Berkeley, George, 1st Earl Berkeley (1628 -1698)

George Berkeley was the second but only surviving son of George Berkeley, 8th Lord Berkeley and Elizabeth, second daughter and coheir of Sir Michael Stanhope. Educated at Christ Church, Oxford, he succeeded his father as 9th Lord in 1658. He was one of the Commissioners to the Hague to bring back Charles II. He was created Viscount Dursley, and Earl Berkeley, both in Gloucestershire, 11 September 1679. He was on the Committee of the East India Company 1660 1697; Fellow of the Royal Society 20 May 1663; Governor of the Levant Company 1673 1696; Master of Trinity House 1681 1682; and one of the Lords who subscribed at Guildhall in December 1688 the declaration to assist the Prince of Orange. He married Elizabeth, daughter and coheir of John Massingberd, and left a valuable collection of books assembled by Sir Robert Coke, who had married his father's sister Theophyla Berkeley, to Sion College in London. These arms are made up. The frame and the coronet are impressed; the arms are painted. There is another example of similar arms on a binding made for Arthur Capell, 1st Earl of Essex on a copy of the same book and with the same frame but with the coronet of an Earl.