BERTELET, Reynold

Although Bertelet was not a common name in fifteenth-century England, the identification of the man who represented Barnstaple in the Commons in 1442 presents some problems. It seems that he was a comparatively obscure individual who owed his seat to the patronage of Thomas Courtenay, earl of Devon, whom he served as keeper of the park in his manor of Colcombe, while a putative kinsman, Richard Bertelet, was a yeoman of the earl’s household at Tiverton. This latter man was among the Courtenay retainers brought to justice for their part in the earl’s violent feud with William, Lord Bonville*, but it is not clear whether the MP had also been involved, for while he secured a royal pardon in the aftermath of the Earl’s participation in the duke of York’s abortive coup at Dartford, no other evidence of his guilt has been discovered.3 CPR, 1452-61, p. 310; KB27/787, rex rot. 4; C67/40, m. 34.

Bertelet may have been a more substantial man than the scant evidence of his career suggests, for he found a wife in a middle-aged, twice widowed Somerset heiress. Alice, one of the daughters of the landowner John Warmwell, had initially married the London draper Richard Peny, and after his death (which occurred at some point before October 1435) had found a second husband in one Simon Blyke. The draper in particular had left tangled affairs to be settled, and Alice was still engaged in the execution of his will some time after her marriage to Bertelet.4 CP40/720, rots. 33, 33d; C1/69/16; CCR, 1435-41, p. 23, 27-28, 148; CPR, 1429-36, pp. 598-9; C139/75/31.