Roger Mortimer, 1st Earl of March (1287 to 1330) was an English nobleman who deposed King Edward II of England (reign 1307 to 1327) and then established himself as the kingdom's de facto ruler. Though he had initially been loyal to the king, Mortimer eventually became disillusioned with Edward's reign and rebelled. He was captured and imprisoned in the Tower of London, but he made a daring escape and fled to Paris. There, he conspired with Queen Isabella of France – Edward II's wife and Mortimer's lover – to invade England, which they successfully did in late 1326. After forcing Edward II's abdication, Mortimer and Isabella briefly ruled as joint regents. However, Mortimer's corruption and unpopularity soon led to his downfall. The new King Edward III of England staged a coup, and Mortimer was arrested and executed in 1330.

Roger Mortimer was born on 25 April 1287 at Wigmore Castle in Herefordshire, England. The Mortimer family had been established at Wigmore ever since 1074, when the first Roger Mortimer had been given the land as a reward for his service to King William the Conqueror during the Norman conquest of England. For centuries, the Mortimers had consolidated their power as 'Marcher lords' – so named for the Welsh Marches, the borderlands between Wales and England – and were charged with keeping the peace in that volatile region. Growing up, young Mortimer was fostered in the household of his uncle, Roger Mortimer of Chirk, a man known far and wide for his cruelty toward the Welsh. For a time, he was also the ward of Piers Gaveston, the troublesome, jumped-up Gascon knight and favorite of Edward II, whose friendship with the king would bring strife and discord to the kingdom. Mortimer did not stay under Gaveston's guardianship for long, but soon produced the funds to buy his independence.

In 1301, he married Joan de Geneville, a wealthy heiress who brought him Ludlow Castle in Shropshire as well as lands in Ireland and Gascony. The couple would ultimately have twelve children and, according to historian Alison Weir, were probably quite fond of one another, as evidenced by the fact that Joan regularly accompanied Mortimer on his travels. After the death of his father in 1304, Mortimer became the 8th Baron of Wigmore, inheriting not only Wigmore Castle but also the other family holdings in the Welsh Marches. Around this time, Mortimer attracted the attention of Prince Edward of Caernarfon, soon to be King Edward II, who admired him for his bravery, charm, and martial ability. In the autumn of 1308, a year after he had ascended the throne, Edward II sent Mortimer to Ireland to enforce his royal authority there. Only 21 years old, it seemed that Mortimer's star was already on the rise and that he was destined for greatness. Weir describes him as:

Tall, swarthy of complexion, and strongly built. He was one of the most outstanding military leaders of the period, tough, energetic, decisive and versatile in his talents. Like most barons, he was arrogant, grasping, and ambitious, but he was also an excellent political strategist and faithful servant of the Crown who was well respected by his peers. Clever, cultured, and literate…he had refined tastes, loved fine clothes, lived in some luxury, and undertook major architectural work to transform his castles at Wigmore and Ludlow into veritable palaces. Typical of his caste, he also loved tournaments, paid lip service to the knightly code of chivalry, and amassed a considerable collection of weaponry.
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Mortimer remained in Ireland for the next several years, fighting against rebels and insurgents, even beating back an invading Scottish army under Edward Bruce, the younger brother of Robert the Bruce. Mortimer was named Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in 1316 but returned to the Marches two years later to help his uncle Chirk settle a series of bloody territorial disputes. Prior to his return from Ireland, Mortimer had always been staunchly loyal to Edward II, even though many of his fellow barons had turned against the king. For the first five years of his reign, Edward II had showered titles and favors upon his favorite, Piers Gaveston, to the point where the barons believed that Gaveston was manipulating the king and driving England to ruin. In 1312, the barons, led by Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, revolted, captured Gaveston, and executed him. While Mortimer had played no part in the revolt, he would soon have cause to understand the barons' anger when another of Edward II's favorites began encroaching upon his own lands.

Hugh Despenser the Younger had served as royal chamberlain since 1318 and was Edward II's new favorite, filling the void in the king's affections left behind by the murdered Gaveston. The king heaped rewards upon Despenser and his father, Hugh Despenser the Elder, giving them new lands and titles, most of which were in the Welsh Marches. This blatant favoritism unnerved the rebellious lords like Lancaster, who feared the rise of a second Gaveston, but it also offended the previously loyal Marcher lords; the king had confiscated some of their lands to make room for the Despensers, who then began throwing their political weight around the Marches. Mortimer was particularly incensed by these unwelcome newcomers and had more reason to fear them than most. Several decades earlier, his grandfather had slain Despenser's grandfather in battle, and a blood feud had existed between the two families ever since. By February 1321, the Marcher lords had had enough. They met with Lancaster to figure out a way to oust the Despensers from the Marches and, indeed, from the king's favor.

