THE FITZHARDINGES. 



Among the very few aristocratic families who can claim 

 to have ' come over with the Conqueror,' and can produce 

 satisfactory proof in support of that claim, are the 

 Berkeleys, of which line the Barons Fitzhardinge 

 represent, by a curious anomaly, the elder branch. The 

 first of the race of whom there is any trustworthy record 

 was Roger de Berkeley, who fought at what is still 

 known as the Battle of Hastings, despite all the efforts of 

 the late Professor Freeman to force upon us the 

 pedantic nomenclature of Senlac. Whether Roger were 

 any worse than the bulk of the Norman adventurers 

 who followed Duke William to England, there is no 

 means of ascertaining. But I think he must have had 

 some heavy burden of wrong-doing on his mind, which 

 filled him with remorse in his latter days ; for he turned 

 monk and died in the odour of sanctity, within the 

 walls of St Peter's Monastery at Gloucester, seven-and- 

 twenty years after the victory which made William King 

 of England. From that time to this, there has been no 

 break in the pedigree of the Berkeleys, and there is no 

 older baronial fortress and mansion in England than 

 Berkeley Castle, the seat of the earl who is head of the 

 house. Commenced in the reign of Henry I. in the 

 year 1108, it was not finished till his successor had been 

 two ye^rs upon the throne. An ' historic pile ' it is, 



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