Thomas de Berkeley, 5th Baron Berkeley Thomas de Berkeley, 5th Baron Berkeley Thomas de Berkeley, 5th Baron Berkeley (5 January 1352/53 – 13 July 1417), "The Magnificent", of Berkeley Castle and of Wotton-under-Edge in Gloucestershire, was an English peer and an admiral. His epithet, and that of each previous and subsequent head of his family, was coined by John Smyth of Nibley (d.1641), steward of the Berkeley estates, the biographer of the family and author of "Lives of the Berkeleys". He was born at Berkeley Castle in Gloucestershire, the son and heir of Maurice de Berkeley, 4th Baron Berkeley by his wife Elizabeth le Despencer. In
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