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Thomas de Berkeley, 5th Baron Berkeley the Magnificent (5 January 1352/53 – 13 July 1417) was an English peer born in the Berkeley Castle, Berkeley, Gloucestershire, England to Maurice de Berkeley, 4th Baron Berkeley and Elizabeth le Despencer.

Marriage

In 1367 Lord Thomas married Margaret de Lisle, 3rd Baroness Lisle (1360–1392), daughter of Warine de Lisle, 2nd Baron Lisle and Margaret Pipard. Thomas and Margaret had one child:

• Elizabeth de Berkeley (born ca.1386 – 28 December 1422), married Richard de Beauchamp, 13th Earl of Warwick.

Transfers estate to trustees

In 1417 he enfeoffed at Berkeley Castle, shortly before his death, several feoffees to hold all his lands in trust, due to the fact he had no male children as his heirs and that the course of succession then seemed unclear. The catalogue entry made by the British Museum librarian Isaac Jeaves for charter number 581 preserved in the muniments at Berkeley Castle records:

"Feoffment by Thomas, Lord Berkeley, Knt, to Walter Poole, Gilbert Denys Knts, Thomas Knolles, citizen of London, Thomas Rugge, John Grevell, Robert Greyndour and Thomas Sergeant, esquires, of all the lands, reversions, and tenants' services in Berkeley, Wotton, Gloucester, South Cerney, Cerneyeswike, Aure, Arlingham, and Horton, and in Berkeley and Bledislow Hundreds; in the City of London; in Portbury, Portishead, Weston, Bedminster, and in Bedminster and Portbury Hundreds, co. Somerset, and in Sharnecote and Chicklade, co. Wiltshire, together with the advowsons of St. Andrew's Church in Baynard's Castle, London, the advowsons of Chicklade, Portishead, and Walton, and the patronage and advowson of St. Mary's Abbey of Kingswood. Witnesses: Thomas FitzNicoll, John Pauncefoot, Knights; Robert Poyntz, Edmund Bassett, Thomas Kendale. Datum ad Berkeley, Thursday, Feast of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist (24 June) 5 Hen. V. (1417) Withseal,broken)"

The great City of London townhouse of the Berkeleys, known as "Berkeley's Inn", was at Puddle Dock by Baynard's Castle, close to the Blackfriars Monastery. Thomas FitzNicholl, one of the witnesses, was many times MP for Gloucestershire, including in 1395 when he served jointly with Gilbert Denys. Saul, N. states that such feoffees were likely to have been members of Lord Berkeley's retinue. These were very significant positions of trust granted to his feoffees as Berkeley died leaving only a daughter and the succession to the vast Berkeley lands, including the castle itself, became a matter of much dispute amongst his possible heirs resulting in a series of feuds which led in 1470 to the last private battle fought on English soil at the Battle of Nibley Green, between Lord William Berkeley and Viscount Lisle, and there followed the longest dispute in English legal history, which did not end until 1609.

Ancestors

References

1. Jeayes, Isaac Herbert, Catalogue of the Charters & Muniments in the Possession of Rt. Hon Lord FitzHardinge at Berkeley Castle, Bristol, 1892. No.581 Enfeoffment 24/6/1417.
2. Saul, N. Gloucestershire Gentry in the 14th. Century, Oxford, 1981. p.73

Sources

• Richardson, Douglas, Kimball G. Everingham, and David Faris. Plantagenet Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families. Royal ancestry series. (p. 99) Baltimore, Md: Genealogical Pub. Co, 2004. Retrieved April 20, 2008
• thepeerage.com Accessed April 20, 2008

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• 1350s births
• 1417 deaths
• Barons Berkeley
• People from Berkeley, Gloucestershire
• Berkeley family
• Male Shakespearean characters