1 Berner's (Son): v. Berner.

2 belonging to Berners or Bernières (Normandy) = the Baronies. [Old French berner 'domaine d’un baron’: v. under Bar(r)on] There are 3 Bernières in Calvados.

From Bernières, near Falaise. Hugh de Bernières appears as a Domesday tenant in the counties of Essex, Cambridge, and Middlesex. In Essex he held Bernston (Bernerstown), Roding Berners, &c., under Geoffrey de Mandeville; and in Cambridgeshire Eversdon, which is said to have been his chief seat, as it certainly was that of his posterity. William de Berners, in 1093, witnesses Robert Fitz Hugh’s charter to Chester Abbey; and two of the name are entered in the Liber Niger: Ralph de Bernières, holding six knight’s fees; and Richard de Bernières, seven. Robert de Berners, 6 Ric. I. “gave a Fine of 200 Marks for obtaining the King’s Favour, and restitution of his Lands.”— Dugdale. Ralph, in 1264, took part with the rebellious barons; but must likewise have been reinstated and forgiven, if, as is believed, he was the same Ralph who served as Sheriff of Berkshire twenty years afterwards. He died in 1296, possessed of Islington in Middlesex, West Horsley in Surrey (the inheritance of his wife Christian), Icklingham in Sussex, and the old Domesday manors, with Berners-Berwick in Essex. His son Edmond, then serving in the wars of Gascony, was grandfather of Sir James de Berners, beheaded in 1388. He had been one of the detested favourites of Richard II., “who, in that King’s Reign, when the great Lords were prevalent, amongst others (then accounted Enemies to the publick) was arrested of Treason, and committed to Prison: Whence, being brought to judgment, in the ensuing Parliament, he underwent the sentence of death, as a Traitor, and suffered accordingly.

“To whom succeeded Richard his son and heir. Which Richard (residing at West Horsley in Com. Sur.) had the reputation of a Baron of this Realm; though nothing of his Creation or Summons to Parliament (that I could ever see) doth appear thereof.”—Ibid. It was the second husband of his daughter and sole heir Margery, Sir John Bourchier, K.G., who received summons to parliament as Lord Berners in 1454.

This Sir John, the fourth son of William, Earl of Eu, trimmed his course, like the rest of his family, according to the exigency of the times, and was first a Lancastrian, and then a Yorkist, in the Wars of the Roses. Henry VI. granted him his barony, and Edward IV. appointed him Constable of the castle, and Warden of the park and forest, of Windsor. His successor was a grandson of his own name, who enjoyed “the rare felicity of continuing in favour with Henry VIII. for eighteen years,” and was Chancellor of the King’s Exchequer and Lieutenant of Calais and the Marches, with munificent grants of land. He was fond of literature and literary work, and is best known for his excellent translation of Froissart, undertaken at the King’s desire, though he was the author of several others, such as ‘The Hystorye of the most noble and valyannt Knyghte Arthur of lytell Brytayne’: ‘The ancient, honorable, famous, and delightful Historie of Huon of Bourdeux, enterlaced with the Love of many Ladies,’ &c. Once he was sent on a mission to Spain, and his biographer quotes with evident relish a rough rejoinder he made to the French Ambassador there. Both had joined in the diversions of the Spanish Court: and “On Midsummer daye in the mornynge, the king, with XXIII with him, well apparelled in coots and clokes of gould, and gouldsmythe worke, on horsback in the said market place (at Saragoza) ranne and caste canes after the countrey maner, whear as the kinge did very well and was much praysed; a fresh sight for once or twise to behold, and afterward, nothing. As soone as the cane is caste, they fly: whereof the Frenche Ambassador sayd, that it was a good game to teche men to flye. My lord Barriers answered, that the frenchmen learned it well besides Gingate, at the jurney of Spurres. The same day at afternoon, in the said market place, there was bull-baiting, &c.” (Letter from the Ambassadors to Henry VIII.) He died at Calais in 1532, leaving no legitimate male heir, though he had several bastard sons that bore his name. His wife, Lady Katherine Howard (daughter of the “Jockey of Norfolk,” slain at Bosworth), brought him two daughters, Mary, the wife of Alexander Unton, who had no children, and died before him, and Joan, married to Edmund Knyvett of Ashwellthorpe in Norfolk, and thus left sole heir. But there was little or nothing to inherit. “The laste lorde Barnes,” Leland tells us, “solde almost the substance of al his Landes”: and died very much in debt.

It does not appear that Joan ever bore the title of Baroness Berners: but in 1832—just 300 years after her father’s death—his barony was called out of abeyance in favour of one of her descendants, Robert Wilson, whose great niece and heiress married Sir Henry Tyrwhitt.

Morant speaks of another branch of this house, seated at Amberdon in the parish of Depden, Essex, whose pedigree could be traced up to the Hugh de Bernières of Domesday. His son Ralph “came into the great estate of Payne Burnell by marrying Nesta, his sister and heir”: and their descendants retained it till the time of Henry VI. Nicholas Berners, of Ambredon Hall, was the last, and died in 1441, leaving an only child, Catherine, the wife of Sir William Fynderne. The name, in its abbreviated form of Bernes or Barnes, is retained by their manor of Matching-Barnes.

The identity of Dame Julyans Berners, authoress of the ‘Treatyse on Fysshynge with an Angle’ has never been established. Some have called her the daughter of the Sir James who was executed in 1388; but the probable date of her book is about a century later; and from her title of Dame, she must have been a wife rather than a daughter. In these popularity-hunting days, it is refreshing to note how solicitous she is that her treatise should not be indiscriminately read, “And for by cause that this present treatyse sholde not come to the hondes of eche ydle persone whyche wold desire it yf it were enpryntyd alione by it self and put in a lytyll plaunflet, therefore I have compylyd it in a greter volume of dyuerse bokys concernynge to gentyll and noble men, to the entent that the forsayd ydle persones whyche sholde haue but lytyll mesure in the sayd dysporte of fysshynge sholde not by this meane utterly dystroye it.” and fall into unworthy hands, being intended only for true sportsmen. Her style is charmingly simple and natural, and the wholesome advice she gives her readers proves her to have been a worthy and God-fearing woman. She enjoins the angler to use “generous and noble conduct”: not to fish in any poor man’s special water: not to break any man’s gins, wears, or hedges, or leave open his gates; not to act in a covetous and mercenary spirit for the sake of gain, but to use the sport principally for his solace, for the health of his body, and specially for his “poor soule”: and pursue it as much as possible alone, that he may serve God devoutly, saying his accustomed prayer, and thus escape many vices and temptations, and “have the blessynge of God and Saynt Petyr, whyche he them grannte that wyth his precyous bloode us boughte.”

A treatise on Hunting, included in the same Booke of Seint Albans, is conjectured to be hers also.

According to Domesd., Hugh de Berners, as a tenant in chief, held Evresdon, co. Cambridge. The Itin. Norm, mentions six localities called Bernieres, in different parts of Normandy, but which of them is the cradle of this noble race is unknown. A very different origin is assigned in Arch. Journ, vii., 322, viz.: Old French bernier, a vassal who paid berenage, a feudal due for the support of the lord's hounds. Berner, Bernerus, &c., are found in Domesd. as baptismal names.

A Norman name: From the Domesday Book, de Berners. Bernières; a local name