B E K 



310 



B E K 



the Utter end of the fourteenth century at Roding Beraere, 

 in the hundred of Dunroow, and county of Essex. The 

 received report it, that she was daughter of Sir James 

 Bernera, of Roding Berners, knight, whose son Richard 

 (created Lord Berners in the reign of Henry IV.) was the 

 Uilier of the translator of Froiuart ; and that she was once 

 prioNM of Sopewell Nunnery in Hertfordshire. It seems 

 that she was alive in 1460. Holingshed places her at the 

 close of the reign of Edward IV., calling her 'Julian Homes, 

 a gentlewoman endued with excellent gifles bothe of body 

 and mindo, [who] wrote certaine treatises of hawking and 

 hunting, delighting greatly hirself in those exercises and 

 pastimes. She wrote also a booke of the lawes of annes and 

 knowledge apperteyning to heraldes.' This seems the 

 amount of all the information concerning this lady which 

 ran now be traced, and even these scanty particulars have 

 in some instances been doubted. The further particulars 

 which are given in many notices of her appear to have crept 

 in gradually from the desire of successive writers to give 

 s. nothing of novelty to their accounts. 



The following is the collected title of the treatises attri- 

 buted to Juliana Berners, as printed together by Wynkyn 

 de Worde in 1486. ' The Treatyses perteynyng to Hawk- 

 yuge, Huntynge, and Fysshynge with an Angle; and also 

 a right noble Treatyse of the Lygnage of Cot Armours, 

 endynge with a Treatise which specyfyeth of Blasynge of 

 Army*.' Mr. Hazlewood, whose investigations seem to 

 have thrown all the light on the subject of the book and its 

 author of which it is susceptible, narrows the claims of 

 Juliana to a small portion of the treatise on hawking, the 

 whole of the treatise upon hunting, a short list of the beasts 

 of the chaee, and another short list of persons, beasts, fowls, 

 &e. The great interest attached to the subjects of this work 

 occasioned the treatises to be among the very first that 

 were put to press on the introduction of printing into this 

 country, when they were printed at the Abbey of St. Alhans, 

 on which the nunnery of Sopewell was dependent. The 

 first edition is said to have been printed in 1481, and il 

 is certain that one was printed in 1486. It seems that 

 the person who then prepared them for the press had it in 

 vii;w to furnish a manual of what was considered the useful 

 knowledge of the day, and therefore incorporated in one 

 volume treatises by different hands. The colophon to the 

 treatise on fishing (which is the best of the four), states 

 that it was introduced in order that it might be better known 

 than it would l>c if ' enprynted allone by itself and put in 

 n lytyll plaunllet.' The colophon to the treatise on heraldry 

 also describes it as translated and compiled at St. Alhans 

 Among its objects, it professes to teach ' how gentylmen 

 shall be knowen from ungentylmen.' The ' Treatise on 

 Hunting,' which is the undoubted work of Juliana Berners 

 describes the manner in which various animals are to be 

 hunted, and explains the terms employed in venery. The 

 information is hitched into rhyme, but, as Mr. Ellis remarks 

 ' has no resemblance to poetry.' All the other treatises 

 are in plain prose. A fac-simile reprint of the whole o 

 U'ynkyn de Worde's edition, was mode in 1810, under the 

 direction of Mr. Hazlewood, whose prefixed dissertations 

 .in to have exhausted every source of information con- 

 cerning the 'Book of St. Albans.' Only 150 copies of this 

 foe-simile edition were printed. Speaking of this work 

 Wartpn remarks : ' From an abbess disposed to turn author 

 we might reasonably have expected a manual of meditations 

 for the closet, or select rules for making salves or distilling 

 ktrong waters. But the diversions of the fit-Id were nol 

 thought inconsistent with the character of a religious lady ol 

 this eminent rank, who resembled an abbot in respect of ex 

 ercising an extensive manorial jurisdiction, and who hawkec 

 and hunted in common with other ladies of distinction.' 



We are quite satisfied with this account ; hut Hazlewood 

 who cannot reconcile it with the rigid rules of the Sopewel 

 nunnery, and with the varied and extensive knowledge n 

 the world which the work displays, offers some conjectures 

 as to the history' of this remarkable lady, with the view o 

 uniting ' all the supposed characteristics of our authoress 

 without violating probability or distorting consistency.' As 

 however, this is all matter of conjecture, we must refer the 

 reader to his prefixed ' Biographical ami Bihliographira 

 Notices,' from which, and the annexed reprint, the presem 

 article has chiefly been drawn. 



