still pending in Michaelmas term 1458, when the sheriff, Richard Salkeld*, was fined for his failure to return a writ of outlawry against the defendant.13 KB27/784, rot. 50d; 785, rot. 48; 790, fines rot. 1d. By that date our MP’s geographical interests had shifted once more. In the late 1450s he spent some of his time in Lincolnshire, no doubt because of the lands there that had come to the earl of Salisbury’s younger son, Sir Thomas Neville, through marriage to Maud, one of the coheiresses of Ralph, Lord Cromwell, and widow of Robert, Lord Willoughby of Eresby. In Easter term 1457 he came in person into the court of King’s bench to sue five husbandmen from the neighbourhood of Cromwell’s great castle at Tattershall, presumably acting as Sir Thomas’s agent. Early in the following year he was described as an esquire resident at the Lincolnshire port of Boston when appearing in Chancery to offer surety on pardons granted to Sir Thomas and the earl of Salisbury.14 KB27/784, rot. 50d; 785, rot. 70; C237/44/82-83.

In view of Bere’s long adherence to the Nevilles, there is good reason to suppose that he took up arms in their support when civil war broke out in 1459. He was probably in the earl’s retinue at Blore Heath and Ludford Bridge that autumn. His participation is strongly implied by the general pardon for treason he sued out on the following 29 Mar., when the Lancastrians were still in control of government. Later, on 20 Oct. 1460, when government had passed to the Yorkists, he benefited from their patronage: he was granted a pardon of as much as 130 marks in his account as receiver of Dunstanborough on the grounds that he had lost goods at sea to Breton pirates. It is likely that he then went on to die in the Yorkist cause, either at the battle of Wakefield, where the earl and Sir Thomas died, or at Towton. Such an end is consistent with a grant made to his widow, Joan, by the new King, Edward IV. On 6 Feb. 1462 she was given a life annuity of £10 assigned on the issues of the forfeited Percy township of Lesbury in Northumberland.15 CPR, 1452-61, p. 568; 1461-7, p. 115; DL37/29/4.