ROGER MORTIMER, 4TH EARL OF MARCH

'Roger de Mortimer, 4th Earl of March and 6th Earl of Ulster' (11 April, 1374 – 20 July, 1398)^[1] was between 1385 and 1398 the heir presumptive to Richard II of England.

Contents

Family

Family wealth

Marriage and issue

Conflict in Ireland

Notes

References

Family

His father was the powerful Edmund Mortimer, 3rd Earl of March, and his mother was Philippa, Countess of March and Ulster, the only issue of Lionel of Antwerp, Duke of Clarence, a son of King Edward III of England and Philippa of Hainault^[2].
As the senior descendant of this line through Edward III's second surviving son, Roger Mortimer was named by the childless King Richard II of England as his heir presumptive.

Family wealth

He held enormous estates in Wales, and succeeded to the titles and estates of his family when a child of seven. One month later he was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and his uncle Sir Thomas Mortimer acted as his deputy. Being a ward of the Crown, his guardian was Thomas Holland, 2nd Earl of Kent, half-brother to Richard II. The earl of Kent also purchased the rights to choose Mortimer's bride, and 1387 or early 1388 married him to his daughter Alianor.^[2]
The importance which he owed to his hereditary influence and possessions, and especially to his descent from Edward III, was immensely increased when Richard II publicly acknowledged him as heir presumptive to the crown in 1385.

Marriage and issue

In 1388, Mortimer married Alianore de Holland, daughter of Thomas Holland, 2nd Earl of Kent and Alice Fitzalan, who was a daughter of Richard FitzAlan, 10th Earl of Arundel.
They had the following children^[4]:

★ Anne de Mortimer, married Richard of Conisburgh, 3rd Earl of Cambridge

★ Edmund Mortimer, 5th Earl of March

★ Roger Mortimer (died young c. 1409)

★ Eleanor (d. 1418), married Edward de Courtenay, 11th Earl of Devon and had no children

Conflict in Ireland

In 1394 he accompanied Richard II to Ireland, but notwithstanding a commission from the king as lieutenant of the districts over which he exercised nominal authority by hereditary right, he made little headway against the native Irish chieftains.
March enjoyed great popularity in England though he took no active part in opposing the despotic measures of the King; in Ireland he illegally assumed the native Irish costume. On July 20, 1398 he was killed at the Battle of Kells in a fight with an Irish clan, and was buried in Wigmore Abbey.
His titles and the designation of heir presumptive passed to his young son, Edmund Mortimer, 5th Earl of March.

Notes

1. Tout; some primary sources give the date of his death as 15 August
2. Tout
3. Tout
4. Tout p. 146

References

★ ''The Royal Ancestry Bible Royal Ancestors of 300 Colonial American Families'' by Michel L. Call (chart 19) ISBN 1-933194-22-7

★ Roger de Mortimer, fourth earl of March and Ulster, , T. F., Tout, Dictionary of National Biography, 1894