Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Berkeley, Robert (d.1219)

1306228Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 04 — Berkeley, Robert (d.1219)1885John Andrew Hamilton

BERKELEY, ROBERT (d. 1219), the eldest of the six sons of Maurice Berkeley, on his father's death in 1190 paid to the king a fine of 1,000l. for livery of his inheritance, and to King John in 1199 a further sixty marks for confirmation of his title and a charter of fairs in his manor of Berkeley. In 1208 he was a justiciar at Derby. He took a leading part in the struggle between John and the barons, and, being included in the excommunication of the barons pronounced by Innocent III, Berkeley Castle and the lands were seized. In 1216, however, shortly before John died, he visited the king, then at Berkeley Castle, under a safe-conduct, and made his submission. The manor of Came in Gloucestershire was then granted him for the support of his wife Juliana, niece of the Earl of Pembroke. In 1216, on Henry's accession, he was restored to his lands on payment of a fine of 966l. 13s. 4d., with the exception of the castle and lands of Berkeley. He died in 1219, still dispossessed of them, and was buried in a monk's cowl in the north aisle of St. Augustine's Abbey, Bristol, of which, along with Burdenstoke in Wiltshire, Stanley Priory in Gloucestershire, and the canons of Hereford, he was a benefactor. He founded St. Catherine's Hospital, Bedminster, near Bristol, as an Austin priory for a warden and poor brethren (Leland, Collect. i. 85), and two chantries elsewhere. After the death of his first wife Juliana he married Lucia (whose family is not known), afterwards wife to Hugh de Gurney. He left no issue by either wife, and was succeeded by his brother Thomas, to whom Berkeley Castle was restored.

[Foss's Lives of the Judges; Dugdale's Baronage. i. 352, 614; Brydges's Collins's Peerage, 3, 595; Dugdale's Monasticon, 6, 774; Rudder's Gloucestershire; Manning and Bray's Surrey; Britton's Cathedrals, Bristol, p. 68.]

J. A. H.

Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.24
N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line

Page Col. Line  
366 i 27 f.e. Berkeley, Robert (d. 1219): for Came read Cam