Sir William Berners Knight

  Noted events in his life were:

• Background Information. ¹²³⁷
Sir William Berners held lands in Islington before 1220, when his widow Beatrice claimed from William's son Sir Ralph Berners, of Berners Roding (Essex), a third of her husband's free lands in Islington, and Sir Ralph was summoned to acquit the service which William had owed the bishop for a free tenement there. [Cur. Reg. R. viii. 299] It was probably his son Sir Ralph who held 1/2 knight's fee in Islington in 1242-3. [Bk. of Fees, ii. 899] The latter's son, also Sir Ralph de Berners (d. 1297), of West Horsley (Surr.), custodian of the Tower of London, held at his death the manor of Iseldon of the bishop for 1/2 knight's fee, rent, and suit at the bishop's three-weekly court at Bishop's Stortford Castle.

~A History of the County of Middlesex, Volume VIII, pp. 51-57

• Background Information. ¹²⁷⁹
In 1220, the manor of Berwick was in the hands of the Berners family, from which it took the second part of its name. In that year Beatrice widow of William de Berners was granted dower by Ralph de Berners in Berwick and elsewhere.[Feet of F. Essex, i, 58] In 1166 an earlier Ralph de Berners had held 4 knights' fees of the Earl of Essex, and also ½ fee of Henry Fitz Gerold as of the fees of Eudo dapifer. The successor of the first Ralph was apparently William de Berners. [Farrer, Hons. and Knight's Fees, iii, 214]

~A History of the County of Essex, Volume IV, pp. 190-193

• Background Information. ^1235,1240
Sir William de Berners, son of Ralph de Berners and Isold de Say & nephew of Jeoffery de Say, of Berners Rothing in Essex, Knight, married Beatrix, daughter of Ralph Swyneburne of Hockelley Parva, near Colchester, Knight.

Berner Pedigree from The Historical Antiquities of Hertfordshire, Volume I, pp. 315-316 & Yseldon: Perambulation of Islington, p.98 & Yseldon: Perambulation of Islington, by Thomas Edlyne Tomlins, p. 99

William married Beatrice de Swyneburne, daughter of Ralph de Swyneburne and Unknown ¹²³⁵.^,1240 (Beatrice de Swyneburne died after 1220 in Berwick Berners, Essex, England.)