BERKELEY, Sir Maurice II

In his youth Maurice fought in the wars in France, notably as one of the lances in the retinue of Edward, duke of York, at the battle of Agincourt, and in the summer of 1417 as a member of the contingent led by his brother-in-law, John Arundel, Lord Mautravers (de jure earl of Arundel). He was knighted before May 1427, when he took out letters of attorney in preparation for a journey to Italy. Before his departure he was licenced to exchange the sum of £40, and while in Rome he procured several indulgences from Pope Martin V.6 E101/45/2, 51/2; CCR, 1429-35, p. 375; CPL, vii. 554-6; DKR, xlviii. 250. It was not until the following year that, aged over 30, he came into his substantial inheritance on the death of his elderly father, Sir John, who had named him as an executor. This inheritance, valued at more than 500 marks p.a. in Sir John’s lifetime, was spread over eight counties, but the principal holdings were in Gloucestershire (where the family had benefited from the generosity of Sir Maurice’s grandfather, Thomas, Lord Berkeley), Hampshire and Wiltshire (thanks to his mother’s Bettesthorne patrimony). Certain properties, worth an estimated £160 p.a., remained in the possession of his stepmother, Margaret, until her death in 1444. According to the Berkeleys’ biographer, John Smyth, the estate now held by Sir Maurice was ‘greater than that of James, Lord Berkeley’, and this branch of the family was clearly considered to be on an equal footing with members of the nobility.7 C139/35/50; CFR, xv. 197; J. Smyth, Lives of the Berkeleys ed. Maclean, 351; PPC 9 Luffenham (PROB11/3, f. 66); H.L. Gray, ‘Incomes from Land in Eng. in 1436’, EHR, xlix. 637.

Immediately after coming into his own, Sir Maurice increased his holdings by purchasing an inn with an adjacent wharf in Thames Street, London,8 Harl. Chs. 46 A 46, 47. and set about finding a wife. Laura, daughter of the late Lord Fitzhugh, was one of a large family (she had 12 siblings), but in the previous year her mother had bequeathed to her and one other sister the residue of all her moveable goods, and Laura’s brother Master Robert Fitzhugh (afterwards bishop of London) was prepared to pay 400 marks for the match with Berkeley. On 2 Oct. 1428 Fitzhugh and others agreed to pay this sum in three instalments within three years, and feoffees of the Berkeley estates (including Sir Thomas Stawell†) were bound in 1,000 marks as a guarantee that a month after the wedding Laura would receive as her jointure the manors of Over and Compton Greenfield, Gloucestershire, then worth 100 marks a year but expected to bring in £100 p.a. after the death of Sir Maurice’s stepmother.9 W. Dugdale, Baronage (1675-6 edn.), i. 404; Reg. Langley, iii (Surtees Soc. clxix), 691-2; CP40/671, rot. 602.

Other family concerns also took up Berkeley’s time. He was a feoffee of estates in Cheshire for a settlement on Sir John Sutton (later Lord Dudley), who married his sister, Elizabeth; and another sister, Eleanor, the widowed countess of Arundel, also looked to him for guidance. In April 1430 Eleanor’s eldest son, John, earl of Arundel, then setting off to France for the coronation of Henry VI, named him as executor of his will and assigned to him the issues of one of his manors for the maintenance of his infant son and heir, Humphrey, ‘in his tendre age’. Earl John instructed that if he died overseas Sir Maurice should transfer possession of certain properties to his brother, William. Following the earl’s death in 1435, William claimed that their late father had intended him to have various manors in Somerset, and that while at Rouen in November 1434 Earl John had directed Eleanor, their mother, to make sure he received them. Berkeley and his co-feoffees, however, refused to make the transfer, so that William was forced to petition the chancellor in 1436 or 1437, asking that a serjeant-at-arms be sent to his uncle, then in London, requiring him to appear in Chancery for examination. When Eleanor took as her third husband Walter, Lord Hungerford†, Sir Maurice was among those enfeoffed of Hungerford’s principal estate at Heytesbury in Wiltshire, which formed part of her jointure. No doubt grateful for his support over the years, she left him £20 in her will of 1455, along with bequests to his wife of a cup made of beryl garnished with gold, and a total of £60 to his three sons.10 DKR, xxxvi (2), 696; Reg. Chichele, ii. 542-4; CPR, 1436-41, pp. 23, 300; Procs. Chancery Eliz. ed. Caley and Bayley, i. p. xxxv; CCR, 1447-54, p. 147; PCC 3 Stokton (PROB11/4, f. 23v). In Nov. 1435 Berkeley had stood surety in the Exch. for John Grendon to account for £72 owed from the estate of the late earl of Arundel: E159/212, recorda Mich. rot. 20.

