1bon. (Brantlep jf. Berfeeles 45 i 



Guards. Before joining the regiment, however, he went 

 up to Oxford and matriculated at Corpus Christi 

 College, but after a few months' residence left the 

 University for the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, 

 where he had a year's instruction. His career in the 

 army was brief. He exchanged from the Coldstreams 

 into the 82nd Foot, and retired altogether from the 

 service in 1821, a few months after he came of age. 



On August 1 6th, 1824, Berkeley married Caroline 

 Martha, daughter of Paul Benfield, an India merchant 

 who was supposed to have amassed a fortune of con- 

 siderably over half a million, but lost it all in rash 

 speculations, and died in poverty in Paris fourteen years 

 before Grantley Berkeley's marriage. Benfield, however, 

 had settled 10,000 on his daughter before the collapse 

 of his fortunes. With his wife's dowry and his own 

 private means Grantley was able to settle down at 

 Harrold Hall, Hertfordshire, and devote himself to the 

 field-sports of which he was so enthusiastic a lover. 



For two years he was Master of the Oakley Hounds, 

 and he also tried his hand at stag-hunting in the Harrow 

 country. But, though in hound-lore and knowledge of 

 the " arte of venerie " he had few superiors among his 

 contemporaries, Grantley Berkeley had not the social 

 qualities which go to the making of a popular M.F.H. 

 His methods savoured too much of the fortiter in re, too 

 little of the suaviter in modo. In the Harrow country 

 he was at constant war with the farmers pitched battles 

 with sticks and fists were of frequent occurrence and in 

 his " Reminiscences of a Huntsman " there are some 

 very graphic and amusing narratives of these encounters. 



