Robert Barclay Allardice, Esq. of Ury, in Kincardineshire, is descended from an ancient and honourable family. We can trace his progenitors so far back as to the third year of the reign of Alexander I. son to Malcolm III. king of Scotland; and the tenth of Henry I. son to William the Conqueror; or, to the year 1110. In the time of William the Lion, there were four eminent persons in Scotland, of the name of _Berkeley_, or _Berkelai_, sprung from the same stock, and united by consanguinity, viz. _Walter_, _William_, _Humphrey_, and _Robert_. The two first were great chamberlains of the kingdom. _Walter_ is so designed in a donation granted by him to the monks of _Aberbrothwick_, of the church of _Innerkelder_, in the county of Angus, which is confirmed by William the Lion, and still preserved in the Advocates’ Library of Edinburgh, and also in the _Charter of Aberdeen_, which remains in perfect preservation in the Record Office of that city. _William_ is likewise designed chamberlain, in a deed granted by the king to the monks of the _Cistertian_ order, which is copied from the original by _Anderson_, in his _Independency_ of Scotland. Walter de Berkeley was one of the pledges for William the Lion, to Henry the Second of England, as mentioned in Abercrombie’s history. He was appointed chamberlain in 1165, and was one of those who returned to Scotland with William, about the close of the year 1174[33]. Walter left two daughters only, one of whom, according to Nicols’ Peerage, was married to _Seten_ of _Seton_, the predecessor of the Earl of _Winton_. From these circumstances, it is a natural deduction, that the Berkeley family must have been settled in Scotland long previously to this period. They enjoyed the confidence of the king, and held the highest offices in the state, which would not probably have been the case with men of low extraction, or who had recently emerged from obscurity.