And in it are the Lords of York, Berkeley, and Seymour.”
Lord Thomas pronounced the deposition of Richard in Parliament in 1399. John of Trevisa, whose translations from the Apocalypse are yet seen on the ribs of the chapel roof at Berkeley, was vicar of this parish during the life of this lord. Lord Thomas left a daughter only, married to Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, who strove hard, but in vain, to oust the heir male, James de Berkeley. Lord Warwick appeared before the castle in 1418 with an armed force, and his heirs preferred a suit at law which lasted 150 years, varied with occasional combats, one of which, known as the battle of Nibley Green, led to the settlement of the dispute, Lord Lisle, the claimant, being slain in the field by William Lord Berkeley. William, the next lord, was created Earl of Nottingham by Richard III., and Marquis of Berkeley by Henry VII., in return for which he alienated the estate from his brother and male heir in favour of the latter king and his heirs male, nor did the Berkeleys recover it until the death of Edward VI. and the failure of the royal male line, when the castle was recovered by Henry, who resumed the title of Berkeley, after an alienation of 61 years 4 months and 20 days.
Henry VII. is said to have erected the kitchen, but probably he only put a new roof upon it.
During the Parliamentary struggle, the Lord of Berkeley seems to have been a moderate Royalist, with strong friends among the Parliamentary leaders. In 1642 it was surrendered to Lieutenant-Colonel Arthur Forbes, for the Parliament, but was not pillaged, and even the arms contained in it were not removed. Probably this moderation was abused, for, 24th September, 1645, being held by Sir Charles Lucas, it was stormed from the churchyard by Colonels Rainsborough and Morgan, and free plunder allowed to the soldiery. Fortunately, at the moment of victory, a pressing order came for the march of the troops to assist Fairfax, on which the plunder was compounded for at 5s. a head. Such goods as were taken away were inquired after and restored, and the chief mischief seems to have been confined to the muniment room, where the charters and title-deeds were torn and mutilated. In 1646 the out-works were destroyed, and the arms, ammunition, and drawbridge removed to Gloucester. Probably the great breach was then made by the workmen employed upon the earthworks, which would account for the careful manner in which the wall has been cut away.
George, Lord Berkeley, was created in 1679, by Charles II., Viscount Dursley and Earl of Berkeley, titles still extant.
BODIHAM CASTLE, SUSSEX.
ABOUT four miles below the ancient Priory of Robertsbridge, and fourteen, by its own sinuous course, above its junction with the sea below the old Cinque Port of Rye, the Rother, a considerable Sussex river, receives from the north an important tributary known as the Kent Ditch, and, time out of mind, the boundary of the two counties. The waters meet obliquely, and between them intervenes a tongue or cape of high land tapering and falling gradually towards the junction, and occupied by the church, village, and castle of Bodiham.
Who was Bodi, or Bode, whose home was here established, is unknown. He was evidently a Saxon, and from the position of his estate, probably an early one, giving name it may be to a tract won in arms from the Britons. Ham is here a very common termination to the proper names of places, varied with Hurst and Den and Ley, and other less frequent but equally Saxon denominations.
The church stands on the high ground, a little north of the centre of the cape, the castle about 600 yards to the south of it, and about half the distance from the Rother, at some thirty feet or so above its level. The Rother, here and lower down, traverses broad patches of lowland, now fertile meadow, but in former days evidently inaccessible morass. The position, therefore, between the two streams with their marshy banks was defended by nature towards the south and east, the quarter from which, after the complete expulsion of the Britons and during the early Saxon period, danger was mainly to be apprehended.