Sir William Bereford (died 1326) was an English justice.

Life

He was the son of Walter de Bereford, with the family name coming from the village of

Barford, Warwickshire Barford is a village and civil parish in the Warwick district of Warwickshire, England, about three miles south of Warwick. As at the 2001 census the parish had a population of 1,171, that increased to 1,336 at the 2011 census. The Joint parish ...

. In 1287 his brother, Osbert de Bereford, a previous High Sheriff of Warwickshire and

Leicestershire Leicestershire ( ; postal abbreviation Leics.) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East Midlands, England. The county borders Nottinghamshire to the north, Lincolnshire to the north-east, Rutland to the east, Northamptonshire t ...

, bought a property in Wishaw, and after his death a few years later the land was left to William. In the 1280s he also married Margaret, daughter of Hugh de Plessy, who brought lands in Wittenham,

Berkshire Berkshire ( ; in the 17th century sometimes spelt phonetically as Barkeshire; abbreviated Berks.) is a historic county in South East England. One of the home counties, Berkshire was recognised by Queen Elizabeth II as the Royal County of Berk ...

, with whom he had at least one child, Edmund Bereford, who later became a King's Clerk. By 1285, he was a Pleader for the Court of Common Pleas, and after the purging of the courts in 1289 and 1290 various avenues of promotion opened him, and he was made a justice of the Common Bench in 1292. In Michaelmas term of that year he joined one of the last countrywide Eyres. In 1294 he returned to the Common Bench, standing as second to John of Mettingham and then Ralph de Hengham before becoming Chief Justice in 1309 following Hengham's retirement. He was knighted in 1302, and in 1304 was appointed as a commissioner to investigate a break-in at the Treasury. In 1305 he was one of twenty-one representatives of the crown who met with an equal number of Scottish representatives to establish how to promote stability in Scotland, and in 1306 he was a commissioner of a Trailbaston on the northern circuit. After

Edward II Edward II (25 April 1284 – 21 September 1327), also called Edward of Caernarfon, was King of England and Lord of Ireland from 1307 until he was deposed in January 1327. The fourth son of Edward I, Edward became the heir apparent to t ...

became king in 1307 he was in charge of collecting ''querelae'', or formal complaints, against Walter Langton, who had been

Edward I Edward I (17/18 June 1239 – 7 July 1307), also known as Edward Longshanks and the Hammer of the Scots, was King of England and Lord of Ireland from 1272 to 1307. Concurrently, he ruled the duchies of Aquitaine and Gascony as a vassal o ...

's treasurer and central advisor. Bereford was associated with Piers Gaveston, a favorite of Edward II, perhaps because he had bought land in the Honour of Wallingford held by the earl. Bereford was one of only four who stood with the king against the barons who demanded Gaveston's exile in 1308, and acted as the executor of his will. Standing against the barons seems not to have harmed his career; in 1318 after attempts to reform the king's household he was among the ministers retained in office, where he stayed until his death in 1326.

Notes

References

* * Justices of the Common Pleas Chief Justices of the Common Pleas 1326 deaths Year of birth unknown {{England-law-bio-stub