The method they decided on involved fire and blood. The following May, Mortimer, Chirk, and the other Marcher lords invaded the Despenser lands with a large body of men-at-arms, burning and pillaging as they went. Towns were burned, livestock slaughtered, and any man who tried to resist them was killed. Mortimer had his men bear the royal arms on their banners, signaling that their quarrel was with the Despensers, and not the Crown. But for Edward II, there was no longer much of a difference. On 29 July 1321, Mortimer led his force to London, intent on entering the city and forcing the expulsion of the Despensers. But upon arrival, he found the city gates closed against him – the citizens, fearful of his intentions, were not about to let him into the city. Undeterred, Mortimer ordered his men to surround the city, effectively placing it under siege, until Lancaster arrived with his own army on 1 August. Mortimer, Lancaster, and the other rebellious barons – known as the 'Contrariants' – demanded that the king exile the Despensers, accusing them of inciting civil war and usurping royal authority, among other crimes. Seeing no other choice, Edward II relented and banished his favorites. Satisfied that their goal had been achieved, the Contrariants dispersed.

Edward II, however, was not admitting defeat but was merely biding his time. Once the rebels ceased to be an immediate threat, he made his move. In October 1321, he invited the Despensers back from exile and, at the head of a royal army, laid siege to Leeds Castle. This alarmed many of the Contrariants, who switched sides. Mortimer and his uncle Chirk had been busy suppressing a peasant revolt in the Marches when they heard the news; many of their soldiers, exhausted after nearly a year of marching and fighting, deserted, leaving them helpless before the king's fury. Rather than make a final stand, they decided to seek mercy and surrendered to Edward II at Shrewsbury in January 1322, after which they were both imprisoned in the Tower of London. Lancaster would not get away so easily. Two months later, he was defeated by royalist forces at the Battle of Boroughbridge. After the battle, he was captured and executed. Scores of other Contrariants were arrested and executed in the coming months, their bloated bodies swinging from gibbets across England. Edward II, it seemed, had swiftly crushed all baronial resistance to his rule. He had won.

For the next year and a half, Mortimer languished in the Tower of London. He had initially been sentenced to death, but, perhaps because of his earlier service to the Crown, his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. The Tower was bursting with Edward II's political prisoners, who were eager to help one of their own escape, to take up the banner of the Contrariant cause. They decided that their champion would be Mortimer. On the night of 1 August 1323, the deputy constable of the Tower, Gerard d'Alspaye, drugged the warders during a feast. Once they were sound asleep, he unlocked Mortimer's cell and led him through the castle kitchens to the Tower's south wall. There, the two men unfurled a ladder and carefully climbed down onto a getaway boat waiting in the Thames. They rowed to the south bank and, from there, traveled on horseback to the coast. Finally, Mortimer boarded a ship bound for France and eventually made his way to Paris.

Mortimer's daring escape from the Tower sent shockwaves throughout England and paralyzed the court of Edward II. The king lived in fear that Mortimer would return to exact revenge, that he was sending assassins or gathering an army. While Edward II was right to fear Mortimer, he had no idea that the traitor's soon-to-be accomplice was the woman who shared his bed: his wife, Queen Isabella of France.

In March 1325, Queen Isabella went to Paris under the pretext of settling a dispute between her husband and her brother, King Charles IV of France. She was accompanied by her eldest son, the 13-year-old Prince Edward, who would take advantage of the trip to pay homage to the French king for the English Duchy of Aquitaine. But Isabella had an ulterior motive – she believed that the younger Hugh Despenser had eclipsed her in influence at the English court and in her husband's favor. She resolved not to return to England until "this intruder is removed" and stayed in Paris under her brother's protection, ignoring Edward II's furious demands for her return (quoted in Jones, 411).

While in Paris, Isabella met up with the fugitive Mortimer. Some scholars believe that they already had a history with one another, that they had been lovers even before Mortimer's imprisonment in the Tower. Whether this was the case or they were meeting for the first time, they certainly carried on a romantic relationship in Paris. But instead of whispering sweet nothings, their pillow talk consisted of plans and schemes to return to England and bring the Despenser dogs to heel.

By May 1326, Mortimer and Isabella were living together and were appearing in public as a couple. As he flaunted his affair before the world, Mortimer was also busy making allies; he and Isabella secured the support of the Count of Hainault, for example, by betrothing Prince Edward to his daughter Philippa. With Hainault's backing, Mortimer and Isabella assembled an invasion force that consisted of English exiles as well as German and Dutch mercenaries, about 1,500 men in all. Once everything was set, the army set out across the English Channel in 95 ships and landed in Suffolk on 24 September 1326. Edward II was dining in the Tower of London with the younger Despenser when he learned of the invasion. "Alas, alas!" the king despaired. "We be all betrayed" (quoted in Jones, 413).

