John Berkeley, 1st Baron Berkeley of Stratton

John Berkeley, 1st Baron Berkeley of Stratton (1602 – 26 August 1678) of Berkeley House in Westminster and of Twickenham Park in Middlesex, was an English royalist soldier, politician and diplomat, of the Bruton branch of the Berkeley family. From 1648 he was closely associated with James, Duke of York (the future King James II), and rose to prominence, fortune, and fame. He and Sir George Carteret were the founders of the Province of New Jersey, a British colony in North America that would eventually become the U.S. state of New Jersey. The territorial designation of his title refers to his role at the Battle of Stratton, Cornwall, in 1643 at which the Royalists destroyed Parliament's field army in Devon and Cornwall.