BEItESFOKD — BERKELEY. 321 BERESFORD, co. Stafford. Sep. "Beresford of Beresford co. Stafford," Yiscountcy, a; 1823, « 1864. BERGAVENNY, see " ABERGAVENNY." BERKELEY. (*) Observation*. — On account of the notoriety of this dignity and to assist in forming a judgment M to how far, by analogy with times past, the possession of the Honour, Castle and Manor of Berkeley can be supposed, in more modem times, to have constituted a Baron;/ by tenure, (in the sense of a hereditary Pceraije dignity) a brief account is here given (as was done in the somewhat similar case of Abergavenny) of its possessors previous to 1295, the date when the (then) possessor was sum. to Farl. by u-ril as a Baron. " Of the few instances " says Sir N. H. Nicolas [" Nicolas." p. 21 "] " that afford ground! fur considering that the dignity of a Baron was attached to territorial possessions after the reign of Ed. I, the Barony of Berkeley is undoubtedly the strongest, and is consequently the most deserving of attention. Until (1295) 23 Ed. I, the ancestors of Thomas de Berkeley, who in that year was sum. to Pari, were unquestii mably Baron* of the nalm by tenure of the Castle, and Honor of Berkeley." It may, however, be not unreasonably argued that, before the period when a writ of summons converted a Barony into a personal instead of a territorial dignity, the owner of this demense tho' doubtless a Feudal Baron was but such and was not (as is implied by Nicolas) a Peer "of the Realm." In the " Lords' Report*," iii, p. 92, it is stated that "a right to be sum. to Pari, by reason of tenure of any land denominated at any time a Barony does not appear by any document which the Committee have discovered to have been asserted in the reign of Ed Word I, or any of his successors, till the claim made by Edward Nevill in respect of his possession of the Barony of Bergavenny, in the reign of James I." In the instance of " Berkeley," no such claim was advanced till the reign of Charles II, but it may somewhat elucidate the matter (before setting out the succession in full) to give a short sketch of the position of that Barony from the writ of 1295 to 1GC1. In July 1-117 by the deatli s.p.m. of Thomas, Lord Berkeley, (heir gen. of the Enron first sum. to Pari, by writ in 1295) James Berkeley, his nephew and heir mule (nut however his h. gen.) sue. after 4 years controversy, to the Berkeley Estate under an entail, and then, and not till then (tho' he was of full age at his Uncle's purchased) to, (the yst. of the three sons of his wife), Alexander James Beresford Hope, afterwards the Rt. Hon. A. J. B. BERKSFonD-Hppg. His Irish estates he left to his nephew Denis William Pack, afterwards D. V. Pack- Beresford of Fenagh Lodge, co. Carlow, 2nd .8 of Major Gen. Sir Denis Pack, K.C.B., by Elizabeth Louisa, da (bom in wedlock) of (testator's Father) George de la Poer (Beresford) 1st Marquees of Waterford [I] above-named. (") In 1885 the " Lives of tho Beikeleys, Lords of the Honour, Castle and Manor of Berkeley, from 1066 to 1G1S, with a description of the Hundred of Berkeley and its inhabitants, by John Smyth of Nibley," were edited (most ably) by Sir John Maclean, F.S.A., &c. (for "tho Bristol and Glouc. Archrcological Society) in 3 vols. ito. The original MS. is in 3 vols, folio, containing 933 closely written pages, and is preserved at Berkeley Castle, and it is well said in tho transactions of the Bristol and Glouc. Arch. Soc. (vol. v. 1880-81) that " it is scarcely possible to over-estimate the Archicological value and importance of such a compilation as this."
