Birth of Roger de Mortimer, 1st Earl of March, de facto ruler of England, and lover of a queen
Roger Mortimer was born the eldest son of Lord Edmund Mortimer of Wigmore and Margaret de Fiennes, on 25th April 1287.
From the very beginning of his life, Mortimer’s prospects were extremely high – he was after all, the great-great grandson of the legendary William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke – who served as regent of England during the opening years of the reign of Henry III.
The Mortimers had also built up an enormous powerbase in Wales and its marches, and were most certainly one of the wealthier noble families within the British isles.
Mortimer was set to inherit it all.
If the vast Mortimer inheritance was not enough, his fortunes would be increased further still, through a highly advantageous marriage to heiress Joan de Geneville.
When the fourteen-year-old Mortimer married Joan in September 1301, he undoubtedly knew that she was making him a considerably wealthier man.
In the summer of 1304, when his father was fatally wounded in a skirmish with Welsh rebels, the young seventeen year old Roger Mortimer became one of the premier noblemen in England.
Since Mortimer was technically not yet of age to take personal control of his inheritance, the lands were temporarily absorbed into the crown, and Mortimer himself became a royal ward of the aging King, Edward I – The Longshanks.
The death of Edward I, and the accession of Edward II, in July, was very much to the benefit of Mortimer.
He became part of the inner circle of the new king, with Piers Gaveston chief among them.
Mortimer’s close relationship with the king was the reason why he was able to attend the royal wedding between Edward and Princess Isabella of France.
Mortimer played no role whatsoever in the events which led to the murder of Gaveston by the powerful Earl of Lancaster.
Then a quarrel between King Edward II and his cousin Lancaster began.
It revolved around the rise of a second group of royal favorites at court, the most significant of whom was Hugh Despenser the Younger.
The king’s refusal to dismiss these men from his presence, and Lancaster’s antagonistic actions towards them and the crown, had once again brought the kingdom to the very threshold of civil war.
Up to this point, Mortimer had remained completely loyal to the king, even during the latter’s darkest moments.
Despenser’s ambitions in the marches threatened Mortimer’s own livelihood, and the amount of influence he possessed over the day-to-day functions of government was unprecedented for a relatively minor noblemen.
Despite his family’s long history of loyalty to the crown, Mortimer knew that he had no choice but to defend his own lands against an upstart favourite, who had no business being in the position of power that he was.
Mortimer’s position became more precarious, and he was now in the corner of the rebel marcher lords.
The marchers caused thousands of pounds worth of damage and stole everything that was not tied down.
It was all part of a plot to humiliate Despenser, as much as humanly possible.
To show that they were no traitors, the marchers used the king’s banners to demonstrate that they were rebelling against Edward’s hated favorite Despenser, not the king.
Once they had thoroughly demolished Despenser’s lands, the marchers set their sights on London, in order to convince the king to rid the English court of the hated Despensers.
King Edward had no choice but to give in to their demands, and reluctantly exiled the Despensers, in the late summer of 1321.
Humiliated and vengeful, King Edward began to contemplate how he would get his revenge against these men who he now considered his bitter enemies.
In January 1322, Mortimer and his aged uncle were imprisoned in the Tower of London.
The king did not stop at imprisoning Roger Mortimer.
Soon after, Mortimer’s wife and a majority of his children were arrested, sent to various castles and kept under close guard.
King Edward then proceeded to confiscate all of Mortimer’s remaining lands and possessions, leaving him as a broken and impoverished man, with nothing to call his own.
Mortimer was brought before a royal court and was condemned to death for his crimes against the king.
King Edward, however, felt that he had little to fear from the fallen Mortimer, and commuted his sentence to life imprisonment.
Mortimer languished in the Tower for over a year, living in conditions that were far below his usual standards as an important baron!
Throughout this time, the power of Hugh Despenser the Younger grew to unprecedented heights.
As Despenser’s tyranny grew, those within the kingdom opposed to his meteoric rise began to look for anyone who might be powerful enough to stop him.
They turned their attentions to Roger Mortimer.
His supporters acted swiftly, and were able to allow him, with the aid of a few sympathetic officials and other various employees in the Tower, to escape his prison.
Mortimer crossed the channel to France, in August 1323
In late 1325 Mortimer and Queen Isabella began their notorious illicit affair.
Isabella’s marriage to the king was at an end, and Mortimer had not seen his wife Joan in five years.
More significantly, Mortimer and Isabella were drawn to one another by their hatred of the Despenser regime and their wish to see it annihilated.
Finally, they had both been effectively shunned by the same man: King Edward.
Queen Isabella felt that her husband was concentrating too much of his attention on his favourites, and neglecting her in the process.
Mortimer felt betrayed that he himself had been pushed aside by the upstart Despensers.
Mortimer and Isabella were both intelligent, attractive and ambitious people, a seemingly ideal match.
By the fall of 1326, they were ready bring their plans to fruition and invade England…….
Mortimer, along with his lover Queen Isabella, seized power.
Edward II was deposed, and Isabella and Edward’s son became Edward III.
Despite Edward III’s accession to the throne, Mortimer was the real power behind the crown for three years.
A king in all but name.
However, in October 1330 it all fell apart….
Mortimer began living like a king.
He granted himself large swathes of land, controlled the distribution of wardships, had spies throughout England and the continent, and lived an extravagant lifestyle.
Mortimer’s elevation and power antagonised his opponents, and they were determined to remove him from his high horse.
Mortimer and Isabella were playing the respective roles of King and queen, which didn’t go down too well with King Edward.
These degrading actions was more than the king could take, and he began gathering supporters of his own in secret, to rid himself of his mother’s lover.
King Edward was now approaching his eighteenth birthday and had already sired an heir, Prince Edward, earlier in the year.
There was little need for Mortimer to remain in power.
In October 1330, Mortimer and Isabella were at Nottingham Castle preparing for a parliament.
It was here that Edward intended to make his stand.
The king and a small group of followers entered the castle via a secret passageway, and took Mortimer by surprise.
Several of Mortimer’s men were killed, and Mortimer was placed under arrest – despite the emotional objections from Isabella.
Mortimer’s reign of tyranny had come to an end.
Mortimer’s trial was a foregone conclusion and all knew it.
Mortimer was bound and gagged and unable to speak in his own defence.
There was a list of charges, the most prominent of which was Roger’s usurpation of royal authority and the murder of King Edward II.
He was sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered for his sins.
On a bitterly cold November morning of 29th November 1330, Roger Mortimer was removed from his cell within the Tower of London and taken to his death at Tyburn.
Mortimer was the first nobleman to meet his death at Tyburn, it was usually the place of exEcution for the common criminal.
Mortimer was dragged through London on an ox-skin, tied between two horses.
He was stripped of the black tunic he had worn previously at the funeral of Edward II.
There was to be no b-heading, instead he was to be hanged just like a common criminal.
Mortimer gave a short speech and was then dispatched by the noose, he was forty-three years old.
Mortimer endured a few minutes of painful strangulation, his neck was crushed, his tongue swelled in his mouth, his body twitched, his legs were jerking – and then he was dead.
Mortimer’s corpse would hang there, naked and shamed for two days and two nights.
A grotesque sight and a stark reminder of the fate of those who overreached themselves……
🖤 15th-century manuscript illustration depicting Roger Mortimer and Queen Isabella in the foreground.
In the background, Hugh Despenser the Younger is on the scaffold, being emasculated.
