Maurice Berkeley, 3rd Baron Berkeley Maurice Berkeley, 3rd Baron Berkeley Maurice Berkeley, "de jure" 3rd Baron Berkeley (1435 – September 1506), of Thornbury in Gloucestershire, "Maurice the Lawyer", was an English nobleman. He was born at Berkeley Castle in Gloucestershire, the younger son of James Berkeley, 1st Baron Berkeley (c. 1394–1463), "James the Just", by his third wife Isabel de Mowbray, and was the younger brother and heir of William Berkeley, 1st Marquess of Berkeley, 2nd Baron Berkeley (1426–1492), "William the Waste-All". Because of his marriage to Isabel Meade, the daughter of a Bristol alderman, who was considered to be below his social status, Maurice
Baron Berkeley was created Viscount Berkeley in 1481, Earl of Nottingham in 1483, and Marquess of Berkeley in 1488. He had no surviving male issue, so the Marquessate and his other non-inherited titles became extinct on his death in 1491, whilst the barony passed "de jure" to his younger brother Maurice. However William had disinherited Maurice because he considered him to have brought shame on the noble House of Berkeley by marrying beneath his status to Isabel, daughter of Philip Mead of Wraxhall, an Alderman and Mayor of Bristol. Instead he bequeathed the castle, lands and lordships comprising the Barony of Berkeley