Page:The Complete Peerage Ed 2 Vol 2.djvu/135

BERKELEY 119 in forming a judgment as to how far, by analogy with times past, the possession of the Honour, Castle and Manor of Berkeley can be supposed, in more modern times, to have constituted a Barony by tenure, (in the sense of an hereditary Peerage dignity') a brief account is here given (as was done in the somewhat similar case of Abergavenny) of its possessors previous to 1295, the date when the (then) possessor was sum. to Pari, by writ as a Baron. " Of the few instances " says Sir N. H. Nicolas [Nicolas, p. 21] "that afford grounds for considering that the dignity of a Baron was attached to territorial possessions after the reign of Edward I, the Barony of Berkeley is undoubtedly the strongest, and is consequently the most deserving of attention. Until (1295) 23 Edw. I, the ancestors of Thomas de Berkeley, who in that year was sum. to Pari., were unquestionably Barons of the realm by tenure of the Castle and Honor of Berkeley." It may, however, be urged with great force that, before the period when a writ of summons converted a Barony into a personal instead of a territorial dignity, the owner of this demesne though doubtless a Feudal Baron, was nothing more, and was not (as is implied by Nicolas) a Peer " of the Realm." In the Lords' Reports, vol. iii, p. 92, it is stated that " a right to be sum. to Pari, by reason of tenure of any land denominated at any time a Barony does not appear by any document which the Committee have discovered to have been asserted in the reign of Edward I, or any of his successors, till the claim made by Edward Nevill in respect of his possession of the Barony of Bergavenny, in the reign of James I." In the instance of " Berkeley," no such claim was advanced //// the reign of Charles II, but it may elucidate the matter (before setting out the succession in full) to give a short sketch of the position of that Barony from the writ of 1295 to 1661. In July 141 7 by the death, s.p.m., of Thomas, Lord Berkeley, (heir gen. of the Baron first sum. to Pari, by writ in 1295) James Berkeley, his nephew and heir male (not however his h. gen.), sue. after 4 years' contro- versy to the Berkeley estate under an entail, and then and not //// then (though he was of full age at his uncle's death) was (Oct. 142 1) sum. to Pari, as a Baron. William, Marquess of Berkeley, s. and h. of this James, </. Sep. 1492, having settled the said estate on King Henry VII and the heirs male of his body. Maurice Berkeley, br. and h. to the Marquess (and h. to any Barony in fee cr. by the writ of 142 1, though not to that of 1295), was never sum. to Pari, as a Baron, but Maurice, his s. and h., is said to have been so sum. 14 Hen. VIII, but d. s.p. a few months after- wards (Sep. 1523), when his Peerage, if cr. {de novo) by the writ (of 1523) to himself, would have become extinct. This supposition, however, is made unlikely by the issuing of a writ of summons as a Baron, at the very next Pari. (1529) 21 Hen. VIII, to Thomas Berkeley, his br. and h., which writ, unless an ancient Barony was vested by descent in him, would have acted as a new creation of that date. Now though the precedency of this Lord