Maurice Berkeley, 3rd Viscount Fitzhardinge
English politician
Maurice Berkeley, 3rd Viscount Fitzhardinge (1628 – 13 June 1690), known as Sir Maurice Berkeley, Bt from 1660 to 1668, was an English politician, of the Bruton branch of the Berkeley family.
Early life
Maurice was the eldest son of Sir Charles Berkeley and his wife Elizabeth Killigrew, and was baptized on 15 June 1628. His father was the head of the branch of the Berkeley family founded by Maurice Berkeley, which was seated at Bruton, Somerset.
Unlike his relatives, he took no part in the English Civil War. On 1 January 1649, he married Anne Lee, the daughter of Sir Henry Lee, 1st Baronet, by whom he had two daughters. He also had two natural sons by Mary Rutley. Anne was the stepdaughter of Robert Rich, 2nd Earl of Warwick, the Parliamentary Lord High Admiral.
Career
Berkeley held local office under the Protectorate: he was a commissioner of assessment for Somerset in 1657, and was again appointed to the commission in January 1660. In March he was appointed to the militia commission and the commission of the peace for Somerset.
Appointed a captain of militia horse in April 1660, he obtained a pass to travel overseas and brought to the court of Charles II the news of Monck's declaration in favour of restoration.
The public source identifies “Maurice Berkeley, 3rd Viscount Fitzhardinge” as english politician. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Maurice, Berkeley and Viscount.
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This entry incorporates text from “Maurice Berkeley, 3rd Viscount Fitzhardinge” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.