The Greatest Traitor

  * * *

  CONTENTS

  * * *

  Cover

  About the Author

  Also by Ian Mortimer

  List of Illustrations

  Maps

  Dedication

  Title Page

  Author’s Note

  Introduction

  1. Inheritance

  2. Youth

  3. The King’s Friend

  4. Bannockburn and Kells

  5. The King’s Lieutenant

  6. The King’s Kinsman

  7. Rebel

  8. The King’s Prisoner

  9. The King’s Enemy

  10. Invader

  11. Revolutionary

  12. The King’s Murderer?

  13. King in All but Name

  14. King of Folly

  Epilogue

  Chapter 12 Revisited

  Afterword

  Picture Section

  Notes

  Appendix 1

  Appendix 2

  Genealogical Tables

  Index

  Acknowledgements

  Select Bibliography

  Copyright

  About the Author

  Ian Mortimer has BA and PhD degrees in history from Exeter University and an MA in archive studies from University College London. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in 1998, and was awarded the Alexander Prize (2004) by the Royal Historical Society for his work on the social history of medicine. He is the author of four medieval biographies, The Greatest Traitor: The Life of Sir Roger Mortimer (2003), The Perfect King: The Life of Edward III (2006), The Fears of Henry IV: The Life of England’s Self-Made King (2007) and 1415: Henry V’s Year of Glory (2009) as well as the bestselling The Time Traveller’s Guide to Medieval England (2008). He lives with his wife and three children on the edge of Dartmoor.

  ALSO BY IAN MORTIMER

  The Perfect King: The Life of Edward III

  The Fears of Henry IV: The Life England’s Self-Made King

  The Time Traveller’s Guide to Medieval England

  1415: Henry V’s Year of Glory

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  ILLUSTRATIONS

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  Wigmore Castle: engraving from 1731 (author’s collection).

  Reconstruction of Wigmore Castle, drawing by Brian Byron (courtesy of Brian Byron).

  Trim Castle (courtesy of Dúchas, The Heritage Service, Dublin).

  Ludlow Castle (author’s photograph).

  Edward II: face from the effigy on his tomb in Gloucester Cathedral (courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, London).

  Edward II: face from the tomb of a member of the Alard family in Winchelsea Church (photograph by David Mortimer).

  Isabella: face from the tomb of a member of the Alard family in Winchelsea Church (photograph by David Mortimer).

  Queen’s head in Beverly Minster, thought to represent Isabella (The Conway Library, Courtauld Institute of Art; photograph by F.H. Crossley).

  Isabella and Roger Mortimer at the execution of Hugh Despenser: illumination from a copy of Froissart’s chronicle (by permission of the British Library).

  Catherine de Beauchamp (The Conway Library, Courtauld Institute of Art; photograph by F.H. Crossley).

  Seals of Roger Mortimer and his son Edmund (Public Record Office, Image Library, DL27/93).

  Reconstruction of Nottingham Castle in the sixteenth century (reproduced from George Clark, Medieval Military Architecture in England, vol. 2, 1882).

  The Fieschi letter (AD Hérault, G 1123, courtesy of Archives départementales Hérault, Photographic Services).

  This book is gratefully dedicated to the memory of my father

  JOHN STEPHEN MORTIMER

  who took me to Wigmore Castle as a child,

  told me not to climb on the walls (but let me do so anyway),

  and always encouraged me to explore my fascination with the past.

  IAN MORTIMER

  The Greatest

  Traitor

  The Life of Sir Roger Mortimer, 1st Earl of

  March, Ruler of England, 1327 – 1330

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  AUTHOR’S NOTE

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  THE EARLY FOURTEENTH century is a particularly difficult period for the systematic application of naming styles. Many of the individuals in this book were noblemen and knights whose hereditary surnames were originally derived from a placename, and thus included the prefix ‘de’ as a part of the name itself. For example: Roger appears in contemporary documents as Roger de Mortemer (French) or Rogerus de Mortuo Mari (Latin), although his family had their castle at Mortemer (in Normandy) confiscated before 1066. Many of the lower classes, on the other hand, had not adopted hereditary surnames by 1300, and so documents which prefix their second names with ‘de’ are in fact recording the places where they lived or were born. Historians have usually treated the former separately to the latter, maintaining the French ‘de’ only for hereditary surnames and using ‘of’ for geographical epithets: for example, Adam ‘of Orleton’ is often described thus by historians because he was (rightly or wrongly) believed to have come from Orleton in Herefordshire. A similar surname/epithet problem attends names incorporating the element ‘fitz’ (son of ). The Earls of Arundel continued to use the name FitzAlan throughout the period without changing it, while the Earls of Kildare continued to use ‘fitz’ as meaning ‘son of’; hence Thomas FitzJohn was the son of John FitzThomas, Earl of Kildare, who was the son of Thomas FitzMaurice. A third complication arises in the fact that some characters have become better known by their surnames than their titles, e.g. Simon de Montfort (rather than the Earl of Leicester), while other names are better known in a French or hybrid form, for example Piers Gaveston (not Peter de Gaveston or Gabaston). A last complication is that most standard reference works drop the prefix ‘de’ (but not ‘fitz’) when listing titles.

