The Greatest Traitor: The Life of Sir Roger Mortimer, 1st Earl of March (58 page)

24.
While there is every possibility that the good burghers of Wigmore themselves paid for this, the architectural style of the early fourteenth-century south aisle, its features in common with Ludlow and Wigmore, its demonstrative and aristocratic use of light, and the dramatic rise in Roger’s fortunes at this time suggest he was involved in this project.

25.
Blom (ed.),
Calendar of Papal Registers
, ii, p. 349.

26.
Dugdale,
Monasticon
, vi, part iii, p. 352. The priests were not financed until later in the year, but it is probable that in Roger’s presence a mass was sung on the occasion of its consecration.

27.
This inventory is from an account made by William de Shalford in the PRO, dated 25 November 1331, and transcribed as appendix iii of Harding, ‘Isabella and Mortimer’, pp. 389–91. The original is PRO E372/179, m22.

28.
Notes and Queries
, 11th series, x, p. 126.

29.
Doherty, ‘Isabella’, p. 249.

30.
Edward did not trust Lancaster enough to tell him of the survival of Edward II, as shown by later evidence from 1328 showing Lancaster almost certainly learnt this from the Earl of Kent. Lancaster also approached Edward in a hostile fashion later in the year.

31.
Geoffrey appears several times on the Charter Rolls as a witness. He was also made heir to Joan’s inheritance of the lordship of Trim in Ireland in 1336, although her grandson Roger was the rightful heir.

32.
Harding, ‘Isabella and Mortimer’, p. 162; Doherty, ‘Isabella’, p. 251.

33.
The accusations are from Brie (ed.),
The Brut
, i, p. 259.

34.
The usually accepted date is 7 October, but 15 October has been proposed as more likely. See Harding, ‘Isabella and Mortimer’, pp. 166–7 for a discussion of the actual date.

35.
Thomas (ed.),
Plea & Memoranda Rolls
, p. 82; Doherty, ‘Isabella’, p. 260.

36.
Doherty, ‘Isabella’, p. 260; Harding, ‘Isabella and Mortimer’, p. 170; Thomas (ed.),
Plea & Memoranda Rolls
, p. 82.

37.
PRO C53/115 (no. 26, dated 30 October). This shows Roger was not referred to as an earl on the second to last day of the parliament, so either he was created that night or the following day. He is referred to as Earl of March in PRO C53/115 (no. 11, dated 3 November).

38.
CPR 1327–1330
, p. 343.

39.
There is no hard evidence as to the dates of either of these deaths. Roger died some time before 27 August 1328, as shown by the shift of the grant of all the Irish estates to John at this time. See
CPR 1327–1330
, p. 317. John’s death is recorded by the Wigmore chronicler as occuring some time in 1328, and was clearly after 27 August. See Dugdale,
Monasticon
, vi, part iii, p. 352.

40.
Thompson (ed.),
Murimuth
, p. 255.

41.
Doherty, ‘Isabella’, p. 294, quoting Thomas,
Plea & Memoranda Rolls
, p. 77.

42.
Doherty, ‘Isabella’, p. 265.

43.
The clause in Magna Carta to which they were probably referring was no. 39: ‘No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way … except by the lawful judgement of his equals or by the law of the land’. See Davis,
Magna Carta
, p. 28.

44.
See Doherty, ‘Isabella’, pp. 253–68 for a good outline of the move towards war in 1328–9.

14: King of Folly

1.
Harding, ‘Isabella and Mortimer’, pp. 180–1; Doherty, ‘Isabella’, p. 274.

2.
Later his supporters managed to organise his removal to the custody of the Bishop of London, on his estates in Essex.

3.
Brie (ed.)
The Brut
, ii, p. 262.

4.
Doherty, ‘Isabella’, p. 279.

5.
PRO E101/384/1 f17v. My thanks to Paul Dryburgh for this reference.

6.
Brie (ed.),
The Brut
, ii, p. 261.

7.
Joliffe (ed.),
Froissart’s Chronicles
, p. 52.

8.
Doherty, ‘Isabella’, p. 287. Although she had not made a similar settlement before the births of her other three children, as Doherty says, there was no need as the initial grant would have held good for all four.

