Roger Mortimer of Wigmore

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Ruin of the main gate of Wigmore Castle, Mortimer's residence

Sir Roger Mortimer of Wigmore (* 1231 at Cymaron Castle , † October 26, 1282 in Kingsland , Herefordshire ) was a Cambronorman nobleman. By inheritance, marriage and by his friendship with the future King I. Edward , he became one of the most powerful barons of the Welsh Marches . He played crucial roles in crushing the Simon de Montfort rebellion , the Second War of the Barons, and the conquest of Wales .

origin

Roger Mortimer was the eldest son of the Marcher Lord Ralph de Mortimer and his wife Gwladus Ddu , a daughter of the Welsh prince Llywelyn from Iorwerth . His family had been fighting with the Welsh princes for supremacy in Maelienydd and Gwrtheyrnion in East Welsh since the mid-12th century .

Advancement through marriage and inheritance

When his father died, Mortimer was still a minor, so that his lands were placed under royal administration in August 1246. Thereupon Mortimer paid a fee of 2000 Marks to replace the guardianship, so that on February 26, 1247 he was enfeoffed with his father's lands. In the same year he married Maud de Braose, a daughter and co-heir of the Marcher Lord William de Braose and his wife Eva Marshal. From the inheritance of William de Braose he received Radnor and parts of Brecknockshire . Since Anselm Marshal , the last brother of his mother-in-law, had also died in December 1245 without an heir, Mortimer was also entitled to part of the great inheritance of the Marshals. With the extinction of the Marshal family and the Braose branch, the balance of power in the Welsh Marches changed significantly . With his inheritance, Mortimer was now one of the most powerful barons of the Welsh Marches.

Supporter of the reform party of the barons

However, the transfer of Maud's inheritance was not immediate, it was only finally decided by the royal administration in February 1259. Nevertheless, the division of the inheritance among the four heiresses remained controversial. This slowness and inefficiency of the royal administration was probably one of the reasons why Mortimer joined the barons early on in calling for government reform. The estates of Lechlade and Longborough in Gloucestershire , which Mortimer had to cede to the crown in the 1240s and which were then given to Richard of Cornwall , the king's brother , remained similarly controversial . Mortimer did not give up his claims to the goods and tried for years to get them back.

Fight against Llyweylwn ap Gruffydd in Wales

1253 Mortimer was by King Henry III. in Winchester for Knights defeated. In August he accompanied the king to Gascony , from where he did not return until 1254. On his return he found that his cousin Llywelyn ap Gruffydd , the prince of Gwynedd , was trying to restore the kingdom of his grandfather Llywelyn from Iorwerth. After the death of Llywelyn from Iorwerth in 1240 and the defeat of his son Dafydd ap Llywelyn in the war against England, the Mortimers were able to take control of Gwrtheyrnion and Maelienydd. Llywelyn now tried to bring the two Cantrefi back under his suzerainty. Llywelyn's steadily increasing power, along with Mortimer's personal reasons, had been the main reason why he had joined the reform party of the barons. In the Anglo-Welsh War , Gwrtheyrnion fell to the Prince of Gwynedd in 1256, without Mortimer receiving any support from the king. It was not until January 18, 1257, that the king declared that he wanted to protect Mortimer's possessions, and finally he promised him a support payment of 200 marks, of which Mortimer only received 100 marks. In July 1259, Mortimer was part of the delegation that finally negotiated a one-year truce with Llywelyn from August 1. But already on January 10, 1260 Llywelyn attacked Builth and finally captured Builth Castle on July 17 . Mortimer had stayed in London during this time, where he made his claims on Lechlade and Longborough. Although the king and the heir to the throne did not blame Lord Eduard Mortimer for conquering the important castle, the defeat put a strain on the previously good relationship between Mortimer and Eduard. In August Mortimer conveyed to Bishops Richard of Bangor and Anian of St Asaph the letter from Boniface of Savoy , Archbishop of Canterbury , excommunicating Llywelyn ap Gruffydd and submitting his country to interdict . Together with Richard de Clare, 2nd Earl of Gloucester , Mortimer raised an army to support the king in a campaign against Llywelyn. However, to Mortimer's disappointment, Llywelyn accepted a two-year truce on August 22, 1260. Even before the end of the armistice, Mortimer himself began to attack Welsh possessions , so that Llywelyn demanded compensation from the king in June 1262 for Mortimer's attacks. In November 1262 the Welsh rose at Maelienydd, captured Mortimer's castles of Knucklas , Bleddfa and Cefnllys and submitted to Llywelyn. Mortimer and his entourage were allowed to withdraw unscathed from Cefnllys Castle, so that he was accused of treason. The fall of Maelienydd upset other areas in the Welsh Marches, and although the king placed the areas of the Marcher Lords under his protection, more and more areas fell under the rule of Llywelyn.

