BERTRAM, Sir John

The earlier biography of Sir John takes too gloomy a view of his fate in his dispute with his elder brother, Sir Robert Ogle, over the barony of Bothal, settled upon him by his father to the disinheritance of Sir Robert. His appeal to the Parliament of 1410 ended the dispute (for his lifetime) in his favour. On 23 Apr. 1410, during the second session of the Parliament, Thomas Langley, bishop of Durham, and Ralph Neville, earl of Westmorland, the two leading men in the north-east, returned an award, vindicating Bertram’s title and giving him the right to bear (with a difference) the arms of the Bertrams.5 The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 211-12; Notts. Archs. Portland mss, DD/4P/42/11. The two brothers were soon on friendly terms. In 1424 they acted together in the indenture for the marriage of Ogle’s daughter Margery to Robert, son and heir of Robert Harbottle† of Preston (Northumberland). 6 Hist. Northumb. ix. 267.

Bertram was troubled by two sustained periods of litigation in the Exchequer, the one arising out of his custodianship of the border castle of Roxburgh and the other from his role as one of the executors of Thomas Beaufort, duke of Exeter. His tenure as keeper of Roxburgh ended in 1421, but he long continued to be compromised by the financial arrangements made for its defence. Not until Michaelmas term 1446, a quarter of a century after he had last had the custody of Roxburgh, was the matter concluded when he successfully pleaded a pardon against the demand of the Exchequer that he account for £250 on an ancient prest.7 C67/39, m. 31; E159/223, brevia Mich. rot. 57, recorda Mich. rot. 26. His troubles over the execution of Exeter’s will of 1426 proved similarly drawn-out. In the Parliament of 1427 he and his fellow executors petitioned to be exonerated from actions of debt arising from the will’s execution, and the Crown referred the matter to the Exchequer.8 E159/204, brevia Easter rot. 15. There the petitioners’ request was disregarded and process was begun against the executors to account for both Exeter’s captaincy of Harfleur and his keepership of the southern lands of the duchy of York. Not until Michaelmas term 1437 did Bertram and his fellows successfully plead a pardon in bar of further process against them.9 E159/204, brevia Easter rot. 15; 205, recorda Hil. rot. 8; 208, brevia Mich. rot. 23d; 214, recorda Mich. rot. 18.

Bertram, often acting in combination with his brother, Sir Robert, played an important role in the public life of both the bishopric of Durham and Northumberland. In January 1417 he was one of a large group of local notables, including his brother, who witnessed the formal livery of seisin of the southern part of the Tyne Bridge to Bishop Langley, a victory for the bishop in his long-running dispute with the town authorities of Newcastle.10 C.D. Liddy, Bishopric of Durham in the Later Middle Ages, 185-6. In April 1429 he and his brother were among the arbiters chosen by John Manners† of Etal in his dispute with Isabel, widow of William Heron of Ford, following the notorious murder of her husband by Manners.11 J.W. Armstrong, ‘Violence and Peacemaking in the English Marches towards Scotland’, The Fifteenth Cent. VI ed. Clark, 65-66; Durham Univ. Lib., cathedral muns. Locelli, loc. V, 51. Later, in 1437, he was one of those who stood surety, in the sum of £200, for his nephew, Sir Robert Ogle II*, when the younger Sir Robert succeeded the elder as constable of Norham castle.12 Cathedral muns., pontificalia, 3.3. Pont. 1.

In the subsidy returns of 1436, Bertram was assessed on an annual income of £60, a marked underestimate in the context of the considerable holdings of his second wife.13 E179/158/38.