Robert de Berkeley

Sir Robert de Berkeley, 3rd feudal baron of Berkeley (died 1220) was an Anglo-Norman baron and justice.

Life The eldest of the six sons of Maurice de Berkeley, on his father's death in 1190 he paid to the king Richard I of England a fine of £1,000, for livery of his inheritance; and to John of England in 1199 60 marks for confirmation of his title and a charter of fairs in his manor of Berkeley.

At the time of the Fourth Crusade, King John in 1202 requested that Pope Innocent III absolve certain of his knights who had taken vows from serving as crusaders, for the sake of defending his realm, and Robert was one of them. In 1208 Robert was a justiciar at Derby.

Robert took a leading part in the struggle between King John and the barons. He was included in the excommunication of the barons pronounced by Innocent III, and Berkeley Castle and its lands were seized. In 1216, however, shortly before John died, he visited the king, then at Berkeley Castle, under a safe-conduct, and made his submission. The manor of Cam, Gloucestershire was then granted to him for the support of his wife Juliana, niece of William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke.

Legacy Robert was a benefactor of St Augustine's Abbey, Burdenstoke in Wiltshire, Stanley Priory in Gloucestershire, and the canons of Hereford. He founded St Catherine's Hospital, Bedminster, near Bristol, as an Austin priory for a warden and poor brethren and two chantries elsewhere. see St Mary Redcliffe Pipe Walk.

Family After the death of his first wife Juliana, Robert married Lucia (whose family is not known), later wife to Hugh de Gurney. He left no issue by either wife, and was succeeded by his brother Thomas, to whom Berkeley Castle was restored. Hubert de Burgh ordered Ralph Musard as Sheriff to take possession: Musard had been a household knight of the late 1st Earl of Pembroke. Thomas de Berkeley was married, as his brother had been, to a daughter of a sister of the 1st Earl of Pembroke.

The matter was resolved by de Burgh, under terms by which the Earl of Salisbury gave up the castle to the king. Thomas took possession of it in 1224.