9.
This is taken from the account in the published version;
CPR 1327–1330
, p. 343.

10.
Eyton,
Shropshire
, xi, p. 324. This relates to BL Harley MS 1240, the later fourteenth-century Mortimer family cartulary.

11.
This is according to
Complete Peerage
. It is to be noted that the
Anonimalle Chronicle
mentions an Earl of Lincoln arrested in March 1330 along with the Earl of Kent. This is difficult to explain. Ebulo Lestrange, who is the most likely person mistakenly to have been called Earl of Lincoln, seems not to have been arrested at this time. He was no friend of Roger’s, however, as shown by the fact that his lands were assumed late in 1330 by Roger. Also he, together with Thomas Wake, and the sons of the Earl of Hereford, were ordered to bring Isabella to Edward after Roger’s death. See
CPR 1327–1330
, p. 36.

12.
See
Rotuli parliamentorum
, ii, p. 57, for a list of what was claimed. Clifford, Donnington and Dinbaud castles were among those Roger had acquired or would acquire for himself and his family, along with the manor of Glasebury.

13.
A few further words might be added to this theory. Firstly it is highly likely that any child of Roger’s and Isabella’s would be created an earl, as all English royal sons for the past century had been created earls. This was despite the illegitimacy: a son would have been the half-brother of the King of England, half-brother of the Earl of Cornwall, a half-brother of the future Earl of March, a first cousin once removed of the King of France, and a brother-in-law of the King of Scotland and the Earls of Warwick, Pembroke and Norfolk. The Countess of Lincoln could have been induced to adopt the boy as her own, perhaps by pretending he was her own offspring, and thus to perpetuate the title while removing from Roger and Isabella the possible embarrassment of having very publicly to create a new earldom. This was not possible with any other English earldom at this time. As for making a baby an earl, Edward III himself had been made Earl of Chester at the age of eleven days, so such a move was not strange to Isabella. Finally if this theory is correct, it may possibly explain the unidentified Mortimer effigy in Montgomery church. This figure, which is normally said to be that of Sir Edmund Mortimer, d. 1409 (Roger’s great-great-grandson), dates from about 1400. It is of a member of the main line of the Earls of March, but the arms are differenced by a bend. Montgomery Castle was granted to the Mortimers after Isabella’s death in line with her settlement, and it would be expected that, if allowed to live, the illegitimate son of Roger and Isabella joined the retinue of his elder brother’s son, Roger Mortimer, second Earl of March, of whom he would have been a contemporary. See ‘Two Effigies in Montgomery Church’, pp. 76–9.

14.
The otherwise explicable periods of stasis are: the stay at London during and following the deposition and abdication proceedings, the Scots campaign that same year (during which Isabella remained at York), and the prolonged stay at
Nottingham just after the death of Edward II. Although one might suggest that a confinement could have taken place during these periods, there is no other evidence for a pregnancy in 1327 or 1328.

15.
The date usually assigned to this gift-giving, recorded in the original MS (PRO E101/384/1, f18v) is 20 June. The court was still at Canterbury at this time, and so if this date is accurate, the gift-giving took place in private and a long way from the court, and very shortly after Edward’s return from France. A possible later date for the gift-giving is 20 July, when the court was indeed at Windsor. Junii/Julii errors are quite common in manuscripts.

16.
PRO E101/384/1, f18v. My thanks to Paul Dryburgh for this reference. Also see Harding, ‘Isabella and Mortimer’, p. 295.

17.
PRO E101/384/1 f16v, f18r. My thanks to Paul Dryburgh for his transcription of this.

18.
See
Rotuli parliamentorum
, ii, p. 53 for Roger ordering that his word was to be obeyed before the king. This was at the very end of his administration, at Nottingham, in October 1330.

19.
Thompson (ed.),
Murimuth
, p. 256.

20.
Knighton records a Round Table tournament held by Roger at Bedford in 1328, probably drawing his information from Murimuth. The royal party did not visit Bedford in 1328 except late in the old-style year, on 19–21 January 1328–9, when Roger was just finishing his war with Henry of Lancaster. A Round Table tournament was certainly not held then. Although some writers like the old
DNB
have taken Knighton at his word, it seems far more likely that the Round Table tournament took place in 1329. Robert of Avesbury states it happened at Wigmore, which would place it in early September 1329. See Thompson (ed.),
Murimuth
, p. 284. It is significant that another Knighton manuscript records ‘Hertiford’ as the place, and a few pages further on, ‘Bedford’ appears mistakenly written in place of ‘Bereford’. It seems possible therefore that Knighton’s Round Table is the same as the jousts Murimuth records at Hereford, mistakenly at the end of May 1328, and which Avesbury mentions at Wigmore. The issue is probably confused by the various Mortimer weddings of 1328–9. See Appendix 2.