Early in his career, Berkeley had been entrusted with property in Essex on behalf of Walter, Lord Fitzwalter (d.1431), and he helped support Sir William Bonville* (afterwards Lord Bonville) in 1430 when his wife’s dower lands in Lincolnshire were subject to attack. Thus, there is considerable evidence of his connexions among the parliamentary peerage before his public service began. Appointment to the Hampshire bench in 1431 was followed by election to Parliament for the same county in the following year. It is surprising that he was only returned once, so far as is known, and that he was never elected by the gentry of Gloucestershire, where he held a prominent position as sheriff and served as a j.p. for 23 years running. However, he was summoned from that county (with Thomas Mille*) to attend a great council. It was in Gloucestershire that in 1434, like his kinsman, Sir Maurice Berkeley I*, he took the generally prescribed oath not to support those who broke the peace, although which of the two figured more often on royal commissions to raise loans in the locality remains uncertain. This was a thankless task, and on one occasion, in February 1441, the commissioners had to write to the King to say they had been unable to raise the sums expected. Our Sir Maurice of Beverstone had himself made a loan in 1434 (albeit of no more than 20 marks); and he was asked for a personal contribution of 100 marks to be put towards the cost of the duke of York’s expedition to France two years later.11 CPR, 1429-36, pp. 130, 208-10, 373; PPC, iv. 328; vi. 341; SC1/57/76; E401/737, m. 1.

A person of Berkeley’s wealth and standing would naturally often be asked to be a trustee of landed holdings. What set him apart was his willingness to act for men from all walks of life, his contacts ranging from members of the nobility to burgesses, and including Robert Chamberlain (brother of William Chamberlain* the recorder of Southampton), the Gloucestershire landowner Nicholas Poyntz*, William Canterbury of Bristol (who asked him to supervise his will), and the warden and fellows of Winchester College (for whom he acted in the years 1431-42 in the matter of the disputed manor of Fernhill, which, owing to his lead, was eventually appropriated to the college). More predictably, he was a feoffee of property in Nottinghamshire for his brother-in-law, William, Lord Fitzhugh,12 CCR, 1441-7, pp. 205-6; 1454-61, pp. 134, 465; CPR, 1452-61, p. 30; Bristol Wills (Bristol and Glos. Arch. Soc. 1886), 139; Winchester Coll. muns. 9602-7. He and his sons were frequent visitors to Winchester coll.: Archaeologia, lxxv. 155. and of the Welsh manor of Talgarth for his kinsman James, Lord Berkeley.13 Berkeley Castle mss, BCM/C/2/2/17; C/1/3/3/i, ii. Even so, there is no evidence that he was drawn into the latter’s major disputes over the estates of the main line of the family.

In his last years Sir Maurice was joined on the Hampshire bench by his eldest son, Maurice, whose marriage to Anne, daughter of Reynold West, Lord de la Warre, he had arranged as early as 1444. He entailed his manor of West Grimstead, Wiltshire, on the young couple and their issue. Ten years later he provided for his youngest son, Thomas, by arranging that after his death Thomas should have the manor of Exbury and Lepe, Hampshire, in fee tail. Sir Maurice took out a royal pardon in June 1458, followed six months later by letters of exemption from further public service, and he retired from the Hampshire bench at the same time.14 CPR, 1441-6, p. 346; 1452-61, pp. 145, 471; C67/42, m. 14. He died on 5 May 1460, leaving his widow with her jointure in the manors of Over and Compton Greenfield as stipulated in their marriage contract, along with the manor of Woodmancote and property elsewhere in Gloucestershire. It is not known how long she survived him, only that she died before her eldest son.15 C139/179/57; CFR, xix. 246, 276; CCR, 1454-61, pp. 416-17.