[Illustration: B]ERKELEY is one of the most ancient of the manors of England; it is styled a royal demesne and free borough in Domesday Book, and, during the reign of Edward the Confessor, a religious house existed there for nuns. This, having been forfeited, was granted to the famous Earl Godwin; and a tradition still endures, that the crafty earl obtained it by corrupting the inmates of the nunnery, whose dissolute conduct he afterwards reported to the sovereign. By this wicked means he obtained their possessions; but his consort, Gueda, refused maintenance from lands thus acquired, and her lord assigned to her use the manor of Woodchester. The history of the castle is full of the deepest interest, from the Conquest to the close of the Civil War, and a few facts collected from the statements of its many historians cannot fail to be acceptable to our readers. William the Conqueror bestowed the manor on Roger, surnamed De Berkeley, one of the soldiers of his invading army: his grandson taking part with Stephen against Henry II., was deprived of his inheritance, which was given by the king to Robert Fitzhardinge, governor of Bristol, “a Dane of royal descent,” in reward for eminent services; and with the posterity of this renowned knight the manor has ever since remained.[24] By this Robert the castle is believed to have been founded, and of the original structure the Keep is undoubtedly a part. About the year 1186, the lord of Berkeley having occasion to widen the castle moat, trespassed a few feet on the churchyard, which had been granted by Robert Fitzhardinge to the abbey of St. Augustin at Bristol. Richard, the first abbot, indignant at this infringement of ecclesiastical rights, according to Fuller, “so persecuted him with church censures, that he made him in a manner cast the dirt of the ditch in his own face,” compelling him not only publicly to confess his fault, but to bestow upon the abbey a portion of land, “pro emendatione culpæ suæ.” About the middle of the thirteenth century the castle was strengthened and beautified by Maurice, lord of Berkeley, walks and gardens were formed around it, the course of a small river was changed for its convenience, and pools and ponds were made for fish. By Edward II. the castle was granted in succession to his favourites, Piers Gavestone and Hugh Spencer, but his rebellious queen at the head of her army restored it to its legitimate owner. Soon after this event, in 1327, the castle became the scene of a frightful tragedy--the murder of the king under circumstances of unparalleled atrocity. Edward, then imprisoned at Kenilworth, having been compelled to resign the crown in favour of his son, was transferred to the safer keeping of Berkeley Castle; but its lord manifesting proof of sympathy with the unhappy sovereign, his relentless queen, by the counsel of her paramour, Mortimer, placed in charge over him Sir Thomas Gournay and Sir John