Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 04.djvu/339

 16th regiment, and a general in the English army.

Possessed of great courage and physical strength, Beresford had the qualities which made an admirable officer, but not those which made a great general, and Wellington paid the greatest tribute to him when he declared that if he were removed by death or illness he would recommend Beresford to succeed him, not because he was a great general, but because he alone could 'feed an army.'

 BEREWYK, JOHN (d. 1312), judge, was entrusted with the charge of the vacant abbey of St. Edmund, 1278–9, and of the see of Lincoln during the interval which elapsed between the death of Benedict, otherwise Richard, de Gravesend, 1279, and the appointment of his successor in the episcopate, Oliver Sutton, 1280–1. He acted as one of the asessors of the thirtieth for the counties south of the Trent in 1263, and in Michaelmas 1284 is mentioned as treasurer to Queen Eleanor. In 1294 he was one of her executors. A memorandum entered on the roll of parliament in 1290 records the delivery by him of a 'roll of peace and concord' made between the chancellor and scholars of the university and the mayor and burgesses of the city of Oxford to the clerk of the king's wardrobe for safe custody. He was summoned to parliament as a justice between 1295 and 1309, having been appointed a justice itinerant in 1292. In 1305 he was nominated receiver of petitions to the king in parliament emanating from Guernsey, with power to answer all such as did not require the personal attention of the king. He died in 1312 possessed of estates in Surrey, Essex, Wiltshire, Hampshire, and Norfolk, and leaving an infant heir.

 BERGENROTH, GUSTAV ADOLPH (1813–1869), historical student, was born at Oletzko, in East Prussia, 26 Feb. 1813. From his father, the magistrate of the town, a stubborn and incorruptible patriot, he received an education well calculated to develope the independence of mind and strength of body for which he was remarkable all his life. After a somewhat stormy career at the university of Königsberg, he successively obtained several minor situations in the magistracy, and devoted himself to the study of statistics and political economy. His inquiries, combined with the restless temper which always made official life distasteful to him, led him to adopt advanced democratic opinions, which, freely manifested during the outbreak of 1848, cost him his post in the civil service upon the triumph of the reaction. After assisting in Kinkel's remarkable escape from Spandau, he determined to emigrate to California, whither he proceeded in 1850. The incidents of his voyage and residence were most adventurous. He caught yellow fever on the passage out, was robbed, while unconscious, of all his property, arrived at San Francisco half dead, and owed his life to the charity of a woman. Having also recovered from an attack of cholera, he betook himself to the wilderness, and lived for some time the life of a hunter. He saw much of the operations of the vigilance committee, which he subsequently vividly described in 'Household Words.' In 1851 he returned to Europe, and led for several years a roaming life, seeking employment alternately as a tutor and as a man of letters. In 1857 he formed the resolution of devoting himself to English history, and settled in London with the view of studying the period of the Tudors. Finding the materials in the English Record Office insufficient, he conceived the bold plan of establishing himself at Simancas, and making a thorough examination of the Spanish archives, at that time exceedingly difficult of access. Before Bergenroth not more than six students, Spanish and foreign, had made any important research in the archives, and it was generally believed that great havoc had been committed among them by the French soldiers, which Bergenroth found reason to doubt. The history of his investigations is most graphically narrated by himself in letters to the 'Athenæum,' and in private communications to Sir John Romilly, master of the rolls, who was induced by the 'Athenæum' letters to procure Bergenroth a commission with a stipend from the English government. Both sets of letters are fully reprinted in Mr. Cartwright's memoir. He speedily manifested the most