BEREWE, John

The Berewes had held the manor of Stapely since the early fourteenth century,1 The shire knight was called ‘of Stapely’ on the return (C219/14/4), and is, accordingly, not to be confused with John atte Bergh (1375-1456) of North Charford, Hants, who, the s. and h. of another John atte Bergh by Christine (d.1396), da. of Nicholas Bonham† of Bonham, Som., possessed substantial landed holdings in Wilts. and Hants. These were valued annually at £67 13s. 4d. in 1412, £50 in 1436, but only £30 in 1450 : CIPM, xvii. 759-61; xviii. 311; C139/161/8; Feudal Aids, vi. 456, 532; Wilts. Feet of Fines (Wilts. Rec. Soc. xli), 620; E179/173/92, 196/118. originally by the serjeanty of serving for 40 days in the King’s army, although by the time of the death of John’s grandfather on 5 Jan. 1419 this had been commuted to an annual payment of 13s. 4d. and suit of court at Odiham castle. Although John was then still a minor, Henry V took his fealty, presumably in France, and the escheator of Hampshire was ordered on 19 Feb. to give him seisin of his inheritance, which included land near Odiham at Winchfield, Crookham, Elvetham and Crondall.2 VCH Hants, iv. 92; C138/35/51; CFR, xiv. 268-9. Berewe was listed in January 1420 among the men of the county able to do military service in defence of the realm, and he spent the early part of his career in Normandy after joining the army of the duke of Bedford which was mustered at Southampton the following June.3 E28/97/27B; E101/49/36. By May 1427, however, he had not only returned home, but had also come to the attention of the royal council, which granted him custody of Kerrybullock park and certain warrens all pertaining to duchy of Cornwall manors.4 CPR, 1422-9, pp. 399, 419. Berewe’s service on ad hoc royal commissions began the following year, but even so his experience of local administration was still somewhat limited when he was elected to Parliament for Hampshire for the only time in the summer of 1433. His appointments as searcher and tronager in Southampton and as escheator in Hampshire and Wiltshire were all made during the second session, which began on 13 Oct., and perhaps indicate that he had already become a member of the King’s household. When Henry VI came of age he awarded Berewe his duchy posts for life, and John then took up a permanent place in the Chamber, where he remained at least until 1453, swiftly rising from his initial rank of yeoman to that of esquire.5 CPR, 1436-41, p. 98; E101/409/6, 12; 410/1, 3, 6, 9. In May 1444 he received on behalf of the grooms and pages of the Chamber a reward for their good service: E403/753, m. 1.

