William de Berkeley, 1st Marquess of Berkeley William de Berkeley, 1st Marquess of Berkeley William de Berkeley, 1st Marquess of Berkeley (1426 – 14 February 1492) was an English peer, given the epithet "The Waste-All" by the family biographer and steward John Smyth of Nibley. He was buried at "St. Augustine's Friars, London" according to one source, but most likely in the Berkeley family foundation of St Augustine's Abbey, Bristol. William of Berkley was born to James Berkeley, 1st Baron Berkeley, and Lady Isabel Mowbray at Berkeley Castle in Berkeley, Gloucestershire, in 1426. His first marriage was in 1466 to Elizabeth West, daughter of Reginald West, 6th
Berkeley Castle (as they themselues confessed) praied heartilie to God to receiue his soule, when they vnderstood by his crie what the matter ment.Christopher Marlowe's tragedy "Edward II" ("The troublesome raigne and lamentable death of Edward the second, King of England", first published 1594) depicts the murder at Berkeley Castle, using props mentioned in Holinshed, and popular stories of a red hot poker or suffocation continue to circulate. The cell where Edward is supposed to have been imprisoned and murdered can still be seen, along with the adjacent 11 m (36 ft) deep dungeon, which supposedly echoes the events of the murder