Arms of Berkeley: Gules, a chevron between ten crosses pattée six in chief and four in base argent
Thomas de Berkeley, 1st Baron Berkeley (c. 1245– 23 July 1321),[1]The Wise,[2]feudal baron of Berkeley, of Berkeley Castle in Gloucestershire, England, was a peer, soldier and diplomat.[3] 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 fought in the Battle of Evesham in 1265.[5] He inherited the feudal baron of Berkeley in 1281 following the death of his father and on 28 June 1283 was created 1st Baron Berkeleybywrit of summons to Parliament by King Edward I (1272-1307). In June 1292 he was a commissioner to examine the claims to the crown of Scotland.[5] He was on an embassy to France in January 1296 and held the office of Vice-Constable of England in 1297.[5] He fought in the Battle of Falkirk on 22 July 1298 and was present at the Siege of Caerlaverock, Scotland, in July 1300.[5] He was on an embassy to Pope Clement V in July 1307.[5] He fought in the Battle of Bannockburn on 24 June 1314, where he was taken prisoner, and obliged to pay a large sum for his ransom.[5]
^ abcdefghiG. E. Cokayne; with Vicary Gibbs, H.A. Doubleday, Geoffrey H. White, Duncan Warrand and Lord Howard de Walden, editors, The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Extant, Extinct or Dormant, new ed., 13 volumes in 14 (1910-1959; reprint in 6 volumes, Gloucester, U.K.: Alan Sutton Publishing, 2000), volume II, pages 127 & 128
^Smyth, John (1883). The Lives of the Berkeleys. Vol. 1. pp. 205–7.
^John Burke & John Bernard Burke (1844), Extinct and Dormant Baronetcies of England, Ireland and Scotland (hardback), London: John Russell Smith
