Page:The Complete Peerage Ed 2 Vol 2.djvu/140

124 BERKELEY 1068 and 1 07 1, been made Provost of the manor of Berkeley (*) by Earl William Fitz-Osbern (to whom it had been granted at the Con- quest), took the name of de Berkeley from his residence there, and was confirmed in his office by the King about 1080. At the time of the Survey, 1086, Berkeley was farmed by him from the Crown. He was tenant in capite of Dursley, Cubberley, Dodington, fe'c, and (not improbably) was identical with " Roger," farmer of Barton Regis, Bristol. On 17 Jan. 1091 he became a Monk of St. Peter's, Gloucester, and d. 1093. (*") II. fVilliam II. 2. Roger de Berkeley, J/)'/^^ Junior, br. of Eustace of Nympesfield, both being not improbably sons of the above Roger, Senior. He began the building of the Castle of Berkeley in 1 1 17. He d. before Michaelmas, 1131. III. Henry I. 3. Roger de Berkeley, s. and h., who completed the building of the Castle of Berkeley. He suffered much in the wars between Stephen and the Empress Maud, at the hands of Walter, son of Miles, Earl of Hereford. He was deprived of the Manor of Ber- keley, i^c, about 1 152, apparently for refusing to recognise the authority of either party, though he was soon afterwards restored to the Honour of Dursley.() He d. about 1 170, leaving issue. The Castle and " herness " of Berkeley were granted by the King as under. IV. Henry 11. i. Robert FitzHarding, who " may bee called i?o^fr/ the Devouty' s. of Harding,('^) said to have been a if) Berkeley, with its appendant district, " Berkeley Herness," was an escheat of the Crown after its forfeiture in 1 05 1 by Earl Godwin. (*") In the charter of St. Martin at Auchy, mentioned in vol. i, p. 351, note " d," among the benefactors there occurs " Rogerus de Berchelaico cum uxore sua Rissa." {ex inform. G. W. Watson). V.G. (^) This Lordship continued in his descendants in the male line (the issue of his s. and h., Roger de Berkeley, by Helen, 1st da. of Robert FitzHarding, his successor in the lands of Berkeley) for eight generations, when Nicholas Berkeley, the heir male, d. s.p. in 1382. By the h. gen., Robert Wykes, it was alienated in 1564. In 1404, by the death of Sir Nicholas Berkeley, of Coberley, co. Gloucester, the whole of the male issue of Roger, the founder of this race, became extinct. {^) The parentage of this Harding (living c. 1125) has been long and hotly disputed. He has been termed "son of the King of Denmark" (as in the petition of 1661), "Mayor of Bristol," and so forth. The view now generally accepted is that he was the son of Eadnoth (killed 1068), " Staller " to King Harold and to Edward the Confessor. E. A. Freeman pronounces this descent " in the highest degree probable." Eyton (in his Shropshire) devoted much attention to the subject. Refer- ence may also be made to the valuable researches of A. S. Ellis, and to Greenfield's most valuable Pedigree of Meriet, tracing the descent of that family from Nicholas de Meriet, elder br. to Robert FitzHarding. The charters at Berkeley Castle were edited for Lord FitzHardinge in 1892 by I. H. Jeayes. [ex inform. J. H. Round). See also note in Smyth's Berke/eys, vol. i, p. 19, i^c. See N. isf Q., Sth Ser., vol. xii, p. 362, reprinted in Glouc. N. i?" Q., vol. v, p. 31.