The Greatest Traitor Read online

  This brings us to the key question: is our picture of Roger Mortimer as a crooked, selfish, adulterous, military traitor deserved? All such labels are, of course, relative, especially when reflecting on an age so different from our own. But if we can sympathise with the reasons why a man does something, we might understand even his worst ‘crimes’. For example, if he had no choice but to order the king to be killed, on account of the political risk of his being released from prison, his order was not necessarily a cold-hearted one, even if it was cold-blooded. But as will be shown, Roger Mortimer emerges as a far more interesting character than a mere royal murderer. He was one of the very few important lords who remained totally loyal to the king and Piers Gaveston in their most severe troubles. There is evidence to suggest that, although one of the most experienced soldiers of his age, with a particular penchant for the joust, he was as sophisticated in his tastes for objets d’art, comfortable architecture and exotica as he was in his war machines. He was certainly not ignorant of history, nor of its importance. He was a literate man, trusted as an emissary by the king, loved by the queen, and respected by the citizens of London. Even the chronicler Froissart notes his popularity. Finally he planned and carried out the most daring and complicated plot in British medieval history, which has remained secret right up until the present day. As a historical figure he stands in three camps: firstly, as one of the great fourteenth-century aristocrats and secular patrons; secondly, as a baronial warlord of an earlier period; and, thirdly, as one of those remarkable people whose misdeeds set them apart from their contemporaries, forever defying categorisation.

  So, before we try to reconcile Roger Mortimer with the pantheon of English history’s maligned political leaders, we must remind ourselves that society then, as now, judges men and women on their single worst deed or crime, and in Roger’s case we are talking about a man who deposed Edward II and ruled in his stead for three years, who adulterously slept with the queen, who arranged the judicial murder of the king’s uncle, the Earl of Kent, and who greedily gathered to himself vast estates throughout Britain and Ireland. As the last chapters of this book will reveal, the extent to which he undermined the English monarchy is truly astounding. By the standards of his own time – the only ones by which a man can be judged – he was most certainly the greatest traitor of his age. It is perhaps significant that, in a reign when many men turned traitor and were killed, only three executions dramatically altered the course of events – those of Piers Gaveston (1312), the Earl of Lancaster (1322) and Roger Mortimer (1330), and only the last brought peace to the kingdom.

  This book does not answer all the questions about the character of Roger Mortimer. Ultimately, as with any medieval man, we may only know him by his recorded deeds, and we will never be sure that we understand his personality when he left no personal written testimony of his character. Even his deeds are in doubt: unlike virtually every other ruler in history his obsession was in being seen not to rule, to govern invisibly, and to leave little or no trace of his unofficial dictatorship in the official records of government. Thus there are a few points in this book which, owing to lack of evidence, can only be loosely associated with Roger Mortimer. However, with the important exception of Chapter 12 and the final chapter (Chapter 12 Revisited), this book is not a series of academic arguments as to the strengths and reliability of individual pieces of evidence; it is an attempt to illustrate the vast chessboard on which Roger Mortimer and his eminent contemporaries played out their ambitions – kings, queens, bishops, knights, custodians of castles – and to trace his career, his loves, struggles, ambitions, power structures and defeats. Even if one cannot fully understand the personality of a man who lived and died more than twenty generations ago, to see his personal struggle framed by the age in which he lived is a start to understanding his thinking. That age was one of unbridled personal ambition and bloodshed; it saw enough betrayal, corruption, greed and murder for it to merit the description ‘the Age of Treason’. And yet it was also full of piety, chivalry and patriotic fervour. It was a society in which all its leading participants struggled to survive. In this light one can begin to sympathise with the actions of Roger Mortimer, and gauge for him what is perhaps the most important element of any historical personality: his integrity.

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  ONE

  * * *

  Inheritance

  THE ROOTS OF betrayal lie in friendship; those of treason lie in loyalty.

