Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Mundeford, Osbert
MUNDEFORD, OSBERT or OSBERN (d. 1460), treasurer of Normandy, was son of Osbert Mundeford (d. 1456), by Margaret Barrett. The family, whose name is sometimes spelt Mountford or Montfort, had been long seated at Hockwold in Norfolk, where they held Mundeford's Manor; they had been honourably distinguished in the French wars. Osbert went abroad probably early in Henry VI's reign, and received various offices of importance, such as bailly-general of Maine and marshal of Calais. He also served as English representative on several occasions in the conferences which were held, notably in 1447, with reference to the occupation of Le Mans. In the re-conquest of Normandy, Mundeford occupied Pont Audemer, and was taken prisoner when it fell in 1449 ; he was ransomed for ten thousand crowns. He afterwards wrote an account of the siege, which has been printed in the 'Chronique de Mathieu d'Escouchy,' ed. De Beaucourt, iii. 354.
Mundeford was appointed treasurer of Normandy in 1448 in succession to one Stanlawe. After the expulsion of the English he seems to have lived in Calais and about 1459 sent thence a letter in French to his relative John Paston, which has been preserved. He seems to have been a strong Lancastrian, and in June 1460 he gathered together some five hundred men in the town of Sandwich 'to fette and conduc the Duk of Somerset from Guynes in to England,' but Warwick's men came and took the town, and carrying off Mundeford to Calais beheaded him and two of his followers at the Rise Bank.
Mundeford married Elizabeth, daughter of John Berney, and a relative of the Pastons, and left a daughter, Mary, who married Sir William Tindale, K.B., and carried the estates of the family into other hands.
[De Beaucourt's Histoire de Charles VII, iv. 295, &c., v. 6, &c., 420, 441; Chroniques de Mathieu d'Escouchy, ed. De Beaucourt (Soc. de l'Hist. de France), passim; De Reductione Normanniæ (Rolls Ser.), 64 n. &c.; Wars of the English in France, ed. Stevenson (Rolls Ser.), passim; Purton Cooper's App. to Report on Rymer's Fœdera, pp. 540-2: Paston Letters, i. 117, 439, &c.; Blomefield's Norfolk, ii. 181, &c.; Norfolk Archæology, vol. v.; Three Fifteenth-Cent. Chronicles (Camd. Soc.), p. 73; An English Chron. (Camd. Soc.), p. 85.]