ZTbe 1bcm. (Brantles jf. Berfcelep 447 



sport was as keen as ever, and his reminiscences had 

 always something racy about them, all the more, 

 perhaps, because of his sublime egoism. No one, 

 however, can deny that he was a good sportsman, and 

 in practical knowledge of wood-craft he had few equals 

 in his day. These are the points in his character 

 which I shall endeavour to emphasise in the following 

 sketch of his career. 



The Honourable George Charles Grantley Fitzhardinge 

 Berkeley, to give him his full title, was the sixth son 

 of Frederick Augustus, fifth Earl of Berkeley, and was 

 born on February 6th, 1800. His father's marriage 

 was the subject of a prolonged and painful scandal 

 which gained publicity through the attempts of the 

 eldest son, Colonel Berkeley, afterwards created Baron, 

 and finally Earl, Fitzhardinge, to make good his claim 

 to the earldom. 



The fifth Earl, when a young cavalry officer, formed 

 an intimacy with Mary Cole, the daughter of a 

 Gloucester tradesman, by whom he had four sons 

 before he married her in the year 1796. In order to 

 legitimatise the eldest of these sons and enable him to 

 claim the title, it was sought to prove that the Earl 

 had been secretly married to Mary Cole nine years 

 before the public ceremony took place. But the House 

 of Lords rejected the evidence adduced in proof of the 

 prior marriage, and decided that Thomas Moreton 

 Fitzhardinge, the fifth son, who was undoubtedly born 

 in wedlock, was the rightful heir to the earldom. 

 Moreton, however, refused to cast a slur upon his 

 mother's honour by assuming the title. Grantley came 



