General Notes

Sir Roger de Mortimer, b. 25 Apr or 3 May 1287, d. 29 Nov 1330, Earl of March.  [Magna Charta Sureties]

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Roger Mortimer, 2nd Baron Mortimer, of Wigmore, summoned to parliament from 22 February, 1306, to 3 December, 1326 (from the accession of Edward II in 1307, with the addition of "De Wigmore"). This nobleman, so notorious in our histories as the paramour of Isabel, queen consort of the unfortunate Edward II, was in his sixteenth year at the time of his father's decease and was placed by the king (Edward I) in ward with Piers Gaveston, so that, to redeem himself and for permission to marry whom he please, he was obliged to pay Gaveston 2500 marks, and thereupon m. Joane, dau. of Peter de Genevill, son of Geffrey de Genevill, Lord of Trim, in Ireland. In the 34th Edward I [1306], he received the honour of knighthood and in the same year attended the king into Scotland, where we find him again in the 3rd Edward II [1310], and the same year he was constituted governor of the castle of Buelt, in Brecknockshire. In the 7th, 8th, and 10th years, he was likewise in Scotland and was then appointed lord-lieutenant of Ireland. During the remainder of the unhappy Edward's reign he attached himself to the interests of the queen and, at length, fled with her and Prince Edward into France. Returning, however, and his party triumphing, he was advanced to the dignity of Earl of March soon after the accession of King Edward III and he held a round table the same year at Bedford. But hereupon becoming proud beyond measure (so that his own son, Geffrey, called him the King of Folly), he kept a round table of knights in Wales in imitation of King Arthur. "Other particulars," says Dugdale, "of his haughtiness and insolence were these, viz., that with Queen Isabel, he caused a parliament to be held at Northampton, where an unworthy agreement was made with the Scots and Ragman's Roll of Homage of Scotland was traitorously delivered as also the black cross which King Edward I brought into England out of the abbey of Scone and then accounted a precious relique. That (with the queen) he caused the young king to ride twenty-four miles in one night, toward Bedford, to destroy the Earl of Lancaster and his adherents, saying that they imagined the king's death. That he followed Queen Isabel to Nottingham and lodged in one house with her. That he commanded the treasure of the realm and assumed the authority which, by common consent in parliament, was conferred upon Henry, Earl of Lancaster, at the king's coronation." His career was not, however, of long continuance for, the king becoming sensible of his folly and vices, had him suddenly seized in the castle of Nottingham and conveyed prisoner to London, where, being impeached before parliament, he was convicted under various charges, the first of which was privity to the murder of King Edward II in Berkeley Castle, and receiving sentence of death, was hanged in 1330 at the common gallows, celled Elmes, near Smithfield, where his body was permitted to hang two days and two nights naked before it was interred in the Grey Friars; whence in some years afterwards it was removed to Wigmore.

The Earl of March left issue four sons and seven daus., viz., Edmund (Sir); Roger (Sir), who m., 1321, Lady Joane Butler; Geffrey (Sir), Lord of Towyth; John, slain in a tournament at Shrewsbury; Katherine, m. to Thomas de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick; Joane, m. to James, Lord Audley; Agnes, m. to Laurence, Earl of Pembroke; Margaret, m. 1st, to Robert, 8th Earl of Oxford, and 2ndly, to Thomas (son and heir of Maurice), Lord Berkeley; Maud, m. to John de Cherlton, son and heir of John, Lord Powis; Blanch, m. to Peter de Grandison; Beatrix, m. 1st to Edward, son and heir of Thomas of Brotherton, Earl Marshal of England, and 2ndly, to Sir Thomas de Braose.

Upon the execution and attainder of the earl, all of his honours became forfeited. [Sir Bernard Burke, Dormant, Abeyant, Forfeited and Extinct Peerages, Burke's Peerage Ltd, London, England, 1883, p. 384, Mortimer, Barons Mortimer, of Wigmore, Earls of March]