Thomas de Berkeley, 3rd Baron Berkeley

Thomas de Berkeley, aka Thomas the Rich (c. 1293 or 1296 – 27 October 1361) was an English baron and the custodian of the Berkeley Castle.

He was the son of Maurice de Berkeley, 2nd Baron Berkeley and Eve la Zouche.

Edward II

In 1327 he was made joint custodian of the deposed King Edward II of England, whom he received at Berkeley Castle, but being commanded to deliver over the government to his fellow custodians, Lord Maltravers and Sir Thomas Gournay, he left there to go to Bradley "with heavy cheere perceiving what violence was intended." As an accessory to the murder of the deposed king, he was tried by a jury of 12 knights in the 4th year of King Edward III of England, but was honorably acquitted.

Marriage

His first marriage was to Margaret de Mortimer, daughter of Roger Mortimer, 1st Earl of March and Joan de Geneville. They had five children:
* Maurice de Berkeley (born 1320, date of death unknown), who succeeded his father as Baron de Berkeley.
* Thomas de Berkeley (born c. 1325, date of death unknown)
* Roger de Berkeley (born 1326, date of death unknown)
* Alphonsus de Berkeley (born 1327, date of death unknown)
* Joan de Berkeley (born 1330, date of death unknown), married Sir Reginald Cobham.

Secondly, he married Catherine Clivedon (21 January 1351!???! – 1428) on 30 May 1347 and had four children:
* Thomas Berkeley (born 7 June 1348, date of death unknown)
* Maurice de Berkeley, aka "The Valiant", (27 May 1349 – 3 June 1368)
* Edmund de Berkeley (born 10 July 1350, date of death unknown)
* Sir John de Berkeley (21 January 1351 – 1428)

He died 27 October 1361 in Gloucestershire, England. His son from his first marriage, Maurice, succeeded him as 4th Baron de Berkeley.

References

*Ancestral roots of certain American colonists who came to America before 1700, Frederick Lewis Weis, 1992, seventh edition.
*Ancestral roots of sixty colonists who came to New England 1623–1650. Frederick Lewis Weis (earlier edition).
*Magna Charta Sureties, 1215., Frederick Lewis Weis, Walter Lee Sheppard, Jr., William R. Beall, 1999, 5th Ed.
*Magna Charta Sureties, 1215", Frederick Lewis Weis, 4th Ed.
*The Complete Peerage, Cokayne.
*Burke's Peerage, 1938.
*Plantagenet Ancestry of Seventeenth-Century Colonists, David Faris, Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., 1996.
*Royal Genealogy information held at University of Hull.

External links

* [http://www.renderplus.com/hartgen/htm/berkeley.htm The Berkeley Genealogy]