probably a Norman castle had been built at Berkeley; for Henry spent Easter there in 1121 (Anglo-Saxon Chron.) and Roger, the son and successor of William, having fallen into the hands of Walter, the brother of Miles, earl of Hereford, in the time of the anarchy, was cruelly tortured to make him give up his castle (Gesta Stephani). His son Roger lost some of his lands, and in 12 Hen. II part of Berkeley was held by Robert FitzHarding. As at that date Roger held certain fees of the honour of Berkeley, for which he did no service to Robert, it may be supposed that he had forfeited some part of his estate by opposition to Henry FitzEmpress; that of these forfeited lands part had been granted by the crown to Robert FitzHarding; and that the honour, with the castle of Berkeley, was perhaps still in the king's hand (Liber Niger Scacc. i. 165, 171). An alliance was made between the rival families; for Roger married his daughter Alicia to Maurice, the eldest son of Robert FitzHarding, giving Slimbridge as her marriage portion. In spite of these losses, Roger of Berkeley, as he was still called, retained large estates, and his house was represented in the elder line by the Berkeleys of Dursley (Testa de Nevill, 77), extinct in 1382, and in the younger by the Berkeleys of Cubberley, extinct in 1404 (Fosbroke, Smyth).
The house of Robert FitzHarding, which has held the castle of Berkeley for seven hundred years, descends in the male line from Eadnoth, the ‘staller’ of Edward the Confessor and of Harold, the son of Godwine (Codex Dipl. iv. 204; Freeman, Norman Conquest, iv. 757), who fell in battle against the sons of Harold in 1067. Of his son Harding (Codex Dipl. iv. 234) William of Malmesbury, speaking of him as then alive, tells us (Gest. Reg. iii. 254) that he was ‘better used to whet his tongue in strife than to wield his arms in war.’ This Harding may probably be identified with the Harding who, in 1062, subscribed the confessor's Waltham charter as ‘reginæ pincerna’ (Codex Dipl. iv. 159), and continued after the Conquest in the household of Eadgyth, appearing as a witness to the sale of Combe to Bishop Gisa, transacted in Eadgyth's presence at Wilton in 1072 (Liber Albus, ii. 254 fo. Chapter Records, Wells). In 1086 he held lands in Gloucestershire in pledge of a certain Brihtric, who held them in the time of Edward the Confessor (Domesday, i. 170 b, and Freeman, as above). It is safe to assume that Robert FitzHarding was his son. It is possible that Harding had an elder son, Nicolas, the ancestor of the family of Meriet (Smyth's Lives, p. 19, n. A, ed. Maclean). If this was so, the younger son soon outstripped the elder in wealth. Whether the honour of Berkeley was in the king's hands in 12 Hen. II, or had already passed to the new family, it is certain that before long it was granted to the house of Eadnoth; and on the accession of Richard I Maurice, the son of Robert and the husband of Alicia, procured a charter from the king granting him the lordship of Berkeley Hernesse, to be held by him and his heirs in barony (Lords' Committee, 1829). This charter does not imply that a new grant was made. Like many others of the same date, it probably confirmed a former grant, and Robert FitzHarding is to be held the first lord of Berkeley of the new line. This Robert founded St. Augustine's, in Bristol, as a priory of black canons (Monast. vi. 363). His grandson, Robert [q. v.], the son of Maurice, having joined the baronial party against John, was excommunicated and his castle was seized by the king (Wendover, iii. 297, where, by a confusion arising from the headquarters of the barons being at Brackley, Robert is called De Brackele; but the connection of the name with that of his kinsman, Maurice de Gant, marks the lord of Berkeley; see also p. 356 and Close Rolls 18 John, p. 276). Robert, dying without issue in 1219, was succeeded by his brother Thomas, who obtained seisin of his lands on 5 March 1220 (Close Rolls 4 Hen. III). His grandson, also named (1) Thomas, took an active part in the wars of Edward I against the Welsh, the Scots, and the French. As he received a writ of summons to the parliament of 1295, the date fixed by lawyers as a period of limitation, he is reckoned as the first baron of Berkeley who held and transmitted an hereditary peerage (Lords' Report, App. i. 67). His name is also to be found among the barons who, on 12 Feb. 1301, wrote to Pope Boniface VIII on the subject of his claim to the lordship of Scotland (Fœd. i. 926, 927; Hemingb. ii. 209). As the lords of Berkeley held Bedminster and Redcliff, they were brought into conflict with the burghers of Bristol, who sought to add these estates to their town, and were very jealous of the jurisdiction which the lords exercised in them. This jealousy led to open violence in 1303, and a long struggle ensued between the burghers and the Lord Thomas and his son Maurice (Parl. and Close Rolls 33 Ed. I; Seyer, Hist. of Bristol, ii. 77; Smyth, Lives, 195–200). Shortly before the death of Edward I, Thomas was sent on an embassy to Rome. In the next reign he was taken prisoner at the battle of Bannockburn. He died in 1321, and was succeeded by his son (2) Maurice. A writ