Change from the reform party to the side of the king

In June 1258, Mortimer was a supporter of the reform movement during the Oxford Parliament . He was elected one of the twelve representatives of the barons and was a member of the fifteen-member council that was supposed to oversee and review various royal decisions. On October 18, he testified to the Provisions of Oxford . In July 1259 he was present at the confirmation of the negotiations in which a peace treaty had been negotiated with France , and the Provisions of Westminster of October 1259 appointed him and Philip Basset to represent the Justiciars Hugh Bigod , who in the King's absence in France served as regent. However, his relationship with Simon de Montfort, the leader of the party of barons, was strained after the king had given him several properties in the Welsh Marches in 1259, which Montfort also claimed. Although Mortimer was appointed administrator of Herefordshire by the supporters of the barons' party in May 1260, the deteriorating situation in the Welsh Marches brought him to the side of Richard de Clare, who had switched back to the king's side in 1261. Montfort's alliance with Lord Eduard, who still resented Mortimer for the loss of Builth Castle, also led Mortimer's support for the barons' party to wane. The king now tried to win Mortimer over to his side with gifts. In the spring of 1261 the king reprimanded the barons for developments in Wales, whereupon the barons blamed Mortimer alone for the loss of Builth Castle. After this accusation, Mortimer finally switched to the side of the king, and the king formally forgave him on December 7, 1261 for having previously supported the party of the barons.

Crucial battles in the war of the barons

In December 1263, King Mortimer gave three estates in Herefordshire , which Montfort also claimed, presumably to Montfort's participation in the meeting with King Louis IX. of France in Amiens , where the latter wanted to proclaim his mediator in the conflict between the English king and the barons, the Mise of Amiens . Montfort immediately had the disputed goods plundered and devastated. To this end, he commissioned his sons Henry and Simon to raid further estates of Mortimers in the Welsh Marches, which were supported by Prince Llywelyn of Wales. The two sons of Montfort conquered Mortimer's ancestral home in Wigmore and the castles of Roger de Clifford and Thomas Corbet . Lord Eduard returned from France too late to prevent the capture of Wigmore. He was now reconciled with Mortimer and gave him the castles of Huntingdon and Hay , which he had conquered from Humphrey V. de Bohun . Mortimer himself played a crucial role in the capture of Northampton in April 1264, where he made numerous prisoners. However, just a month later, he himself was captured at the Battle of Lewes . Together with other Marcher Lords, however, he was required to defend the Welsh Marches against Welsh attacks and later answer to a parliament. Mortimer was only released on the condition that he released the prisoners made in Northampton in return. However, the other Marcher Lords prevented the release of these prisoners. Mortimer then took his son Henry hostage, but when the prisoners were still not released, Montfort, who had now openly allied himself with Prince Llywelyn, undertook a campaign against the Welsh Marches in the early winter of 1264, in which he devastated Mortimer's possessions and Hay and Hereford Castle captured. Mortimer went with Roger de Clifford and Roger of Leybourne to Kenilworth Castle , where the Lord Eduard imprisoned there should give them permission to end the resistance against Montfort. Finally, on December 12, 1264, in Worcester , the Marcher Lords accepted Mortimer and their leaders to go into exile in Ireland for a year and a day. Mortimer and the other Marcher Lords, however, delayed their departure for Ireland. They succeeded in winning John Giffard and Gilbert de Clare, 3rd Earl of Gloucester , son of Richard de Clare, on their side as Montfort's power fell apart. On May 28, 1265, the captured Lord Eduard managed to escape. Mortimer is said to have sent him the horse with which Eduard escaped his guards during a ride, and Eduard fled to Wigmore Castle in Mortimer. Mortimer took him on to Ludlow Castle . There the heir to the throne gathered an army that the army of the barons under Montfort was finally able to defeat on August 4th in the battle of Evesham . Mortimer was one of the three commanders of Lord Eduard's army in the battle and is said to have personally killed Montfort and Hugh le Despenser . He sent the severed head and genitals of Montfort as a trophy to his wife Maud in Wigmore.

