King Alfred was born at Wantage in the year 849, and his statue by Count Gleichen stands in the market place. The exact site of the palace of the Kings of Wessex, in which he was born, is not known, probably it was a wooden building. Edward III and Henry VI were both born at Windsor; Henry I was buried at Reading; Henry VI, Edward IV, Henry VIII, Charles I, George III, George IV, and William IV were buried at Windsor; and Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort lie in the mausoleum at Frogmore, in Windsor Park. King Edward VII was buried at Windsor May 20, 1910.

The Marshals of Hampstead Marshall were a family of warriors. The most distinguished of them was William, first Earl of Pembroke. When he was a child his father, John Marshal, was besieged at Newbury by King Stephen, 1152, and William was given as a hostage for a truce and the surrender of Newbury Castle. The father did not keep his terms, and the child would have been killed had not Stephen taken a liking to him and saved his life. He became a great soldier and served Henry II, Richard I, John, and Henry III with the utmost fidelity, becoming Regent of England during the early part of the reign of Henry III. He died in 1219 at Caversham, and is buried in the Temple Church in London.

In later times another warrior owned Hampstead Marshall. This was William Craven, Earl of Craven (1606–1697). He fought in the German wars of 1632–37 and was the faithful champion of Elizabeth Queen of Bohemia, the only daughter of James I. At the Revolution of 1688, though over 80 years old, he was in command of the King’s Guards, and Macaulay, in his History of England, describes how unwillingly the stout old soldier made way for the Dutch troops at Whitehall. Ashdown Park was another seat of the Earl, and is still in the possession of his descendant.

Radley belonged to a gallant sailor, Admiral Sir George Bowyer, Bart. (1740?–1800), who lost a leg off Ushant, June 1st, 1794. Another Admiral, Samuel Barrington (1729–1800), is buried at Shrivenham. He served under Hawke and Rodney, and was commander-in-chief in the West Indies.

The family of Norris or Norreys has long been connected with Berkshire. Richard de Norreys, a member of a Lancashire family, held the office of cook to Eleanor, wife of Henry III, and in 1267 the manor of Ockholt, near Maidenhead, was granted to him. One of his descendants, John Norris, who held office in the Court of both Henry VI and Edward IV, built the house Ockwells at Ockholt, which has been already mentioned on page 114. He was buried at Bray in 1467. One branch of the family settled at Fyfield, and another branch became Norris of Rycote, which is in Buckinghamshire, but they too held much Berkshire property. Hampstead Norris derives its second name from this family. Henry Norris was an intimate friend of Henry VIII, and was present at the Field of the Cloth of Gold. He, however, fell under the suspicion of being a lover of Anne Boleyn, and was in consequence executed in 1536. His son, also named Henry, was created Baron Norris of Rycote in 1572. He died at Englefield, and there is a monument to him and to one of his six soldier sons, Sir John Norris, in Yattendon church. Francis Norris, a grandson of Henry Lord Norris, was born at Wytham, and in 1621 was created Earl of Berkshire. He left no sons, and the earldom became extinct at his death, 1623. The barony descended through two ladies, Elizabeth and Bridget, to James Bertie, who was created Earl of Abingdon 1682. The present peer, whose seat is Wytham Abbey, is the seventh Earl of Abingdon.

St Edmund (1170?–1240), Archbishop of Canterbury, was born at Abingdon, and William Laud (1573–1645), also Archbishop of Canterbury, was born at Reading, the only son of William Laud, a clothier. He was educated at the Free School at Reading, and he gave a farm to Reading for charitable purposes. It was sold a short time ago, and the purchase money invested, producing some £330 a year. Another charity at Wokingham established by him also still exists.

John Jewel, Bishop of Salisbury (1522–1571), was for some time vicar of Sunningwell. He was a voluminous writer on theological subjects. Another churchman connected with Sunningwell was John Fell (1625–1686), Bishop of Oxford, who was born either there or at Longworth. His father was rector of the parish. In 1648, at the time of the Civil War, he was turned out of his Studentship at Oxford, but continued to celebrate the rites of the church in a house opposite Merton College. He was a distinguished man, but is best known by the lines referring to him which begin “I do not love thee, Doctor Fell.” Joseph Butler (1692–1752), Bishop of Durham, and the author of the Analogy of Religion Natural and Revealed to the Constitution and Course of Nature, was born at Wantage, the son of a retired draper who lived at the Priory.

