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
Berkeley Castle from the Minstrels' gallery. His tomb is in St Mary's churchyard which stands besides the castle. Adjoining the Great Hall was the Chapel of St Mary (now the morning room) with its painted wooden vaulted ceilings and a biblical passage, written in Norman French. In the late 16th century Queen Elizabeth I visited the castle and played bowls on the bowling green. During the English Civil War, the castle still held sufficient significance for it to be captured in 1645 by Colonel Thomas Rainsborough, for the Parliamentarian side and after a siege which saw cannon being fired at point blank