Confidante of the heir to the throne

After the defeat of Montfort, Mortimer was a leading confidante of the king and the heir to the throne, and Mortimer expected the king to reward him richly with possessions that were to be taken from the defeated rebels. The king also transferred Mortimer to Oxfordshire , which had previously belonged to Robert de Vere, 5th Earl of Oxford . From Easter 1266 to autumn 1267 Mortimer served as sheriff of Herefordshire, but he got into a dispute with the Earl of Gloucester over the guardianship of Humphrey de Bohun , Lord of Brecknockshire. On May 15, 1266, Mortimer was almost killed in a Welsh raid in Brecknockshire. In June 1266 he was one of the commanders of the royal army that besieged Kenilworth Castle, which was still occupied by rebels. Mortimer's ambitions were dashed when the King returned Oxfordshire to Robert de Vere. De Vere had to pay Mortimer compensation, and as a token of reconciliation, his son was to marry Mortimer's daughter Margaret.

When Eduard, the heir to the throne, set out on a crusade for the Holy Land in August 1270 , Mortimer was one of the five councilors who were supposed to support the ailing king in the government of England. He was one of the administrators of the heir apparent's possessions and became the guardian of his children. When King Henry died in 1272, Mortimer was one of the administrators of the royal estates along with Philip Basset and Robert Burnell until Lord Edward returned from his crusade in August 1274. Together with the Earl of Gloucester and other magnates, he tried to repair the damage caused by the war of the barons in England.

The conflict in Wales escalates

In Wales, Prince Llywelyn ap Gruffydd achieved recognition of his conquests and his claim as Prince of Wales through the Treaty of Montgomery in 1267 . However, the treaty did not bring a clear decision about the rule in Maelienydd, which remained under Llywelyn's rule, although he was supposed to prove the legitimacy of his claims to the Cantref. As long as the evidence was not provided, Mortimer was allowed to build a castle in Maelienydd. Mortimer eventually began re-fortifying Cefnllys Castle, which Llywelyn viewed as a violation of the Montgomery Accords. In May 1276, Llywelyn complained again about Mortimer building the castle, but the new King Edward let Mortimer do it. This led to the fact that Llywelyn refused to pay homage to the new king as long as the king did not protect his rights under the Treaty of Montgomery. After Llywelyn in November 1276, a renewed invitation from the king to pay homage to him, the king decided to submit to Wales . To this end, he appointed Mortimer captain of Shropshire , Staffordshire and Herefordshire, from where he was to lead an army against Mid Wales together with Henry de Lacy, 3rd Earl of Lincoln . Mortimer gathered his army at Montgomery , and under the protection of the army of the Welsh prince Gruffydd ap Gwenwynwyn , who had fled into exile in England before Llywelyn, he was reinstated in his rule Powys Wenwynwyn . In addition, the army occupied Cedewain , Ceri , Gwrtheyrnion and Builth and captured Llywelyn's new castle, Dolforwyn Castle . After the English victory, Mortimer received the Welsh dominions Ceri and Cedewain with Dolforwyn Castle as a reward for his services in 1279. The Welsh men under Llywelyn ap Gruffydd had suffered a crushing defeat in the war. To restore his power, Llywelyn formed a defensive alliance with his old opponent Mortimer on October 9, 1281. The alliance was directed against all attacks except against the English king. To this end, Llywelyn Mortimer handed over disputed areas in Gwrtheyrnion. However, since an uprising against the English occupation broke out in North Wales in March 1282 , led by Llywelyn, the alliance became obsolete. The king reappointed Mortimer as captain of one of his armies after the uprising began, but Mortimer was already ill and finally died in October 1281. He was buried in the family priory in Wigmore.

