heraldryofyorkmi01custuoft

MORTIMER. 345
invaded Ireland, giving Henry of Bolingbroke, eldest son of John of Gaunt,
opportunity to land in England, establish himself in his absence, and
secure the Crown.
His son, Edmond, was but six years of age at the time of his father's
death, and was committed by Henry IV. to the Prince of Wales, out of
whose custody he was stolen by Lady de Spencer but being discovered
;
in Chittham woods, he was kept under stricter guard,
for he was the
rightful heir to the Crown, being the great grandson of Lionel, the third
son of Edward III. ; whereas Henry IV. was the son of John of Gaunt,
the fourth son. Burke says that he was frequently engaged in the wars of
France, temp, Henry V., and that in i
Henry VI., he was Lord Lieutenant
of Ireland. Sandford, on the contrary, tells us that he was purposedly
exposed to danger in a battle fought against Owen Glendour, and being
taken prisoner, afterwards, by order of Henry IV., he was conveyed to
Ireland, where he was confined for twenty years in the castle at Trim, and
" there through extreme grief ended his life, and his corpse was brought to
"England and entombed in the college of Stoke, near unto Clare, in the
" county of Suffolke."
At any rate with him the male line
of the family of Mortimer Earls
of March closed, and the great estates, with the right to the throne and
the barony of Mortimer, devolved upon his nephew, Richard Plantagenet,
Earl of Cambridge and Duke of York, son of his sister Anne, who was
married to Richard Earl of Cambridge, second son of Edmond of Langley
Duke of York, and youngest son of Edward III. This Richard was
seized at Southampton in the third year of Henry V., and charged,
together with Thomas Grey, of Heson, county of Northumberland, and
Henry Scrope, of Masham, Yorkshire, with conspiracy to carry off young
Edmond Mortimer into Wales, and there proclaim him King in
opposition
to Henry, whom they styled "the Lancaster usurper." Being found guilty,
Earl Richard earnestly petitioned for his life to Henry V., but in vain, and
on the 6th August, he, together with Scrope and Grey, were beheaded, the
Earl's head and body being interred in the chapel of " God's house," in
Southampton. Anne must have died some years before, for at the time of
his execution he was married to Maud, daughter of Thomas Lord Clifford.
His son by Anne Mortimer succeeded, as I
have already said, to his
mother's barony and estates. He married Cicely Nevill, daughter of
Ralph Earl of Westmoreland and Joane Beaufort, daughter of John of
Gaunt. He fell at the battle of Wakefield, or properly, Sandal, on the
last day of December, 1460. His head, adorned with a paper crown,
was presented to Queen Margaret of Anjou, and (by her direction, it
is said) affixed upon Micklegate Bar, here in York. In three months his
son Edward IV., victorious after the battle of Towton, March zgth, 1461,