(See also Dibdin's continuation of Ames's Typn/irailin-n 

 Antiquitiei; Warton's Hutory qf English I'uelry : 

 ftpxtmetu of (to Early Englith Poel, 



BERNERS, JOHN BOURCHIER. LORD, was born 

 about the year 1474. He was the oldest son of Sir Huiu- 

 ihrey Bourchiur, who was the son of Sir John Bourchicr, 

 he fourth son of the Earl of Ewe by his wife Anne, 

 daughter of Thomas Duke of Gloucester, the youngest son 

 I Kdward HI. This Sir John was created Lord Berners 

 n honour of the family of his wife Margery, who was the 

 laughter and heir of Richard Lord Berners, the father, a* 

 t if supposed, of Juliana Berners, the authoress of purl of 

 the famous book on field- sports. Admitting Ui>- pri-tumpUM: 

 evidence in favour of Juliana's connexion with this faintly, 

 it is pleasant to find two persons in it, of different > 

 so honourably distinguished, one as perhaps the earliest 

 omale writer of this country, and the other as one of the first 

 noblemen who condescended to think literature w-irthy nf 

 their attention. In this respect he was only preceded in 

 point of time by three noblemen, none of whom equalled 

 linn in reputation ; for Cobham wrote only just enough to 

 make him an author, and Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester, unit 

 Earl Rivers, arc more distinguished as patrons of literature 

 than as authors. Fuller, who also mentions Berners as the 

 fourth literary nobleman, prefers him to all of them ex- 

 cept Tiptoft ; but it is diflicult to see the grounds of this 

 exception, as the translations of Tiptoft are not near so 

 important as those of Lord Berners. In this estimate Lord 

 Vaux is not considered as a predecessor but as a contem- 

 porary of Lord Berners, and is therefore not included. 



The Bourchier family adhered to the house of York 

 during the war of the Rose* ; and Sir Humphrey Bourchier 

 was killed at the battle of Barnet in 1471 in support of its 

 cause, being, according to Hall, the only person of rank on 

 Edward's side who was slain in the action. His son, the 

 subject of the present notice, succeeded his grandfather 

 when he was only seven years of age ; and when he was 

 only eleven the Order of the Bath was given him by Kd- 

 ward IV., on occasion of the betrothment of the young 

 Duke of York to the daughter of the Duke of Norfolk. I 

 Berners was sent to Oxford at an early age, as was tin n the 

 custom, and Wood believes, but is not certain, that he was 

 educated atBalliol College ; and adds, 'after he had left the 

 university he travelled into divers countries, and returned a 

 master of several (not teven, as some accounts misquote 

 Wood) languages, and a complete gentleman.' His youth 

 and absence prevented him from taking any part in public 

 affairs until Henry VII. had established himself on the 

 throne. It seems, however, that the usurpation of Richard 

 III. made the Bourchier family favourable to Henry. They 

 supported him, and he was ultimately crowned by Cardinal 

 Bourchier, the grand-uncle of Lord Berners. 



Lord Berners was first called to parliament in the eleventh 

 of Henry VII. by the stylo of John Bourgchier, Lord of 

 Berners; and it seems that he had previously attended lin- 

 king at the siege of Boulogne in the \ear 1 I'.i'J. lie first 

 acquired personal distinction and the favourable regard o|' 

 the king by the active part he took in putting down a - 

 what alarming insurrection which in 1497 broke out in 

 Cornwall, headed by Michael Joseph, a blacksmith, and a 

 lawyer named Flammock, and afterwards supported by 

 Lord Audley. He appears to have become a favourite o'f 

 Henry VIII. very soon after his accession, and he had the 

 rare fortune of retaining his favour to the last. He was 

 captain of the pioneers at the siege of Terouenne in 15 1. 'I, 

 during which his attention to the duties of his office appears 

 to have been very serviceable to the army. About two 

 years after he was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer 

 for life ; and about the name time was one of the splendid 

 train of nobles, knights, and ladies appointed to rscnri t-i 

 Abbeville the Lady Mary, the king's sister, who by the 

 peace of 1514 was to be married to Louis XII. of 1'. 

 In the year 1518 Lord Berners was associated with John 

 Kite, Archbishop of Armagh, in an embassy to Spain, 

 ostensibly for the purpose of congratulating the young king 

 Charles on his accession, but in reality in the hope of de- 

 taching him from the interest* of the French king Fr. 

 and of bringing him over to the views of Wolsey, the | 

 and the emperor. No result of importance followed this 

 niivMnn, which departed from Spain in January, 1519, Lord 

 Hi Tiiers being at that time in very bad health. After this 

 his age and growing infirmities occasioned him to live much 

 Trim-tit in his government at Calais, to width im- 

 portant ollice he appears to have been appointed soon after 

 his return from Sp:iin. Ho remained in tail situation until 

 his death, on the 19th of March, 1532, devoting his leisure 