  It would be easy to begin an account of the life of Roger Mortimer with the simple statement that he was born on 25 April 1287, the eldest son of Edmund Mortimer, Lord of Wigmore, and Margaret de Fiennes.1 But though a life begins with a birth, a life story often begins much earlier. History, genealogy, geography and social situation all have their part to play. Roger himself would have acknowledged this, as his tournaments often alluded to the deeds of his grandfather, one of Henry III’s most trusted advisers, and he described himself as ‘the king’s cousin’, recalling one relationship going back several generations on his mother’s side, and another through his grandfather going back to King John. Thus this story begins not with the Roger Mortimer who is the subject of this book, but with another Roger Mortimer, the man after whom he was named: his grandfather.2

  The elder Roger Mortimer was a heroic figure, famous throughout England, and feared throughout Wales. He was a knight of the first rank, a military commander and a champion tournament fighter. But what distinguished him from many of his contemporaries was his loyalty to the Crown. In the wars between King Henry III and Simon de Montfort, Lord Mortimer fought for the king, and continued to fight against de Montfort even after the king’s defeat and capture. This loyalty almost cost him his life at the Battle of Lewes in 1264, but a year later Roger rescued the king’s son, Prince Edward (later King Edward I), and thus rejuvenated the royal cause. He formed a pact with the prince and the Earl of Gloucester to defeat de Montfort and restore the royal family to power. Thus it was Lord Mortimer who set in motion the chain of events which led to de Montfort’s last battle.

  On 3 August 1265, Prince Edward, Lord Mortimer and Lord Gloucester marched westward from Worcester towards Dunnington with ten thousand men. De Montfort and his army were south of the River Avon, but he turned north towards Evesham to stay that night, crossing the bridge at Bengeworth. He and his men had unwittingly walked into a trap. At Evesham they were surrounded by the river on three sides, and on the fourth by the royalist army. The bridge at Bengeworth was their only possible escape. Lord Mortimer knew this and accordingly forced his men to march through the night and wade across the river at a ford a few miles away so they could take the bridge from the south. Next morning de Montfort’s scouts reported that their way north was barred by the royal army, and, as a result of the night manoeuvre, the bridge behind them was blocked by the azure and gold banners of Lord Mortimer. De Montfort ascended the tower of Evesham Abbey. ‘Let us commend our souls to God,’ he said solemnly, ‘for our bodies are theirs.’

  What followed was one of the most devastating scenes of carnage on English soil. With storm clouds racing above their heads, and rain falling heavily, the ground was soon a sea of mud and blood. The Welshmen sent by Llywelyn of Wales refused to fight for de Montfort, and tried to flee across the river. But Lord Mortimer was there and too full of anger towards Llywelyn, his cousin and longstanding enemy, to let them pass. Rain dripping down their faces, swords in the air, yelling their war cries, this was the revenge which all the royalists had dreamed of for so many years. De Montfort desperately tried to line his men up to punch a hole through the combined armies of Lord Gloucester and Prince Edward, but failed to break through. The royalists rushed in on all sides, Lord Mortimer’s men holding the bridge, and Lord Mortimer himself advancing through the fray with his knights, cutting down the de Montfort men, seeking out his adversaries. There he found Hugh Despenser whom he killed with his own hands. And there was Simon de Montfort himself. Men rushed at him and tore him from his horse, an
d pulled him to the ground. They hacked at his head and limbs as the storm crashed around them. The helmet off, a knight cut through the neck and held the head up in the rain for all to see, to ecstatic cheers. Prince Edward looked at the corpse and ordered the hands and feet also to be cut off as a mark of dishonour. Then de Montfort’s testicles were cut off and draped over his nose. With the army laughing,3 Prince Edward gave the dead man’s adorned head to Lord Mortimer, as a trophy of war. Later he sent it to Wigmore Castle, to be presented to Lady Mortimer.

  The consequences of this battle were far-reaching. For a start, the death of Hugh Despenser would have the most calamitous repercussions more than fifty years later, almost ending in Roger’s own death. After the death of de Montfort, the Mortimers were drawn closer to the royal family, to the point where Lord Mortimer later became joint Regent of England. But for young Roger, born twenty-two years later, the most significant consequence was a vivid display of the family tradition of military service, an example of a loyal knight fighting for his king despite having the odds stacked against him, and eventually overcoming his lord’s enemy in complete fulfilment of his knightly duty.

