Berkeley family Berkeley family The Berkeley family is an aristocratic English family, nearly unique in English history in that it has to this day an unbroken male line of descent from a noble Saxon ancestor before the Norman conquest of England in 1066 and also retains possession of much of the lands it held from the 11th and 12th centuries, centred on Berkeley Castle in Gloucestershire, which still belongs to the family. The Berkeley family descends in the male line from Robert Fitzharding (d.1170), 1st feudal baron of Berkeley, Gloucestershire, reputedly the son of Harding of Bristol, the son of Eadnoth the
Henry Berkeley, 7th Baron Berkeley The 6th Baron had earlier been married to Mary Hastings, the daughter of George Hastings, 1st Earl of Huntingdon, by Anne Stafford (d. March 1533), daughter of Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, but had no issue by her. Berkeley was made a Knight of the Bath on 28 September 1553 at the coronation of Mary I. In the following year, Berkeley Castle and other estates were restored to him when the line of male heirs of Henry VII was extinguished. As Simon Adams points out, "in 1487 William, Marquis Berkeley, had granted Berkeley Castle and its related manors to