Page:The Complete Peerage Ed 1 Vol 1.djvu/346

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324 BERKELEY. sue. by his nephew of the half blood (Reginald West), who " by reason r,f the entaile afsd. wax sum. to Purl. //;/ the name of Lord <!e la Ware," to tlie exclusion (if John Griffin (called, by Smyth, John Griffith), second cousin and heir of the whole blood to the <lec d peer. From these precedents he concludes that .Tames, Lord Berkeley, [1431-1462], was entitled by the tenure of the Caatie and Manor, under the entail in Uiil male, made with licence (1849), 23 Ed. HI, to a Barony with the precedence of (1155j 1 Hen. II, and that George the then (1818) Lord, and such of his predecessors as were in possession of the said Castle, were similarly eutitled; while a- to the writ of 1528 to Maurice Berkeley, or the writ of 1520 to (his br. and h.) Thomas Berkeley, or that of 1584 to Thomas, s. and b. of the said Thomas (none of whom were in the possession of the Berkeley estate) those, according to Mr. Smyth, were but personal and could not be any bar or hindrance. "The precedents" (writes Mr. J. Horace Round) "that are quoted by Smyth, ill 101S, should be compared with those adduced in 1001 in the case of Bergavenny, and, in 1010. in that of Grey de Ruthin. In the former ease they were intended to prove (just as urged by Smyth) that 'if any such alienation be m.ide for the continuance of the Barony in the name, then have the issue male, with the Castle, 8ms.j retained the diguitie of a Baron and hereof! have the beires general] or next heires female beene excluded. " See Collins' " Precedents " p. 113. The ' antient presidents' quoted in support thereof are eleven, the ease of Deyncoort, Baron of Blankeney, 10 Ed. II. and that of the entail of the Castle of Berkeley, 23 Ed. Ill ; being added to the nine (above given) quoted by Smith : a similar mistake being made, under Delawar, in giving the name ' Griffin ' as ' Grilt'eth ' which coincidence is strongly suggestive of this being the source from which Smyth derived his ] precedent.-. In the case of Grey de Ruthin (1640) the precedents were adduced to prove that ever. ' where a Barony by writ falls into one sole heii general ' there have been case* whore ' neither she nor her issue hath enjoyed the title or dignity of her ancestors ' and where ' the King hath disposed thereof at ilia pleasure, as, sometimes, to the issue of the half blood before the whole, sometimes to a mere stranger and [that] most times, if there hath been competition between the beiv nvale and heir female, the heir male hath carried the honour, especially if the heir male bath the caput Baranim.' See Collins' ' Precedents ' p. 225. The cases adduced in support thereof are nine, viz. (1) Burnoll of Ilolgate (2) Ferrers of Groby (3) Walleron of Kilpcck (I) Deyncourt of BlankneV (",) Pelawarr (6) Berkeley (7) Ogle (all of which were adduced in the ease of bV-r- gavenny) to which is added those of (8) Bergavenny (itself) where the Castle, kc. of Abergavenny was entailed by will. 27 Hen. VIII and of (!•) Latimer, where the Barony was ontai'ed" by John (Xev'il!) head Latimer (who had inherited it ex parte material) on George Nevill, a cadet cousin ex parte putcrnu, which George was sum. accordingly by Henry VI, to the detriment of the h. gen., descended from the sister and sole h. of the entailer, such h. gen. being the h. of the previous Lords Latimer. From the similarity of these precedents with those adduced by Smyth there can be but little doubt that he derived them from these pleadings, omitting (by accident) that of Deyncourt of Blankney. — It is moreover important to observe that Dugdale s account is evidently derived from Smyth's MSS., to which he bad access, and that the petition of Lord Berkeley in 1(581 was evidently based on Smyth's statements. Now, as even Cruise himself derived his facts from Dugdale, v. e arrive at the fact that all the mistatoments (as they apparently are) at to the precedency of such of the Lords Berkeley as were not possessed of the Castle, can be traced to the assertions made by ,S'my(/t who, of course, wrote with a strong party bias on behalf of his patrons, the Lords Berkeley." Holders of the Castle, &c, of Berkeley. [" The Earlier House of Berkeley " as hero given, is taken from an elaborate treatise of that name by Sir Henry B.irklcy, G.C.M.G., in the transactions of the "Bristol and Gloue. Arch. Soc." (1883) vol. viii, p. 193, &c. which corrects a former notice of them in that work (1S81) by A. J. Kllis, entitled "the Domesday tenants in Glouces- tershire," wherein the succession of this race is given from the first Roger through Eustace and William to the Roger who was dispossessed ab ait 1 152.] I. Will. I. 1. Roger, nh/led " Senior," who, having, between 10C8 and 1071, been made Provost of the manor of Berkeley( a ) b y Karl (a) Berkeley, with its appendant district " Beikeley Hcrness," was an escheat of the Crown since its forfeiture in 1051 by Earl Godwin.