  We do not know whether de Montfort’s skull still hung in the treasury at Wigmore Castle when Roger and his brother and sisters were growing up there in the 1290s, but even if not there were still plenty of reminders of the family’s glorious past to remind the young heir of his illustrious forbears. The castle was adorned with old armour and other relics of bygone conquests. Old chronicles remained in Wigmore Abbey, where five generations of the family were buried, which spoke of the deeds of the warlords from whom Roger was descended. Before his illustrious grandfather there had been a long line of barons who had fought the native Welsh with an ongoing and bitter savagery. One, his great-grandfather, had married the daughter of Llywelyn the Great, but this had been merely an attempt to stave off the worst excesses of the Anglo-Welsh conflict. Nor was it just Welshmen they attacked. In the twelfth century Roger’s ancestors had fought their rival English lords as regularly as they had defended the Welsh border. Those they captured were sometimes blinded in their prison cells to prevent them fighting again. A small insight into the brutality of the world into which Roger was born may be gained from the epitaph on his grandfather’s tomb in Wigmore Abbey, written just five years before his birth:

  Here lies buried, glittering with praise,

  Roger the pure, Roger Mortimer the second,

  called Lord of Wigmore by those who held him dear.

  While he lived all Wales feared his power,

  and given as a gift to him, all Wales remained his.

  It knew his campaigns, he subjected it to torment.4

  This was Roger’s real inheritance, not just land and castles but the tradition of royal service and military victory, the will to win glory and a physical and mental aptitude for war. And yet it was more than this too, for medieval family traditions were not static, unchanging tales of the past but growing, changing concepts. Many of the family stories with which Roger was familiar linked his family’s history with its destiny. Such stories had a life of their own. For example, Roger’s descent from Llywelyn the Great and the ancient Princes of Wales carried with it a legendary descent from King Arthur. One of the popular ‘prophecies of Merlin’ recited throughout England and Wales at the time was that a descendant of this line would become King of England. ‘When English money is made round, a Welsh prince in London shall be crowned.’ This story was enlarged upon and commemorated by Roger’s grandfather, who had held a great Round Table tournament at Kenilworth in 1279. Kenilworth had been the great castle of de Montfort, and thus Lord Mortimer had held his last great tournament in the castle of his vanquished enemy. King Edward and Queen Eleanor had both attended, confirming the old knight’s greatness, and providing the royal presence necessary for a tournament to be referred to as a ‘Round Table’, in emulation of the court of King Arthur. But the real significance of the event was to remind everyone of the Mortimers’ Arthurian ancestry. Roger was not just descended from glorious warriors, he was part of a living and growing tradition. One day one of his kin would rule all England and Wales.

  *

  On the death of Lord Mortimer in 1282, the family estates passed to his second son, Edmund, Roger’s father. Edmund’s elder brother, Sir Ralph, had been an impressive knight, but he had died young, in 1276. Thus Edmund was thrust into the position of heir, and, in 1282, had to take on the mantle of Lord Mortimer of Wigmore.

  Edmund was not groomed for lordship. As a younger son he was educated as a clerk and promised an official position. King Henry granted him this in 1265 when he made him nominal Treasurer of York, removing Simon de Montfort’s son Almeric from the position. Edmund was then aged about fifteen, and went off to Oxford University. In 1268, while his elder brother Sir Ralph was showing off his martial prowess in tournaments up and down the country, he was studying theology, living at the house of the Archbishop of York in Oxford. Such luxury as the archbishop’s house offered was supplemented with the odd gift of deer from the king, but it was still a far cry from the glories of the tournament. Despite this Edmund seems to have taken to studying, for he remained in Oxford even after the death of his elder brother, by which he became heir to Wigmore Castle and the other Mortimer estates. On the death of his father he could no longer continue with learning. He was required to put away his goose quill and parchment and take up the sword.

