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The Berkeley family is an old British nobility. Sir Bernard Burke: A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Colonial Gentry: Vol.I: Wentworth of Vaucluse: pp.95-97 It is one of few families in Britain that can trace its patrilineal descent back to a pre-Norman era Anglo-Saxon ancestor (the other four being the Arden family, the Swinton family, the Wentworth family, and the Grindlay family). Sir Bernard Burke: A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Colonial Gentry: Vol.I: Wentworth of Vaucluse: pp.95-97 The Berkeley family retains possession of much of the lands it held from the 11th and 12th centuries, centered on Berkeley Castle in Gloucestershire, which still belongs to the family.Burke, Sir Bernard. A Genealogical & Heraldic Dictionary of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain & Ireland, 18th Edition, Volume 1 Sir Bernard Burke: A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Colonial Gentry: Vol.I: Wentworth of Vaucluse: pp.95-97
Berkeley Castle, the Caput baroniae of the barony, and the adjoining town of Berkeley are located in the county of Gloucestershire and are situated about five miles west of Dursley and eighteen miles southwest of Gloucester, and northeast of Bristol. The location has conferred various titles on the family over the centuries, including Baron Berkeley (barony by writ), Earl of Berkeley, and Marquess of Berkeley. Sir Bernard Burke: A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Colonial Gentry: Vol.I: Wentworth of Vaucluse: pp.95-97
The royal manor of Berkeley was originally granted by William the Conqueror to the Norman Roger de Berkeley under the feudal tenure of fee-farm. However, the royal manor was privatized by King Henry II (1154–1189) shortly before he became king. Most of the manor was then re-granted to his supporter and financier the Anglo-Saxon Robert Fitzharding (d. 1170), of Bristol, as a feudal barony. A second barony was also created for the original family who retained their own lands within Berkeley manor as the barony of Dursley. Sir Bernard Burke: A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Colonial Gentry: Vol.I: Wentworth of Vaucluse: pp.95-97
Shortly afterwards, under the encouragement of Henry II, who had clearly regretted the effect of his dispossession of Roger, the two families were contracted to the intermarriage of the eldest son and heir of each to the other's eldest daughter.From "The Peerage, Baronetage, and Knightage of the British Empire", The Earl of Berkeley, pp. 70–71 (1882) Though only the marriage of Maurice FitzHarding and Alice de Berkeley was completed, the heirs of Robert Fitzharding thus adopted the surname "de Berkeley" and established this line as the feudal barons of Berkeley Castle.According to an article by James Lees-Milne in the 18th edition of Burke's Peerage or Burke's Landed Gentry, volume 1.
Both lines of Berkeleys therefore originated as cousins, but it was the line of the feudal barons of Berkeley, descended from Fitzharding in the male line, which was the more powerful. By both fair means and foul, they acquired the superiority of all the lands in Berkeley in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and would go on to play a prominent role in British history in the next several centuries. The original family became extinct in England, but the Scottish Clan Barclay are descended in the male line from the original family. Sir Bernard Burke: A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Colonial Gentry: Vol.I: Wentworth of Vaucluse: pp.95-97
By now a remote cousin of the main line, in his career the Tudor Sir Maurice's initial advantage was his mother's second marriage to Sir John FitzJames, Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench, 1526–1539. By 1538 this had brought him into the household of Thomas Cromwell, from which he passed into the royal household by 1539.Virgoe He built a house on the site of Bruton Priory, a spoil of the Dissolution of the Monasteries, incorporating some of the buildings, but this was demolished in 1786. His "Bruton branch" of the family produced a number of notable figures until the 18th century, including five Barons Berkeley of Stratton (extinct in 1773), and four Viscount Fitzhardinges (extinct in 1712), as well as William Berkeley, Governor of Virginia. Berkeley Square in London derives its name from this branch. One of the most distinguished members of the family was Elizabeth, Princess Berkeley, the only daughter of Augustus Berkeley, 4th Earl of Berkeley by his wife, Elizabeth Drax, widow of William Craven, 6th Baron Craven and morganatic wife of Alexander, Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach, brother of Queen Caroline. Sir Bernard Burke: A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Colonial Gentry: Vol.I: Wentworth of Vaucluse: pp.95-97
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