From La Barre, in the Côtentin, constantly abbreviated to De Bere or Bere, in which latter form it appears in Duchesne’s copy. This name was borne by many families in the South and West of England. A Kentish house, “of good account in this Island,” claimed descent from Richard de Bere, one of the Recognitores magna Assissæ for the county in the reign of King John. Quickmannus de Bere—a queer name—occurs in an early charter, and in 1236 Nicholas de Bere held Bere (now Beer’s Court), “which, though now only a manor by repute, had once large quit-rents and services belonging to it, as appears by an old Court Roll.”—Hasted's Kent. William de Bere, of the same place, was King’s Bailiff of Dover in 1274 and 1276, as was Valentine de Bere in 1308: but the name was extinct there before 1347. It only reappears after a gap of two hundred years, when John Bere of Horseman’s Place, near Dartford, received from Henry VIII. a grant of Tonge Mill and Greenhithe Ferry, and “conveyed to him sundry premises within the King’s new park at Sevenoke.” The last of the Beres of Horseman’s Place died in 1627.

We next meet with them in Hampshire and the adjoining counties. Peter de la Bere, in the thirteenth century, held his land in La Bere under Porchester Castle, but, for some reason or other, it was seized by the King, and given to Roger Le Conner and his son. Henry III. granted to John de la Bere— perhaps Peter’s son—certain privileges and exemptions at Ibbesley, in the New Forest, that continued in force two hundred years afterwards. “Of that charter no enrolment is extant: but, in right of it, the Ibbesley dogs were not subject to expeditation, and the Ibbesley hogs and beasts had free pannage in the forest.”— Woodward's Hants. The line probably ended with another John de la Bere, who died in 1362, for in the next generation the inheritance had fallen to the Stourtons. William de Bere was knight of the shire for Somerset in 1300, and Gilbert de la Bere in 1311 and 1313. Richard de la Bere, in 1316, was Lord of Todbere and Thornton, Dorset; Greenhurst and Eye, Bedfordshire; and Islip, Fawcote, Morcote, and Oke, Oxfordshire: a Conservator of the Peace in the latter county in 1314, a Commissioner of Array in 1316, and its representative in Parliament in 1325. Thomas de la Bere was pardoned as an adherent of Roger de Mortimer in 1321, and served as knight of the shire for Dorset in 1335, 1337, 1342, 1343, and 1345.—Palgrave's Parl. Writs. In Devonshire, Sir David de la Bere held Littleham, Alsington, and Langcross in the time of Edward II. “Beer Hall, in Axminster parish, belonged to Walter de la Bere, and continued in the name for divers descents, till Englesia, daughter of Alexander de la Bere, carried it to the Okestons.”—Pole's Devon. One or more branches existed in Cornwall. “At Treravall, in the parish of St. Ervan, lived George Bere, the representative of a very ancient family. There was formerly in the hundred of West a family of the same name, of great wealth and account in Henry VIII.’s days, but whether or not related to this family I cannot tell. Their great estate went with a daughter and heir to John Bevill, Sheriff of Cornwall 16 Eliz., and was no small advancer of that gentleman’s estate.”—Gilbert's Cornwall.

Still another family is found in Herefordshire, where Robert de Bere, in 1316, was Lord of Stratford. There is extant a curious memorial from Dame Elizabeth Delabeare, wife of Sir Richard Delabeare of Weobley, to Edmund Duke of Buckingham, “setting forth her services in rescuing him from destruc­tion, at the time of his father’s apprehension.” It seems that the latter had committed the young Lord Stafford, disguised in a frieze coat, to the care of Sir Richard, until such time as he sent for him by a token, delivered with the words, Et tu es Petrus et super hauc petram. But this time was never to come, for the Duke was soon after beheaded, and a price of 1000 marks set on the head of the poor boy, who was diligently sought for in all directions. Then trusty Dame Elizabeth shaved his head, “and put upon him a maiden’s raiment, and so conveyed him to Newchurche:" and when a Royal emissary summoned her to deliver him up, boldly asserted that “there was none such Lorde there, and that ye will knowe, for ye shall see the house searched.” For better security, she moved him about from place to place, and once, when “there came a great cry owt of Wales, she took my L. Stafforde in her Lappe, and went through a brooke with him into the park of Kinmardsley, and then sat with him four hours, until William ap Symon came to her and told her that noe man came nigh the place.” At length, she left him in safety at the. house of a friend in Hereford, having taken him there in the “midst of the Daie, and he riding behynde William ap Symon, asyde upon a Pillowe like a gentlewoman, ridde in gentlewoman’s apparell. And I wisse,” she adds coaxingly, “he was the fairest gentlewoman and the best that ever she hadd in her Daies or ever shall have, whom she prayeth God dailie to preserve from his enemies, and to send him good fortune and grace.”

In Gloucestershire the De la Beres are said to have held Southam-de-la-Bere from the time of the Conquest; but the pedigree given in Sir Richard Atkyns’ History of the county makes Richard de la Bere, who was living in 1390, only fourth in descent from the first Sir Richard that settled there: whereas an interval of more than two hundred and forty years could scarcely be spanned by less than seven, if not eight, generations. The son and namesake of this latter Richard, who likewise lived in the reign of Ed. II., succeeded to the estate of Alan Lord Plugenet as heir of the whole blood; and in the following generation Sir John de la Bere married Agnes, the granddaughter and co-heiress of Sir Gilbert de Turbevile. Thirteenth in descent from John was Kynard, “who hath a handsome large seat in this place, and a great estate.” This was written in 1712. Three-and-twenty years afterwards, Kynard had died without posterity, bequeathing his estate to his nephew William Bagehot of Prestbury, who there­upon assumed the name and arms of De la Bere. It should be noted that Sir Richard Atkyns invariably uses the old form of De la Barr.

“At Southam there is still preserved a very curious picture, representing a knight kneeling on a cushion and holding in his hand a helmet which has just received the crest—a plume of five ostrich feathers issuing out of a ducal coronet. The constant tradition has been that this picture (certainly a very ancient one) commemorates a distinction conferred by Edward the Black Prince upon Sir Richard de la Bere, who rescued him from imminent peril in the battle of Crécy (1346).”—Castles of Herefordshire and their Lords, by C. J. Robinson.

Hutchins tells us that Bere Hacket, in Dorsetshire, “derived its distinctive name from a certain Haket de Bere, who was living in the time of Henry I., in like manner as Breamston is supposed to be so named from Brian de Insula.” The Beres continued there till the fourteenth century.