  Within a few weeks Edmund was leading a party of men-at-arms towards Builth in Wales. With him were his brothers – Roger, a captain in the king’s army, Geoffrey and William – and other Marcher lords, including Roger Lestrange and John Giffard. Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, Prince of Wales and grandson of Llywelyn the Great, had re-established his control of North Wales, and had broken out of a siege to come south and rouse his fellow Welshmen in the Marches. Edmund, in an attempt to entrap Llywelyn, sent him a message saying that he was marching to his aid, and wanted to meet with him. Llywelyn came with his army through Radnorshire, keeping to the hills. Then he made a fatal mistake. He left his army to meet the Mortimers, supposing that, if it were a trap, his men guarding Orewin Bridge would be able to hold it and protect his retreat. The Mortimer brothers, however, had heard of a ford across the river and, as Llywelyn came to meet Edmund, they sent men across to attack the bridge from the rear. Soon they had taken it, killing Llywelyn’s guards, and allowing the whole Marcher army to advance towards the Welsh position. Not knowing what to do, and not wanting to desert their posts, the Welsh gave battle then and there. Their efforts were in vain. As they broke ranks and fled, Llywelyn, without his armour, hastened back to take charge of the situation. Unrecognised, he was stopped by the English, and run through with a sword by Stephen de Frankton, who did not stop to look more closely at his victim. Only later, when the dead bodies were being stripped of their weapons and other belongings, was Llywelyn’s corpse noticed. Edmund Mortimer himself confirmed it was his father’s cousin, and, to the great delight of the English, Edmund’s younger brother Roger set out for Rhuddlan Castle with Llywelyn’s head to show to King Edward. With Llywelyn’s only child being a daughter in Edward’s custody, Wales was finally conquered.

  Thus the scholar Edmund Mortimer became a soldier. He was knighted by the king at Winchester.5 From then on his life was that of a baron and a warrior, attending Parliament and being summoned to fight in King Edward’s campaigns in Scotland and Gascony. The year after Llywelyn’s death he was summoned to do military service in Wales again, to crush the last vestiges of revolt. Then in September 1285 he did something which would never have happened if he had remained at Oxford. He married. His bride was Margaret de Fiennes, daughter of William de Fiennes, the second cousin of Queen Eleanor of Castile, wife of Edward I.6 Roger Mortimer, eighth Lord of Wigmore, was born eighteen months later.

  *

  The formal education of a baron’s son in the late thirteenth century began at the age of seven. Roger remained at Wigmore until he had reac
hed this age, with his younger brother John and four sisters, in the care of the women of the castle, principally his mother and grandmother. Not that his mother, Lady Mortimer, was always present; she spent most of the year travelling around the country with her husband. Thus young Roger probably spent much of his early life in the company of his grandmother, Maud, the widow of the great Lord Mortimer, his famous grandfather.

  Young Roger was no doubt enthralled by the stories of his grandfather’s exploits, yet his grandmother also had stories of her own worth hearing. Her father, William de Braose, had been hanged by Llywelyn the Great on suspicion of adultery with his wife. But that was nothing compared with her mother, who was of truly distinguished stock, she being Eva, the daughter of William Marshal, the greatest knight in Christendom. His name was spoken everywhere with a sense of awe. He had won success in every tournament he had entered, and, when confronted by his adversaries at court, had challenged them all to single combat. None had dared face him. On the death of Henry, second son of Henry II, to whom he was a friend, guardian and mentor, William was charged by the king with carrying out his dying son’s request, of carrying his cross to Jerusalem. His prowess there was such that the crusaders who hung on to the last shreds of Christian rule in Syria were loath to let him return to Europe, he having won as many battles in one year as they had in seven. When fighting broke out between France and England, he suggested that the war should be decided by four champions on each side fighting in single combat, and volunteered to head the list for England. Again, no one dared face him. In the war between Henry II and his son Richard the Lionheart, Marshal was the man who defended the king’s retreat and thus came face to face in battle with the Lionheart himself. ‘God’s feet, Marshal,’ shouted Richard. ‘Slay me not!’ Marshal replied: ‘The Devil slay you, for I will not,’ as he plunged his spear into Richard’s horse. Richard recognised Marshal’s valour and loyalty when he became king, and Marshal in return proved just as steadfast a supporter of King Richard as he had of Henry II. He carried the gold spurs at Richard’s coronation, and even in advanced years was spoken of as the most feared soldier in Richard’s army. For young Roger, to know that the one man feared in battle by Richard the Lionheart was his great-great-grandfather was a treasure in itself.