Family and offspring

From his marriage to Maud de Braose, Mortimer had at least four sons and two daughters:

  1. Ralph Mortimer († 1274)
  2. Edmund Mortimer, 1st Baron Mortimer (1251–1304)
  3. Isabella Mortimer († 1292) ⚭ (1) John FitzAlan , ⚭ (2) Robert de Hastings
  4. Margaret Mortimer († 1297) ⚭ Robert de Vere, 6th Earl of Oxford
  5. Roger Mortimer, 1st Baron Mortimer of Chirk († 1326)
  6. Geoffrey Mortimer
  7. William Mortimer († 1297)

His heir became his eldest surviving son, Edmund.

literature

  • Ian Mortimer: The Greatest Traitor. 2003.
  • PM Remfry: Wigmore Castle Tourist Guide and the Family of Mortimer. ISBN 1-899376-76-3 .
  • PM Remfry: Brampton Bryan Castle, 1066 to 1646. ISBN 1-899376-33-X .
  • William Dugdale : The Baronage of England. Vol. 1. 1661.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Michael Prestwich: Edward I. University of California, Berkeley 1988, ISBN 0-520-06266-3 , p. 18
  2. ^ Rees R. Davies: The Age of Conquest. Wales 1063-1415. Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford 1991. ISBN 0-19-820198-2 , p. 312
  3. ^ Michael Prestwich: Edward I. University of California, Berkeley 1988, ISBN 0-520-06266-3 , p. 42
  4. ^ Michael Prestwich: Edward I. University of California, Berkeley 1988, ISBN 0-520-06266-3 , p. 47
  5. ^ Michael Prestwich: Edward I. University of California, Berkeley 1988, ISBN 0-520-06266-3 , p. 49
  6. ^ John Sadler: The Second Barons' War: Simon de Montfort and the battles of Lewes and Evesham . Pen & Sword Military, Barnsley 2008. ISBN 978-1-84415-831-7 , p. 123
  7. ^ Michael Prestwich: Edward I. University of California, Berkeley 1988, ISBN 0-520-06266-3 , p. 58
  8. ^ Michael Prestwich: Edward I. University of California Press, Berkeley 1988, ISBN 0-520-06266-3 , p. 73
  9. ^ Rees R. Davies: The Age of Conquest. Wales 1063-1415. Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford 1991. ISBN 0-19-820198-2 , p. 315
  10. ^ Michael Prestwich: Edward I. University of California, Berkeley 1988, ISBN 0-520-06266-3 , p. 175
  11. ^ Rees R. Davies: The Age of Conquest. Wales 1063-1415. Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford 1991. ISBN 0-19-820198-2 , p. 343
personal data
SURNAME Mortimer of Wigmore, Roger
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Roger III Mortimer, Lord of Wigmore
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English nobleman
DATE OF BIRTH 1231
PLACE OF BIRTH Cymaron Castle
DATE OF DEATH October 26, 1282
Place of death Kingsland