THE STANHOPE ESTATE

In 1614 George Lord Berkeley (d. 1658), son of Thomas de Berkeley and Elizabeth Carey and grandson and heir of Henry Lord Berkeley (d. 1613), married Elizabeth, daughter and coheir of Sir Michael Stanhope of Sudbourne (Suff.) who died in 1621. Although he seems to have sold most of the lands of her inheritance, a few charters remain in Berkeley Castle. Most are concerned with the manor of Culpho, with its appurtenances in Tuddenham, Grundisburgh and Playford, which was the inheritance of the Wachesham family in the 13th and 14th centuries but which Stanhope had acquired by 1609; the rest are concerned with other lands which he acquired in Suffolk and with lands in Middlesex. Sir Michael was a younger son of Sir Michael Stanhope of Shelford (beheaded in 1552), and the younger brother of John, first Lord Stanhope of Harrington (d. 1621). Jane Stanhope, sister of John and Michael, had married Henry Lord Berkeley as his second wife; it was in the year following Henry's death that his grandson and heir married Elizabeth Stanhope[GEC ii. 138-9.] George's mother, Elizabeth Carey, had brought manors in Suffolk to the Berkeleys in 1603 but they passed to her daughter Theophila Berkeley and her husband Sir Robert Coke, and Elizabeth Stanhope's son George, the first earl, sold the Stanhope lands in Suffolk in 1669.[Copinger, Suffolk, ii. 39, 105.]