Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 04.djvu/329

  charged with intimidating witnesses summoned to give evidence before the bishop on the trial of a clergyman accused of felony. The date of the first fine recorded as having been levied before him is November 1294, and to this fact Dugdale's silence concerning his previous history is probably attributable. He was summoned to parliament as a justice in 1295. He appears as a party to the act of council by which, in 1297, during the absence of the king in Flanders, Humfrey de Bohun, earl of Hereford, and Roger Bigod, earl of Norfolk, who appear to have been apprehensive of evil consequences resulting on the return of the king from their opposition to his arbitrary measures for raising supplies, and their refusal to take the command of the war in Gascony, were assured by the prince and council of immunity from his 'rancour and indignation.' In 1301 he was one of a court of three judges which passed sentence of imprisonment upon the Bishop of Tynemouth for having detained in custody a servant of the prior of Durham, in defiance of letters patent, by which the king had privileged the prior and his retainers from arrest. In the parliament of 1305 he was one of twenty-one English members appointed to confer with the same number of Scotch representatives touching the best means of promoting the stability of Scotland. In the following year he went the northern circuit as one of the commission of trailbaston. He was reappointed justice of the common bench by Edward II on his accession in 1807, and succeeded Ralph de Hengham as chief justice of that bench 15 March 1308-9. In 1318 he was placed on a special commission to try sheriffs and other officers charged with extortion and other illegal practices in the counties of Oxford, Berkshire, Warwick, and Leicester, and reappointed for the two last-mentioned counties next year. July 1326 appears to be the latest date on which he sat at Westminster for the purpose of taking acknowledgments of fines. He died in the same month and year, leaving two sons, Simon and William. He was a large landed proprietor, holding estates in no fewer than eight counties, the major part, however, being in the midland counties of Warwick, Oxford, and Berkshire. He was succeeded on the bench by Hervey de Staunton. From a royal grant of free piscary at Shillingford to William de Bereford we learn that his wife's name was Margaret.

 BERENGARIA (d. after 1230), queen of Richard I, was the daughter of Sancho VI of Navarre, and his queen Blanche of Castile. Remarkable for wisdom, beautiful in person, and of elegant manners, she had won the heart of Richard when he was count of Poitou (Itin. Ricardi, 176; c. 19). Soon after he came to the throne he sent his mother, Eleanor, to bring her to him at Messina, whither he had gone on his way to the crusade, that he might make her his wife. Eleanor and Berengaria crossed into Italy by the Great St. Bernard, and in February 1191 came down to Naples, where they found ships sent by Richard to meet them. A large escort accompanied the ladies, and the servants of Tancred of Sicily forbade them to enter Messina (, ii. 157). They accordingly went on to Brindisi. While they were there, Richard had a dispute with Philip of France about the intended marriage, for he had long been under a contract to marry the French king's sister Alice. Philip demanded that Richard should sail with him at once, and then he said he might marry Berengaria at Acre; if not, then he should marry his sister. Richard said that he would not do either the one or the other (, 32). The story that he declared that Berengaria was already his wife (Guil. Armor. iv. 182) is manifestly untrue. After the dispute had been arranged, Richard went to Reggio, and brought his mother and Berengaria to Messina on 30 March, the very day Philip left. When Richard set sail from Messina on 10 April, he sent Berengaria and his sister Joanna, the widowed queen of Sicily, in advance of the fleet in a strongly built vessel called a dromond, or buss, under the charge of Robert of Tornham. A violent storm scattered the fleet. The king landed at Crete, and then at Rhodes, while the ship in which the ladies were came to anchor off Limasol on 1 May. Isaac, the emperor of Cyprus, tried to entice the ladies ashore, but they seem to have known the cruelty with which the Cypriots had treated the crews of the ships that had been wrecked, and refused to listen to his invitation. At last, on 6 May, they promised to disembark the next day. Scarcely had they made this promise, when Richard's ship came in sight. The next day the defeat of the Cypriots enabled Berengaria to enter Limasol. On 12 May she was married to Richard by his chaplain Nicolas, afterwards bishop of Le Mans, and on the same day was crowned queen by the Archbishop of Bordeaux and the Bishops of Evreux and Bayonne. When Richard completed the conquest of Cyprus, and forced the emperor to surrender on 31 May, he committed 