BERNE, Walter atte I

To add to the earlier biography,1 The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 205. it should be noted that in August 1422 atte Berne served as a juror at Bletchingley at the inquisition post mortem on Hugh Stafford, Lord Bourgchier, whose heir was his nephew Humphrey, earl of Stafford, the lord of Bletchingley.2 CIPM, xxii. 99. Shortly before his death, in Easter term 1425, Walter and three of his kinsmen were accused in the court of common pleas of forcible entry into the closes of John Woodcock at Walkingstead (which pertained to the earl’s manor of Bletchingley), and theft of goods worth £40. Since the status of all four members of the atte Berne family was given as ‘parker’ it may well be that they had acted in an official capacity as the earl’s servants.3 CP40/657, rot. 198.