Berkeley Castle in 2009, viewed from the southwest

Berkeley Castle (/ˈbɑːrkli/BARK-lee; historically sometimes spelt Berkley Castle or Barkley Castle) is a castle in the town of Berkeley, Gloucestershire, UK (grid referenceST685989). The castle's origins date back to the 11th century, and it has been designated by English Heritage as a grade I listed building.^[1]

The castle has remained within the Berkeley family since they reconstructed it in the 12th century, except for a period of royal ownership by the Tudors. It is traditionally believed to have been the scene of the murder of King Edward II in 1327.^[2]^[3]

Construction of Berkeley Castle began in 1,117AD and the keep was completed by Robert Fitzharding in 1,153AD. It was one of the numerous castles built along the Welsh border (March Castles) to keep the English in. King Edward II was imprisoned and murdered here (1,327AD) and reputedly met his end with a red hot poker (or was it the other way round?).
Accounts that he had been killed by the insertion of a red-hot iron or poker into his anus slowly began to circulate, possibly as a result of deliberate propaganda; chroniclers in the mid-1330s and 1340s spread this account further, supported in later years by Geoffrey le Baker's colourful account of the killing.

BERKELEY CASTLE - GLOUCESTERSHIRE Weddings, Murders, and the English Crown. Songs on spotify for free. I was recently watching an episode of one of those period British murder mystery detective shows where there was a wedding scene which I recognized as Berkeley Castle.

In 1956 Berkeley Castle was opened to visitors and remains open today.^[4]

Construction[edit]

Shell keep and inner gatehouse, viewed from the outer bailey

The first castle at Berkeley was a motte-and-bailey, built around 1067 by William FitzOsbern shortly after the Conquest.^[5] This was subsequently held by three generations of the first Berkeley family, all called Roger de Berkeley, and rebuilt by them in the first half of the 12th century.^[6] The last Roger de Berkeley was dispossessed in 1152 for withholding his allegiance from the House of Plantagenet during the conflict of The Anarchy, and the feudal barony of Berkeley was then granted to Robert Fitzharding, a wealthy burgess of Bristol and supporter of the Plantagenets. He was the founder of the Berkeley family which still holds the castle.^[5]^[7]^[8]^[9]

In 1153–54, Fitzharding received a royal charter from King Henry II giving him permission to rebuild the castle.^[9] Fitzharding built the circular shell keep between 1153 and 1156, probably on the site of the former motte. The building of the curtain wall followed, probably during 1160–90 by Robert and then by his son Maurice.^[5]^[9]

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Much of the rest of the castle is 14th century and was built for Thomas de Berkeley, 3rd Baron Berkeley: Thorpe's Tower, to the north of the keep, the inner gatehouse to its southwest, and other buildings of the inner bailey.^[5]

Murder of Edward II[edit]

Covered walkway leading to Edward II's supposed cell within the castle

The castle was ransacked in 1326 by the forces of Hugh Despenser, the favourite of Edward II. Then in 1327, Edward was deposed by his wife Queen Isabella and her ally Roger Mortimer, and placed in the joint custody of Mortimer’s son-in-law, Thomas de Berkeley, and de Berkeley‘s brother-in-law, John Maltravers. They brought Edward to Berkeley Castle, and held him there for five months from April to September. During that time a band of Edward's supporters attacked, entered the castle and rescued him, only for him to be recaptured soon afterwards. It is possible that his captors then moved him around between several castles to make further rescue more difficult, before returning him to Berkeley Castle in September.^[10]^:115–126 Some commentators have claimed that Edward's escape was actually successful, and that someone else was later murdered in his place.^[3]^[10]^:224–5

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, and through the same they thrust vp into his bodie an hot spit, or (as other [sources] haue) through the pipe of a trumpet a plumbers instrument of iron made verie hot, the which passing vp into his intrailes, and being rolled to and fro, burnt the same, but so as no appearance of any wound or hurt outwardlie might be once perceiued. How to download synapse on mac. His crie did mooue manie within the castell and towne of Berkley to compassion, plainelie hearing him vtter a wailefull noise, as the tormentors were about to murther him, so that diuerse [i.e., several] being awakened therewith (as they themselues confessed) praied heartilie to God to receiue his soule, when they vnderstood by his crie what the matter ment.^[11]

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Suitcase fusion 3 serial number mac download. Christopher Marlowe's tragedy Edward II (The troublesome raigne and lamentable death of Edward the second, King of England, first published 1594) depicts the murder at Berkeley Castle, using props mentioned in Holinshed,^[12] and popular stories of a red-hot poker or suffocation continue to circulate.^[3] The cell where Edward is supposed to have been imprisoned and murdered can still be seen, along with the adjacent 11 m (36 ft) deep dungeon,^[1] which supposedly echoes the events of the murder every year on 21 September.^[13] Holinshed's account records that, leading up to the murder, Edward's keepers 'lodged the miserable prisoner in a chamber ouer a foule filthie dungeon, full of dead carrion, trusting so to make an end of him, with the abhominable stinch thereof: but he bearing it out stronglie, as a man of a tough nature, continued still in life.'^[14]

The account given to Parliament at the time was that Edward had met with a fatal accident, but Holinshed and other historical sources record that great effort was made to keep the murder secret.^[15] The body was embalmed and remained lying in state at Berkeley for a month, in the Chapel of St John within the castle keep, before Thomas de Berkeley escorted it to Gloucester Abbey for burial.^[5]^[10]^:133–8 Thomas was later charged with being an accessory to the murder, but his defence was that it was carried out by the agents of Roger Mortimer while he was away from the castle, and in 1337 he was cleared of all charges.^[10]^:164–6

Later history[edit]

Jan Kip's aerial view of Berkeley Castle engraved for the antiquary Sir Robert Atkyns' The Ancient and Present State of Glostershire, 1712

In the 14th century, the Great Hall was given a new roof and it is here the last court jester in England, Dickie Pearce, died after falling from the Minstrels' gallery. His tomb is in St Mary's churchyard which stands besides