  As a result of all this complexity, inconsistency and confusion I have chosen to adopt the following naming system. Firstly, I have normally used the best-known version of the name of a well-known historical personality. Thus I refer to Roger as ‘Roger Mortimer’ not ‘Roger de Mortemer’, ‘Isabella’ not ‘Isabelle’, etc. Secondly, as ‘de’-prefixed surnames in this book are normally hereditary, I have tended to retain ‘de’ (rather than ‘of’), only making exceptions for those individuals for whom ‘de’ would be inappropriate, such as earls and counts (e.g. Thomas of Lancaster, Donald of Mar, William of Hainault), members of the royal family (e.g. Edmund of Woodstock), and those who appear under their first name in the old DNB (e.g. Adam of Orleton). In a few cases, such as Hugh Audley, the inconsistently applied prefix has been dropped from the surname. Thirdly, all ‘Fitz’ names have been written as one word, whether hereditary or not. Fourthly, where baronial titles based on surnames have been used – for example, Lord Badlesmere – the ‘de’ prefix has been dropped, following the practice of the Complete Peerage. Where a nobleman is referred to by a single name, it is normally his unprefixed title which is intended (e.g. ‘Gloucester’ for Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, or ‘Badlesmere’ for Sir Bartholomew de Badlesmere, Lord Badlesmere). Where a nobleman’s family is mentioned, however, the full prefixed surname is used.

  Storys to rede ar delitabill,

  Suppos that they be nocht bot fabill;

  Than suld storys that suthfast wer,

  And thai war said on gud maner,

  hawe doubill plesance in heryng.

  The fyrst plesance is the carpyng,

  And the tothir the suthfastnes.

  (The stories we read delight us,

  but suppose they be nothing but fable?

  Then should stories which are true

  and which are ma
sterfully told

  have double the pleasure in being heard.

  The first pleasure lies in the telling,

  and the other in the truth.)

  John Barbour (ed. Walter Skeat), The Bruce, part 1,

  Early English Text Society extra series XI (1870), p. 1.

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  INTRODUCTION

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  ON 1 AUGUST 1323 a thirty-six-year-old man lay in a chamber high up within the Tower of London. He was a nobleman, the lord of Wigmore, Radnor and Ludlow castles, and the lord of many manors throughout England. He held half the county of Meath and the castle and lordship of Trim in Ireland, and had twice been the governor of that country. He was one of the most experienced battle leaders alive, having fought campaigns in England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. But he was also King Edward II’s prisoner, sentenced to life imprisonment for having taken part in a rebellion two years earlier.

  The man’s name was Sir Roger Mortimer, Lord Mortimer of Wigmore. That he was a prisoner was not particularly remarkable: a great many noblemen in the early fourteenth century found themselves captive at some point in their careers. What was remarkable was that he was still alive. Nearly all of the other noblemen who had taken part in the recent rebellion against King Edward were dead, most hanged or beheaded at the king’s order; and those who were still above ground, such as his sixty-seven-year-old grizzled war veteran of an uncle, were imprisoned without hope of release. With the hated son of the Earl of Winchester, Hugh Despenser, whispering policy into the king’s ear one moment and acting as if he himself were king the next, to be a prisoner was to be at the mercy not only of the executioner but also the assassin, the ‘smiler with the knife’.

  Tension was high. Shortly after their surrender, Sir Roger Mortimer and his uncle had been condemned to death as traitors. Then they had been reprieved, but there was still a danger that they would be condemned to death again, in secret. Eighteen months had passed in this grim uncertainty. In that year and a half the king and Hugh Despenser had ruled without restraint. To many observers, the government was out of control, spiralling into tyranny, as the king and his manipulative friend indulged themselves in an unchecked exploitation of royal power, delighting in the humiliation and destruction of those who questioned their authority. Only one man was considered a serious threat to them – Sir Roger Mortimer – even though he was their prisoner. As opinion in the country hardened against their regime, Despenser convinced the king that they should take this opportunity to destroy him. Thus in the summer of 1323 they agreed to have Roger killed. The date was set for the beginning of August.

  The morning of 1 August began like any other for those in the Tower. The afternoon too was not unusual. The early evening meal, however, was to be special. It was the feast of St Peter ad Vincula – St Peter in Chains – whose chapel occupied a corner of the Tower and whose mystical presence watched over those within its walls. The feasting in the hall of the castle was accompanied by much drinking: the drinking continued after the eating had finished, and soon the majority of the guards were drunk. Not only were they drunk, they were sinking increasingly into a soporific state induced by the sub-lieutenant, Gerard d’Alspaye. He had arranged for the kitchen staff to administer drugged wine to the garrison. As the men fell asleep or stumbled about, d’Alspaye hastened to the chamber in which Sir Roger Mortimer waited with a fellow prisoner, a squire, Richard de Monmouth. A short while afterwards they heard the scraping of iron against stone as d’Alspaye prised stones from his cell wall with a crowbar. Soon the soft mortar gave way, the stones tumbled free, and they scrambled through a ragged hole in the wall.

