Thomas de Berkeley, 1st Baron Berkeley Thomas de Berkeley, 1st Baron Berkeley Thomas de Berkeley, 1st Baron Berkeley (c.1251 – 23 July 1321), "The Wise", feudal baron of Berkeley, of Berkeley Castle in Gloucestershire, England, was a peer, soldier and diplomat. 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". Thomas de Berkeley was born around 1251 at Berkeley Castle in Gloucestershire, the son of Sir Maurice de Berkeley, feudal baron of Berkeley, by his wife Isabel
Berkeley Castle before returning him to Berkeley Castle in September. Some commentators have claimed that Edward's escape was actually successful, and that someone else was later murdered in his place. Historical sources record that Edward was murdered there on 21 September 1327. Raphael Holinshed's "Chronicles" (1587 edition), drawing on earlier sources, describes Edward's murder in detail:they [the murderers] came suddenlie one night into the chamber where he laie in bed fast asléepe, and with heauie featherbeds or a table (as some [sources] write) being cast vpon him, they kept him down and withall put into his fundament [i.e., his anus] an horne,