Maurice Berkeley

Maurice Berkeley (c. 15761617) of Bruton Abbey in the parish of Bruton, Somerset, was an English landowner and gentleman who as a Member of Parliament sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1597 and 1614. Origins Maurice Berkeley was the eldest son and heir of Sir Henry Berkeley (d.1601) of Bruton, by his wife Margaret Lygon (d.1616) (herself a great-granddaughter of Maurice, Lord Berkeley), the widow of Sir Thomas Russell (d. 1574) of Strensham in Worcestershire, and a daughter of William Lygon, Esquire, (d.1567) of Madresfield Court in Worcestershire, by his wife Eleanor Dennis. He had two brothers of the whole blood, Henry Berkeley, MP for Ilchester, and Edward Berkeley, and a half-brother (by his mother's first marriage to Sir Thomas Russell), Thomas Russell (1570-1634) of Strensham, who married firstly Katherine Bampfield (d. before 1599) and secondly, Anne St. Leger, widow of Thomas Digges, and who in 1616 was overseer of the will of William Shakespeare. Career On 13 February 1590 Berkeley matriculated at Queen's College, Oxford, at the age of thirteen, together with his eleven-year-old brother, Henry. His half-brother, Thomas Russell, was also at Queen's College at the time, in his second year. Berkeley graduated BA on 14 February 1593, and was admitted to the Middle Temple in 1594. In the 1590s, acrimonious conflicts between Sir Henry Berkeley's father and Henry Herbert, 2nd Earl of Pembroke, required the intervention of the Queen and the Star Chamber; however, Maurice Berkeley appears to have managed to remain uninvolved in his father's long-standing quarrels with Pembroke.