  Loose within the castle, Roger and his two companions hurried to the kitchen. The cook, who held domain over his kitchen staff as if they were his feudal subjects, silenced the boys and servants present and guarded the escape as the three men climbed into a wide chimney and up into the twilight air. They crossed the roofs of the palace, climbing on to the wall walk and down into the inner bailey, then up on to the outer curtain wall of the castle, by St Thomas’s Tower, near Traitor’s Gate, using rope ladders. From the top of the wall they let themselves down to the marshy banks of the river. A little way downstream they were met by two Londoners, who armed them and rowed them across the river. At Greenwich, on the south bank, four men-at-arms were ready with extra horses on which they fled in the darkness down the road south, dodging the pursuing king’s men by taking the byways to Portchester, finding the hidden rowing boat waiting to take them to a ship bound for France.

  *

  Sir Roger Mortimer remains to this day one of the very few prisoners to have escaped from the Tower, and in his own time perhaps was only the second to accomplish the feat. His freedom was not merely of personal significance. As a result of it he became the widely acknowledged leader of the resistance to the king and the hated government of Hugh Despenser. Three years later, together with Queen Isabella, he invaded England and took control of the country, thereby completing the first successful invasion since 1066. While the nature of his invasion was very different from that of William the Conqueror, the results had a huge impact on the political state of the nation. Just as at Hastings, the reigning monarch was soon removed from office, his government destroyed, and his favoured retainers stripped of their power and lands. But more importantly, for the first time in English history the king’s deposition was agreed in Parliament, not on the battlefield. It was one of the most significant events of medieval European history.

  Extraordinary though it may seem, no one has written a full-length biography of Sir Roger Mortimer. One would have thought that the life of a man who ruled the country for almost four years deserves further examination. But even his name is barely known, except as the lover of Queen Isabella. As far as the literary legacies of front-rank English political leaders go, his is one of the slightest: a couple of early plays, a couple of political satires on eighteenth-century statesmen, a minor nineteenth-century romantic novel, and the odd chapter here and there in a few collective biographies.1 Even with regard to academic study Roger Mortimer has been much ignored, being the subject of only one higher degree thesis and the part-subject (on his rule with Isabella) of two others.2 Few academic articles have been published on his role, or his possible importance. His current reputation among scholars may be summed up as a brief, elusive, unsavoury shadow in between the reigns of Edward II and Edward III.

  What are the reasons for this absence of a legacy? One might say that it is because there are more engaging personalities who steal the early fourteenth-century limelight, most notably Piers Gaveston and Edward II himself. Yet Gaveston’s relationship with the king was no more remarkable than Mortimer’s with the queen. One was probably homosexual in nature, the other adulterous: both were outrageous aspects of royal behaviour in the early fourteenth century. A more likely explanation of the absence of a biography of Lord Mortimer lies in the fact that it is very difficult to bring medieval personalities to life: we simply do not know enough about their driving forces, their hatreds and loves, to be able to build portraits of characters as opposed to uninspired, armour-clad drones following patterns of feudal behaviour. Alison Weir draws attention to the challenge faced by medieval biographers in the preface to her book on Eleanor of Aquitaine, referring to this lack of first-hand personal detail as the greatest obstacle to creating a credible portrait of her subject.

  There is another reason why Lord Mortimer has not been written about before. He has had a bad press. As the man who partnered a queen – the notorious ‘She-wolf of France’ – in adultery, he has received no sympathy from those moralists down the years who deplore such behaviour in a woman, especially a beautiful and powerful one. In none of the dramatic works which touch upon him is he viewed with any sympathy, and in recent interpretations of Marlowe’s Edward II he is portrayed as an unflinching, testosterone-exuding military man. Such a two-dimensional representation is neither supported nor denied by academic historians, who place Lord M
ortimer and his contemporaries into parties of political leverage rather than presenting them as personalities. Yet if we know anything of the period we know that its politics were intensely personal. Wars were sometimes lost because of one pig-headed lord’s refusal to fight alongside a man he did not like. Edward II might not have lost his throne if he had not been so intense in his friendships with men who had equally intense enemies.

  Another reason for the bad press Roger has received is the fact that he was condemned as a traitor by Edward III, one of the few monarchs to be as well-thought of by contemporaries and historians as the universally adored Queen Elizabeth I. There was much to lose and nothing to gain from writing well of Lord Mortimer, or even reminding the king and his court of the man’s past existence. Shortly after his death there was a deliberate attempt to destroy his reputation and the memory of his popularity by dragging his appointed officers through the courts. Even when the sentence of treason on him was reversed in 1354, twenty-four years after his execution, Edward still had another twenty-three years to reign; and by the time one of Roger’s descendants stood in line for the throne, sixty years later, he himself had largely been forgotten. There is thus a considerable amount of ‘politeness’ behind his failure to stand tall in history. This blanking of the man’s positive attributes differs from deliberate propaganda or bias, but it still remains a long way adrift of the historical facts.