53 



civil or military annals of the kingdom in which, they were not 

 mixed up. 



Robert de Berkeley was one of the barons who won Magna 

 Charta from king John. His immediate successors were actively 

 engaged in the Welsh wars, which ended in the conquest of that 

 country, in the wars against the Scots under Wallace and 

 Bruce, and they fought at Crecy, Poictiers, and Agincourt. 

 They were generally to be found on the popular side in all 

 rebellions ; that against the favourites of Edward II. found its 

 successful close in the imprisonment and murder of the king at 

 Berkeley Castle, on September 21st, 1327. The combination 

 between Henry of Lancaster (afterwards Henry IV.,) and 

 the Duke of York, which led to the downfall of Eichard II,, 

 took place at the castle and in the chiirch of Berkeley in 1399. 

 Thomas, 10th Lord Berkeley, in the time of Henry IY., 

 a.d. 1404, commanded an English fleet which gained two im- 

 portant victories over the French, who were endeavouring to 

 support Owen Glendower's rebellion in Wales. The Berkeleys 

 took no prominent part in the Wars of the Eoses, being then 

 engrossed with the family contests between the heirs male and 

 the heirs general of Thomas, the 10th Lord, in the course 

 of which the castle was several times besieged, taken, and 

 retaken, and the battle of Mbley Green was fought between 

 William, 12th Lord Berkeley, and his cousin Lord Lisle, in 

 1469. William, Lord Berkeley became successively Earl of 

 Nottingham, Marquis of Berkeley, and Great Mareschal of 

 England, and, dying in 1492, left the castle and the whole of 

 the family inheritance by his will to the king, Henry VII. It 

 was held by that king and his successors, Henry VIII. and 

 Edward VI., until by the death of the latter, without issue, in 

 1553, it again returned to the family, after an alienation of 

 sixty-one years, four months, and twenty days. Henry, 17th 

 Lord Berkeley, and his Lady were remarkable for their 

 magnificence at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth. During 

 the Civil Wars of Charles I. reign, the castle was at first 

 occupied by the Parliament, but the garrison was withdrawn to 

 reinforce that of Gloucester, after which it was held by the royal 