Sir Philip Hoby (1505–1558) and his half-brother, Sir Thomas Hoby (1530–1566), were both distinguished diplomatists. The former received the manor of Bisham from Henry VIII, and they are both buried there. Queen Elizabeth was domiciled at Bisham under the charge of the Hobys for a time during the reign of her sister Mary.

Sir John Mason, another diplomatist of the same period, was the son of a cowherd at Abingdon. He is described as a paragon of caution, coldness, and craft, and held high office, diplomatic and political, under Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary, and Elizabeth, being in favour with all these sovereigns.

Sir Henry Unton, or Umpton, who died in 1596, was both diplomatist and soldier of the time of Elizabeth. He was born at Wadley Hall, near Faringdon, where the Queen visited him in 1574. The house is still standing. There is a fine alabaster monument to him in Faringdon church.

In 1626 the title of Earl of Berkshire was conferred on the Hon. Thomas Howard, of Charlton, Wilts. He was a son of the Earl of Suffolk, and in 1745 the two titles passed to one man, and are so held at the present day.

William Lenthall (1591–1662), the Speaker of the House of Commons in the Long Parliament, bought Besselsleigh, the house of the ancient family of Besils, and his descendants still own it.

William Penn (1644–1718), the Quaker and founder of Pennsylvania, though London-born, lived at Ruscomb, near Twyford, for some time towards the end of his life and died there.

Passing now to authors, Henry Hallam (1777–1859), the historian, was born at Windsor, the son of one of the canons. Catherine Sawbridge (1731–1791), who became in turn Mrs Macaulay and Mrs Graham, was the authoress of a History of England. In her later years she lived at Binfield and is buried in the churchyard there. The antiquary, Thomas Hearne (1678–1735), was the son of the parish clerk at White Waltham, and was born at Littlefield Green.

Jethro Tull (1680–1741), a well-known writer on agriculture, was born at Basildon, and farmed land first near Wallingford, then in Oxfordshire, and finally near Hungerford. About the year 1701 he invented a horse-drill for sowing seed. He is buried at Basildon.

Sir William Blackstone (1723–1780), of the Commentaries, was buried in St Peter’s, Wallingford, at which place he had spent much of the latter part of his life. John Shute, first Viscount Barrington (1678–1734), author of the History of the Apostles, lived at Beckett House, Shrivenham, which was left to him by Sir John Wildman.

Several poets were connected with Berkshire, but chief of them all was Alexander Pope (1688–1744), whose father owned a small property at Binfield. Here the poet lived for much of the early part of his life. His poem Windsor Forest contains many lines dealing with the district around Binfield. Sir William Trumbull (1639–1716), the friend of Pope, and Secretary of State in 1695, lived at Easthampstead, not far from Binfield; and Elijah Fenton (1683–1730), another of Pope’s friends, himself a poet, lived with the Trumbull family during his last years.

Henry James Pye (1745–1813), though Poet Laureate, wrote but poor verses. He commuted the tierce of canary to which the Poet Laureate was entitled for £27 a year. He was a son of Henry Pye of Faringdon, and at one time was M.P. for Berkshire. Joshua Sylvester (1563–1618), also a poet, is said to have lived at Lambourn as steward to the ancient family of Essex, and one of his volumes is dedicated to Mistress Essex of Lambourn.

Mrs Elizabeth Montague (1720–1800), whose London house was a centre of intellect and fashion, where the term “Blue-stocking” was first applied to her conversation parties, lived a good deal at Sandleford Priory, near Newbury, and built a large house there from plans by Wyatt.

She cannot, however, claim the close connection with Berkshire, both as regards life and writings, which is so characteristic of Mary Russell Mitford (1787–1855) who lived for a time at Reading, then at Three Mile Cross, and finally at Swallowfield, in the churchyard of which place she lies buried. Her best known work is Our Village, the scenes in which are laid in the district at and around Three Mile Cross.

Thomas Day (1748–1789), the author of Sandford and Merton, was the owner of Bear Hill, Wargrave.

John Winchcombe, alias Smalwoode (died 1520), was a pioneer of the clothing manufacture at Newbury, and acquired thereby great wealth. He built a house at Bucklebury on land which had belonged to the Abbey of Reading. His descendant, Frances Winchcombe, married in 1700 the celebrated Viscount Bolingbroke, who resided at Bucklebury for a time. John Winchcombe is buried in Newbury church. He was popularly known as “Jack of Newbury” and many fables are told about him. Thomas Deloney, a weaver by trade, who lived in the latter part of the sixteenth century, wrote the ballad “The Pleasant History of John Winchcomb, in his younger days called Jack of Newbury.”