4 According to the records of his various colleges, Sir William Berkeley matriculated at The Queen’s College, 14 Feb. 1622-23, took his B.A. in St. Edmund Hall, 10 July 1624, became a Fellow of Merton in 1625, received his M.A. in 1630, and lost his Merton Fellowship to the Puritans in 1649. In 1632, Berkeley was made a gentleman of the Privy Chamber Extraordinary, and was knighted at Berwick on 27 July 1639. He was appointed governor of Virginia in 1641, arrived in 1642, and briefly returned to England in 1644-45. Berkeley’s family patronized many writers, including Robert Burton, who dedicated the Anatomy of Melancholy to George Berkeley (1613-58). Sir William’s play, The Lost Lady: A Tragy Comedy (London, 1639), entered the English repertory, and was often reprinted in the 18th and 19th centuries in Dodsley’s Old Plays. Portraits of Sir William Berkeley hang at Berkeley Castle in Gloucester and Stratford Hall in Virginia.

5 Berkeley to Lord Arlington, 5 June 1667, VMHB, 21 (1913), 43.