The fact that Isabella was amongst the invaders lent them a sense of legitimacy, and the queen was able to stir up support by announcing that her intention was to "uphold and safeguard the realm" by destroying "sir Hugh Despenser, our enemy and all the realm's" (ibid). The Londoners heeded her call. In October, they seized John Marshal, a key Despenser ally, and beheaded him. The Bishop of Exeter, formerly the royal treasurer, was likewise grabbed by the mob and decapitated with a bread knife.

Edward II and the younger Despenser fled London in the wake of the riots, with Mortimer and Isabella trailing close behind. As they traveled through England, the rebels continued to gain support, with powerful magnates flocking to their side. On 26 October, the rebels captured Bristol Castle, where the elder Despenser had taken sanctuary. He was taken prisoner and executed the next day – he was hanged in his armor before his lifeless body was taken down, beheaded, and then cut into little pieces to feed the dogs.

After taking Bristol, the rebels moved on to Hereford, where they set up headquarters. Isabella tasked one of her new allies, the new earl of Lancaster, with finding and detaining her husband. On 16 November, Lancaster found the king and the younger Despenser hiding out in the woods near the Welsh castle of Llantrisant. Edward II was brought back to the Tower of London, where he was imprisoned and forced to abdicate in favor of the prince, who was crowned King Edward III of England. Despenser was destined for a grislier fate and was hanged, drawn, and quartered before a cheering crowd. Mortimer and Isabella had taken a gamble, which had paid off handsomely. Three months ago, they were fugitives hiding out on the continent. Now, all of England was in their hands.

By controlling access to the boy-king Edward III, Mortimer and Isabella had established themselves as the true powers behind the throne. Mortimer spent the first months of his rule rewarding his friends and supporters, particularly the Marcher lords, whose lands and privileges he restored. Yet the lovers knew that their hold on England would never be secure so long as the former king still lived. Luckily for them, Edward II died in captivity on 21 September 1327, less than a year after his abdication. At first, few people thought much of this, believing the official story that he had died of natural causes. But as time wore on, some began to attribute his suspicious death to Mortimer. Wild rumors, repeated by the chronicler Geoffrey the Baker, swirled that Mortimer's men had murdered the former king by inserting a red-hot poker up his anus (a story that is almost certainly false). As far-fetched as Geoffrey's account may have been, before long, many did see Mortimer's hand behind Edward's murder. These suspicions deepened after Mortimer named himself Earl of March in 1328, an act that made him come across as grasping and ambitious.

Indeed, to the earls and barons of England, Mortimer's proximity to the king made him just as dangerous as Gaveston and Despenser had been. This point was emphasized at tournaments, when Mortimer presided above the king and appeared arm-in-arm with the queen mother. What was worse, the new Earl of March was still enriching himself and his friends at a time when the royal treasury was close to bankruptcy. Many of the same earls who had fought with Mortimer against the Despensers now realized that something had to be done to stop him. In January 1329, Henry, Earl of Lancaster, proclaimed that through Mortimer's bad counsel, the king had violated the Magna Carta and his coronation oath. For a while, another civil war seemed to loom, but neither side took action, and tensions died down. But still, the threat of civil war had made Mortimer paranoid, and he began to see enemies hiding in every shadow. In March 1330, after a session of Parliament, Mortimer suddenly ordered the arrest of Edmund, Earl of Kent, the half-brother of Edward II. Kent was accused of treason and executed, his wife and children imprisoned.

The seemingly arbitrary and tyrannical execution of Kent destroyed what little goodwill Mortimer had left. A conspiracy soon took root against him, spearheaded by none other than Edward III; now 17, the king was ready to cast off Mortimer's overbearing influence and rule in his own right. On the night of 16 October 1330, the conspirators made their way to Nottingham Castle, where Mortimer was staying with Isabella. They snuck in through an underground tunnel and surprised Mortimer in his apartments. The Earl of March was taken captive as Queen Isabella looked on in horror, begging her son to "Have pity on the good Mortimer!" (quoted in Weir, 353). But Edward III was not in a merciful mood. Mortimer was conveyed to the Tower of London, where he languished for over a month. Accused of several crimes, including assuming royal power for himself, he was sentenced to death without trial and hanged at Tyburn on 29 November 1330. His body hanged from the gallows for two full days before it was taken down. A new era had dawned as King Edward III took over his kingdom.