BERKELEY, SIR WILLIAM (c. 1608-1677), British colonial governor in America, was born in or near London, Eng land, about 1608, the youngest son of Sir Maurice Berkeley, and brother of John, first Lord Berkeley of Stratton, one of the pro prietors of the Carolinas. He graduated at Oxford in 1629, and in 1632 was appointed one of the royal commissioners for Canada, and on his return was appointed a gentleman of the privy chamber by Charles I. In 1638 he produced a tragicomedy entitled The Lost Lady. In Aug. 1641 he was appointed governor of Virginia and took up his duties the following year. His first term as gov ernor, during which he seems to have been extremely popular, was notable principally for his religious intolerance and his expulsion of the Puritans, who were in a great minority. During the Civil War in England he remained loyal to the king, and offered an asylum in Virginia to Charles II. and the loyalists. On the arrival of a parliamentary fleet in 1652, however, he retired from office and spent the following years quietly on his plantation. On the death, in 166o, of Samuel Matthews, the last parliamentary gov ernor, he was chosen governor by the Virginia assembly, and was soon recommissioned by Charles II. The second period of his governorship was a stormy one. Serious frontier warfare with the Indians was followed (1676) by Bacon's Rebellion (see VIRGINIA), brought on by Berkeley's misrule. His cruelty and barbarity in punishing the rebels did not meet with the approval of Charles II. Berkeley was called to England in 1677 ostensibly to report on the condition of affairs in the colony, and a lieutenant-governor (Her bert Jeffreys) was put in his place. Berkeley sailed in May, but died soon after his arrival, at Twickenham, and was buried there on July 13, 1677. In addition to the play mentioned he wrote A Discourse and view of Virginia (1 662) ; reprinted, Norwalk, Conn. (1q14).