21.
Edward acknowledged a debt to the Bardi of £1,000 for the marriage of Beatrice with Edward, daughter of the Earl of Norfolk, 21 March 1330. See
CPR 1327–1330
, p. 502.

22.
Murimuth records that Isabella oversaw the proceedings, and if this was a Round Table as suggested above, her role would naturally be that of Guinevere.

23.
Brie (ed.),
The Brut
, ii, p. 261.

24.
Brie (ed.),
The Brut
, ii, p. 262.

25.
The recent translation of the
Anonimalle Chronicle
’s original French reads that ‘Sir Geoffrey through madness even called himself king’. This is not convincing, not least because it does not make historical sense. The mid-fourteenth-century English translation of the longer
Brut
, which would reflect the commonly understood meaning of the original French much more closely than a modern literal translation, is much more creditable, reading ‘Sire Geffray the Mortymer the yonge, that was the Mortymer’s sone, lete him calle Kynge of Folye; and so it bifelle aftirward indede, ffor he was so ful of pride and of wrecchednesse, that he helde a rounde
table in Walys … and countrefetede the maner & doyng of Kyng Arthures table.’ The fourteenth-century sense of the longer
Brut
was undoubtedly that Roger drew attention to himself as a king, and that Geoffrey called Roger ‘King of Folly’, or that Geoffrey, in folly or madness, addressed Roger as king. See Brie (ed.),
The Brut
, ii, p. 262; Childs and Taylor (eds),
Anonimalle Chronicle
, p. 145.

26.
Crump, ‘Arrest of Roger Mortimer’, pp. 331–2.

27.
Crump, ‘Arrest of Roger Mortimer’, pp. 331–2.

28.
Small defensive repairs were made to the walls of the castle in August, to be completed to the satisfaction of John Maltravers.
CCR 1327–1330
, p. 487. Maltravers was not appointed custodian of Corfe until the following month, and so this may well relate to Maltravers’ responsibility for guarding the king.

29.
CFR 1327–1337
, p. 149.

30.
Doherty, ‘Isabella’, p. 287.

31.
Complete Peerage
, vii, p. 399.

32.
BL Harley 1240 f41v.

33.
Eyton,
Shropshire
, x, p. 116.

34.
Doherty, ‘Isabella’, p. 289.

35.
Doherty, ‘Isabella’, pp. 289–90.

36.
The
Brut
refers to Howel as Hammond, and Harding follows this; Howel is the name in the original confession printed in Thompson (ed.),
Murimuth
, pp. 255–6, and Doherty follows this. Both original sources have the office as coroner of the king’s household. Tout in his
Chapters
uses the title clerk of the marshalsea of the household for Robert Howel, but the coroner title has been preferred in this instance, owing to the tally of the two primary sources.

37.
This is from the mid-fourteenth-century English translation of the French longer
Brut
chronicle. The original letter would have been in French, but it is not known on what authority the author of the chronicle quoted it.

38.
For the King wanting to forgive Edmund see Brie (ed.),
The Brut
, ii, p. 267. For the king being given the chance to revoke the death sentence, see
ibid
. For the fact that the death sentence was forced upon him by Roger, see
Rotuli parliamentorum
, ii, p. 52.

39.
CPR 1327–1330
, p. 511.

40.
CPR 1327–1330
, p. 514. John Galeys was probably a servant also of the royal household: on Isabella’s death a man of this name was paid for the time the body of the queen mother lay in his house. See Blackley, ‘Isabella and the Cult of the Dead’, p. 31.

41.
Calendar Charter Rolls 1327–1341
, p. 172.

42.
Harding, ‘Isabella and Mortimer’, p. 302. The proximity of the Arundel estates to Roger’s was a probable factor in the failure of the plot.