William Berkeley, 1st Earl FitzHardinge refused to claim his right to the earldom. In 1831 William Berkeley was raised to the peerage as Baron Segrave, of Berkeley Castle in the County of Gloucester. Berkeley was returned to parliament as one of two representatives for Gloucestershire in 1810 (succeeding his uncle Sir George Cranfield-Berkeley), a seat he only held until 1811. In 1836 he was appointed Lord-Lieutenant of Gloucestershire, a post he retained until his death. In 1841 he was further honoured when he was made Earl FitzHardinge. Berkeley never married. He had several mistresses, and in 1821 John Waterhouse succeeded in an action for "criminal
Berkeley Castle before returning him to Berkeley Castle in September. Some commentators have claimed that Edward's escape was actually successful, and that someone else was later murdered in his place. Historical sources record that Edward was murdered there on 21 September 1327. Raphael Holinshed's "Chronicles" (1587 edition), drawing on earlier sources, describes Edward's murder in detail:they [the murderers] came suddenlie one night into the chamber where he laie in bed fast asléepe, and with heauie featherbeds or a table (as some [sources] write) being cast vpon him, they kept him down and withall put into his fundament [i.e., his anus] an horne,