61 



After the withdrawal of the Eomans a long period of anarchy 

 and bloodshed followed, during which the Island was overrun by 

 the Saxons and the Danes, who settled in and occupied the 

 country, driving the original inhabitants into the more inacces- 

 sible parts of Wales, Devon, and Cornwall. 



In the reign of Edward the Confessor we find the earliest 

 mention of Berkeley, in the celebrated legend of the " Witch of 

 Berkeley," on which Southet has written a well-known ballad. 

 At that time the site of the castle was occupied by a wealthy 

 nunnery, which was endowed with the greater part, if not the 

 whole, of the manors now forming the Hundred or Great Manor 

 of Berkeley. 



About the year 1043 the celebrated Earl Godwin, having 

 cast a covetous eye on the rich possessions of the Nunnery, 

 contrived its suppression by an artifice which is recorded in the 

 County Histories, and then procured from the king a grant of 

 its confiscated estates to himself. He did not, however, long 

 enjoy his illgotten wealth ; a few years afterwards he fell into 

 disgrace and fled to the Continent, and the whole of his posses- 

 sions was confiscated ; he returned, however, in the next year, 

 and regained, to some extent, his power and influence, but died 

 within the year a.d. 1053. 



Berkeley seems to have been retained by the king, Edwaed 

 the Confessor, and was by him granted at a fee-farm rent equal 

 to £500 17s. 2d. of modern money to Eogee, the Lord of Dukslet, 

 who was of an old Saxon family said to be allied in blood to the 

 king. At the Conquest Roger was permitted by the Norman 

 king to continue to hold Berkeley as before, and it remained in 

 the possession of his son and grandson down to the latter end of 

 the reign of Stephen. From their tenure of the royal manor of 

 Berkeley, by far the greater part of their possessions, this family 

 assumed or were known by the name of De Berkeley, which 

 continued to be their patronymic for many generations, until 

 the male line became extinct in 1382. It is necessary to dis- 

 tinguish between these De Berkelets and the descendants of 

 Robert the son of Harding the Dane, who afterwards assumed 

 the same name, but who did not possess Berkeley till the 

 beginning of the reign of Henry II. 



