[1] The castle, traditionally believed to have been the scene of the murder of King Edward II in 1327,[2][3] has remained in the possession of the Berkeley family since they reconstructed it in the 12th century, except for a period of royal ownership under the Tudors.

[17] Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles (1587 edition), drawing on earlier sources, describes Edward's murder in detail:they [the murderers] came suddenlie one night into the chamber where he laie in bed fast asléepe, and with heavie featherbeds or a table (as some [sources] write) being cast upon him, they kept him down and withall put into his fundament [i.e., his anus] an horne, and through the same they thrust up into his bodie an hot spit, or (as other [sources] have) through the pipe of a trumpet a plumbers instrument of iron made verie hot, the which passing up into his intrailes, and being rolled to and fro, burnt the same, but so as no appearance of any wound or hurt outwardlie might be once perceived.

[20] Holinshed's account records that, leading up to the murder, Edward's keepers "lodged the miserable prisoner in a chamber ouer a foule filthie dungeon, full of dead carrion, trusting so to make an end of him, with the abhominable stinch thereof: but he bearing it out stronglie, as a man of a tough nature, continued still in life.

"[21] The account given to Parliament at the time was that Edward had met with a fatal accident, but Holinshed and other historical sources record that great effort was made to keep the murder secret.

[23] In the 14th century, the Great Hall was given a new roof and it is here the last court jester in England, Dickie Pearce, died after falling from the minstrels' gallery.

[24] Adjoining the Great Hall was the Chapel of St Mary (now the Morning Room) with its painted wooden vaulted ceilings and a biblical passage, written in Norman French.

[17] As was usual the walls were left breached after this siege, but the Berkeley family were allowed to retain ownership on condition that they never repair the damage to the Keep and Outer Bailey; this is still enforced today by the Act of Parliament drawn up at the time.

[29] In the early 18th century the 4th Earl of Berkeley planted a pine that was reputed to have been grown from a cutting taken from a tree at the Battle of Culloden.

[30][26] In the early 20th century the 8th Earl of Berkeley repaired and remodelled parts of the castle and added a new porch in the same Gothic style as the rest of the building.

[32] The Berkeley Castle Charitable Trust received a grant from the Cotswolds LEADER Programme in 2022; the funds were used to help renovate the Education Room.

[36] The castle is featured in an episode of the 2017 season of the genealogy documentary television series Who Do You Think You Are?, when American actress Courteney Cox learnt of her ancestry.