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 held quietly for almost two hundred years together? As D.C. Peck explains: Litigation over the Berkeley lands had been going on for two centuries; at this time it was pursued by the Dudleys against Henry (d. 1613), seventh Lord Berkeley, Lord Harry Howard's brother-in-law, from whom they were able to recover several manors. In August 1574 Leicester persuaded the Queen to leave her itinerary and be his guest at Berkeley Castle in its lord's absence, as if it were his own. Berkeley first married, in September 1554, at Kenninghall, Norfolk, Katherine Howard, third daughter of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey,