The Battle Abbey Roll. Vol. I.
by
The Duchess of Cleveland.

Prepared by Michael A. Linton
-------*--------
Return to Index

Bertin : "Helto Bertin was bailiff of Falaise in Normandy, about 1195. In 1165 Alexander de Bertona held lands in Kent (Lib. Niger), and the family was seated at Berstead, in that county, temp. Hen. II., and sometimes bore the name of De Berstead—(Ibid.). Walter de Berstede, 1257, was Viscount of Kent (Roberts, Excerpta), and in 1266 was a justiciary. In 1433 William Bertin was one of the Kentish gentry; and Simon Bertyn, who died 1530, devised lands at Bersted. Another branch, seated at Bersted also, altered the name to Berty or Bertie. Thomas Bertie, of this line was Captain of Hurst Castle, temp. Hen. VIII., and from him descended the Dukes of Ancaster, Earls of Lindsay, and Earls of Abingdon."—The Norman People. This derivation has at least the merit of verisimilitude, entirely wanting in the astonishing genealogy given in the Peerages, which declares that the Berties "first landed in England in company with the Saxons," and "descended from a family of free barons of Bertisland in Prussia." "For some centuries past a Freiherr von Bertisland would not be an impossible being: but in what age of the world would any one guess that these free barons lived who were the forefathers of the Berties of Kent? Unhappily from the fifth century to the eleventh, we have no mention of this remarkable stock; but in the time of AEthelred, by some astounding forestalling of language, fortification, and everything else, Leopold Bertie was not only Constable of Dover Castle, but had a private castle at 'Bertie-sted, now Bersted.' (The old form of Bersted happens to be Berhamstede)." This Leopold has a quarrel about tithes with the monks of Canterbury; a fray ensues, in which his son is slain: "the King gives Leopold no satisfaction:" and he induces Sweyn of Denmark to invade England: "then the Danes join Leopold's forces in Kent;" the siege of Canterbury and the captivity of Alfheah are the result. "Burbach Bertin, the only surviving son, flees to France:" but a descendant comes back in the twelfth century and recovers Bersted. To crown all in the time of Henry V. "Hieronimus Bertie" is excommunicated for trying to kill a monk for "assertions injurious to his ancestor Leopold." "On the whole," concludes Mr. Freeman, "this is perhaps the most monstrous of all our fictions."