That Berewe’s life centred on the royal court is evident not only from his appearance at the Exchequer as a mainpernor for fellow members of the Household, but also from the steady flow of patronage which came his way. In October 1439 he was pardoned any trespasses committed and debts incurred while searcher of Southampton, an office which he relinquished shortly afterwards, and in the course of the next few years he was granted on the King’s instructions three corrodies to hold for life: one at St. Swithun’s priory, Winchester, another at St. Denys priory, near Southampton, and the third at Wilton abbey. In November 1443, in lieu of a royal grant of The Dukys Inne in Calais, he and Peter Preston were given an annual rent of 19 marks from the lordship of Edwinstowe, Nottinghamshire, until they should be recompensed with offices to the value of £20 p.a. This rent they subsequently demised to John Stanhope*, who was obliged to enter recognizances in 100 marks to keep agreements made between them.6 CFR, xviii. 81; CPR, 1436-41, p. 341; 1441-6, p. 220; CCR, 1435-41, p. 391; 1441-7, pp. 49, 446. In June 1444 Berewe was committed the farm for seven years of property in Bedfordshire formerly belonging to the spigurnel of Chancery, and a year later he was given the farm of the pannage and agistment of swine within the forest of Woolmer and Alice Holt, near his home in Hampshire, for 12 years. Then, in July 1446, for ‘good and gratuitous service’ he was granted the lease of a water-mill on the river at Colchester, at the end of its current term (in 1452), for him and his heirs to hold for 60 years, paying an annual rent of just one mark. Berewe arranged in the following year to hold the mill jointly with Agnes, widow of Philip Fishwick, whom he was possibly intending to marry. Although he resigned from his duchy of Cornwall office in 1448, this was evidently not because he had fallen out of royal favour. Earlier that year he had received a reward of £10 for his expenses guarding a certain appellant, and there followed yet more leases at the Exchequer, notably of property in the capital, all of them contracted, as before, on favourable terms. In May 1450 he shared with John Blakeney*, an usher of the Chamber, keeping of a brewery called Le Lambe in Distaff Lane, for ten years; in July 1451 he joined with John Gourney esquire in leasing five messuages in Old Jewry for seven years; and a few months later he acquired the farm of property in Houndsditch for 20 years.7 CFR, xvii. 292, 319-20; xviii. 29, 156-7, 221-2, 246; CCR, 1441-7, pp. 478-9; E404/64/141; CPR, 1446-52, p. 267. When Berewe was made joint keeper of the temporalities of the see of Coventry and Lichfield in November 1452 two of the most prominent figures at Court, John, Lord Dudley, and (Sir) Thomas Stanley II*, stood surety on his behalf. He and Blakeney had been caused ‘manyfolde trouble and daily vexacion’ by the processes of the Exchequer as Le Lambe had failed to produce less than a fifth of the estimated profits. Nevertheless, they were able to obtain a royal pardon of all sums due on their account in the following April. Two months later, Berewe took out letters of exemption from further royal service, and, in fact, he appeared on only two more commissions after that. Furthermore, he lost at least two of his Exchequer farms well before the end of their terms, and there is no sign of continuing preferment after Henry VI suffered his first bout of mental illness in the summer of 1453. Indeed, it may not have been he who, described merely as the ‘King’s servant’, was awarded the office of water-bailiff of Bristol in 1457.8 E159/229, brevia Easter rot. 13; CFR, xix. 22; CPR, 1452-61, pp. 89, 350.

Although Berewe spent most of his time with the Household, he did retain a few contacts among the gentry at home in Hampshire. He stood surety at the Exchequer for Thomas Payn*, the lessee of the former Romsey estates in 1427, and acted as a feoffee to effect a settlement on him and his wife the heiress Joan Romsey of her principal manor of Rockbourne in 1440. On another occasion he provided similar financial guarantees for William Ringbourne* (probably a kinsman of his, for both men were distantly related to William of Wykeham, the former bishop of Winchester), and agreed to be a trustee of Ringbourne’s estates in Hampshire and Wiltshire. Berewe appeared as a witness when Richard, Lord Strange of Knockin, leased Greywell to Thomas Bekynton, bishop of Bath and Wells, and William Waynflete, the provost of Eton, in 1444.9 CFR, xv. 169; xvii. 210; CCR, 1435-41, pp. 428-9; 1441-7, p. 230; CPR, 1446-52, p. 414; C139/138/18. Much less is known about his own dealings with land, although he went to law in 1446 over title to property at Haddenham, in Buckinghamshire, a matter which was put to arbitration.10 CCR, 1441-7, p. 319.

The date of Berewe’s death is uncertain; nor is it known whether it was a consequence of the civil war. He may have died shortly before 18 Jan. 1460, when Thomas Staunton*, an usher of the Chamber, took over his post as tronager, but was not actually stated to be ‘deceased’ until 20 July 1461, when his corrody at St. Swithun’s was granted by the new King, Edward IV, to someone else.11 CPR, 1452-61, p. 580; CCR, 1461-8, p. 103. Nothing is recorded about the mother of his two sons, the elder of whom, another John, was educated at Winchester College (as one of the ‘founder’s kin’), from 1440, and at New College, Oxford, in the years 1448-50. The latter petitioned the chancellor in the late 1470s regarding part of his inheritance – a messuage and other property at Odiham – which his father had left in the hands of his confessor, John Hitchcock, and others with instructions to perform his will. Hitchcock claimed that Berewe had intended these particular holdings to pass on his death to his younger son, William, and the latter’s male heirs, unless their descent was governed by an entail, and explained to the court that he had made no settlement as yet because he was not sure whether any such entail existed, although he had ‘heard say’ this was the case.12 Winchester Scholars ed. Kirby, 60; Biog. Reg. Univ. Oxf. ed. Emden, i. 116; C1/51/51-52.