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(5th B. Berkeley)
Born: 1472
Died: 22 Jan 1532/33
Buried: St Agustine Friars, London, Middlesex, England
Father: Maurice BERKELEY (3° B. Berkeley)
Mother: Isabel MEAD
Married 1: Eleanor CONSTABLE (B. Berkeley) 1504
Children:
1. Thomas "The Hopefull" BERKELEY (6° B. Berkeley)
Married 2: Cecily ARNOLD (B. Berkeley) (d. 1559)
Maurice lord Berkeley leaving no issue, was succeeded by his brother Thomas, who had up to this time led a country life, devoting himself to agricultural pursuits, and chiefly to the breeding of sheep. He married in 1503, Eleanor, widow of Sir John Ingleby, and dau. of Sir Marmaduke Constable, when his father and elder brother settled on him the manor of Hovingham in Yorkshire, where he resided.
In 1513 Thomas De Berkeley commanded a large body of men at the battle of Flodden, and for his services received the honour of knighthood on the field of battle from Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey, who commanded the English army. The next year he received by patent the appointment of Constable and Warder of Berkeley Castle, for the Crown, as well as the Keepership of the king's red and fallow deer in Chiselhanger and Redwood, and of the Severn fisheries. Upon this he took up his residence at Mangotsfield, and devoted himself for some years to the management of his ancestral estates, though only as agent for the Crown. He enlarged the park near the Castle called the Worthy, by adding to it lands near Newport and the Oakleys, and repaired the park paling, complaints having been made of damage to the tenants' crops by the deer breaking out. For the same reason he removed the deer from Redwood and Branwood to the Worthy, and to Eastwood Park, which he had lately acquired on the attainder of the Duke of Buckingham. In 1523 Thomas De Berkeley was High Sheriff of Gloucestershire, and the same year succeeded to the title and estates on the death of his brother Maurice. In 1527 the Warden and Convent of Fryars Minors at Gloucester covenanted with him, in consideration of four pounds a year, to say certain prayers and masses for the souls of his father and mother, his brother and his wife, and himself and his wife. On the back of the deed is the following endorsement in a later hand:
"If the Clergy could sell and make perfit sale remission of sinnes with assurance of the life to come for money, they should shortly have more coyne than the Kinge. And IIII£ were too little for all their prayers, but casual ware is sold good cheape. God pardon us all."
Eleanor, lady Berkeley died the same year, having borne her husband two sons and two daughters. A year afterwards the widower married Cicely, widow of Richard Rowdon, whom, six years after, he left again a widow. She died in 1558 at Bristol where she had taken up her residence, and was called the lady Cicely of Bristol. Thomas lord Berkeley was buried in St. Augustine's by the side of his first wife, under a new tomb on which he directed his executors, by his will, to expend forty pounds.
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