BERNE, Walter atte II, of Portsmouth, Hants.

It would appear that Walter atte Berne was also known as Walter Baker, for accounts of the events at Portsmouth in February and early March 1435 (when the commissaries of the admiral, John, duke of Bedford, were allegedly assaulted while attempting to carry out their duties), refer to the town’s bailiff by that name. The bailiff was among those who were to be arrested by order of 4 Mar., although later that month the j.p.s of Hampshire heard indictments against the commissaries themselves for an armed assault on him and his fellow officials. The local people strongly maintained that Bedford’s men had been acting in contravention of Portsmouth’s liberties. Atte Berne’s election to the Parliament summoned for 10 Oct. following coincided with the further pursuit of the matter in the law courts; in particular, he and the rest had to defend themselves against accusations made in Chancery. C244/12/24; CPR, 1429-36, p. 471; C1/45/53. At the Portsmouth elections held in December 1436, the next following his own Parliament, atte Berne stood surety for the attendance in the Commons of Richard Abraham*. C219/15/1. He was among the leading men of the town assigned in April 1437 to appraise for the Crown a shipment of smuggled wool and hides discovered in the harbour. E159/213, recorda Hil. rot. 7d.

Walter was probably related to John atte Berne, the merchant or butcher who as bailiff of Portsmouth was responsible for making the return of the Members for the Parliament of February 1449, C67/40, m. 12; C219/15/6; Portsmouth Recs. ed. East, 680; E368/221, rots. 4, 9. but nothing further is recorded about him, save that a plot of land once in his possession was lying untenanted in 1469. Portsmouth Recs. 502.