The Berkeley family is an ancient English noble family. It is one of only five families in Britain that can trace its patrilineal descent back to an Anglo-Saxon ancestor (the other four being the Arden family, the Swinton family, the Wentworth family, and the Grindlay family).[1][2][3] The Berkeley family retains possession of much of the lands it held from the 11th and 12th centuries, centred on Berkeley Castle in Gloucestershire, which still belongs to the family.
The royal manor of Berkeley was originally granted by William the Conqueror to the Norman Roger de Berkeley under the feudal tenure of fee-farm. However, the royal manor was privatized by King Henry II (1154–1189) shortly before he became king. Most of the manor was then re-granted to his supporter and financier the Anglo-Saxon Robert Fitzharding (d. 1170), of Bristol, as a feudal barony. A second barony was also created for the original family who retained their own lands within Berkeley manor as the barony of Dursley.
Shortly afterwards, under the encouragement of Henry II, who had clearly regretted the effect of his dispossession of Roger, the two families were contracted to the intermarriage of the eldest son and heir of each to the other's eldest daughter.[5] Though only the marriage of Maurice FitzHarding and Alice de Berkeley was completed, the heirs of Robert Fitzharding thus adopted the surname "de Berkeley" and established this line as the feudal barons of Berkeley Castle.[6]
Both lines of Berkeleys therefore originated as cousins, but it was the line of the feudal barons of Berkeley, descended from Fitzharding in the male line, which was the more powerful. By both fair means and foul, they acquired the superiority of all the lands in Berkeley in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and would go on to play a prominent role in British history in the next several centuries. The original family became extinct in England, but the Scottish Clan Barclay are descended in the male line from the original family.
Bruton branch
The Bruton branch descends from Maurice Berkeley (by 1514–1581), a politician who rose rapidly in the Tudor court. He came from the Berkeleys of Stoke Gifford, a cadet branch of the main Berkeley family, as a descendant of Sir Maurice de Berkeley (14th century), younger son of Maurice de Berkeley, 2nd Baron Berkeley. This Sir Maurice, before being killed at the Siege of Calais in 1347, had acquired Stoke Gifford in 1337, and founded the line of Berkeley of Stoke Gifford.
William de Berkeley "William the Waste-All" 1426–1492 Marquess of Berkeley, Earl of Nottingham, Viscount Berkeley, 2nd Baron Berkeley, 12th Feudal Baron of Berkeley
Maurice Berkeley "Maurice the Lawyer" 1436–1506 de jure3rd Baron Berkeley, 13th Feudal Baron of Berkeley
Cokayne, G. E., The Complete Peerage, new edition, Vol. 2, pp. 118–149, Berkeley
Sanders, I. J. English Baronies, Oxford, 1960, p. 13, Berkeley
Smyth, John. The Lives of the Berkeleys, Lords of the Honour, Castle and Manor of Berkeley from 1066 to 1618, ed. Sir John Maclean, 3 vols., Gloucester, 1883-1885 (first published c. 1628)