The Greatest Traitor: The Life of Sir Roger Mortimer, 1st Earl of March (39 page)

The consequence of this series of high-profile appointments and this power structure of personal loyalties was that Roger was able to administer the realm without the widespread series of territorial grants which Despenser and Gaveston had received, and without repeatedly having to use his trump card, the possession of the ex-king. That he granted himself relatively little land and few positions of authority in local government was immaterial. In terms of power his authority was every bit as wide-ranging as that of a monarch. The only difference was that it was largely unofficial.

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Now, completely unexpectedly, one of those deaths occurred which caused medieval society to lurch suddenly in a new direction. It was that of King Charles of France, and he left no heir. All three of Isabella’s brothers had become king in turn, and had died young before their wives had given birth to a son. Unless Isabella herself acted to secure the throne of France for Edward, her father’s ruling line was dead, and it would be Philip, the heir of Charles de Valois, who would inherit. Isabella and Roger were now confronted with one of the most far-reaching political questions of the fourteenth century. It would eventually end in the Hundred Years War.

News of the death probably reached the court on 1 March. Two days later Roger and Isabella left the court quietly together. We do not know where they went. They gave instructions for Parliament to be summoned to Northampton for 26 April, and disappeared for more than a month. It is likely that they took with them a large amount of money, for Roger now claimed the outstanding portion of the 6,000 marks which he was owed for his service in Ireland, of which he had received only a fraction.
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None of the contemporary chronicles records their whereabouts, and so it appears that their departure – the first time that Isabella had left her son since the invasion – was a private affair. They seem to have rejoined the court in mid-April, in time to enter the lion’s den of an angry Parliament.

Roger anticipated hostility. He stipulated in advance that no retinues of men-at-arms were to be brought, and no proctors would be allowed to stand in for their lords. All tournaments were banned, so no opposition forces could be gathered in that guise. Roger also planned to choreograph proceedings: a strategy towards France was already in place. He would attempt to unite northerners and southerners against Philip de Valois rather than dividing them against Robert Bruce. In requiring full attendance of all the lords in person, and by offering unavailable French lordships in
compensation for unavailable Scottish ones, Roger was trying for one last time to placate the Lancastrians who had objected so vehemently to his policy at the previous Parliament.

All Roger’s attempts to coerce the northerners failed. He declared that the treaty with Scotland should be ratified since they could not afford to fight a war with both France and Scotland, and that the king, as rightful heir of the French Crown, now had a responsibility to protect his interests there. The Lancastrians accepted that a deputation should be sent to claim the throne of France, but they did not accept that it was necessary to relinquish all claim on lordships in Scotland. Roger realised that no amount of discussion would persuade them. Accordingly he announced that he would not reveal the wording of the charter for Scottish independence.
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Outraged, the Lancastrians declared the whole matter treason, decided between Black Douglas, Roger and Isabella. Roger replied that the terms of the peace had already been agreed, and had been announced in London, seven days before Parliament had met. He seems to have been utterly indifferent to his peers’ and the king’s opinion, but he then went even further: he stated that this was the king’s will. This was a lie, and Edward was furious, but he was unable to overrule him. The Earl of Lancaster protested that this ‘shameful peace’ was none of his will. Only the Bishop of Ely, John de Hothum, seems to have spoken in favour of Roger’s strategy. On 8 May Roger forced the young king to ratify the treaty with Scotland, against his own judgement, as he bitterly but belatedly complained.

The confirmation of the treaty with Scotland was only one of many issues discussed at Northampton. In addition a number of judicial points and law-enforcement measures were discussed and passed. These included restrictions on the issuing of pardons and the use of the privy seal, the prevention of men riding while armed, the prohibition of groups of armed men attending fairs and, most significantly, the extension of the powers of the assize judges who travelled from county to county to sit in judgement on the most important cases. Some of these points, especially the restrictions on pardons and the use of the privy seal, were aimed at reducing Roger’s authority. But, as with his negotiations in Scotland, Roger was prepared to give a lot of ground in order to achieve what he wanted. Now what he most desired was an extension of central government authority, which he, of course, could control. In increasing the powers of the central administration, he was attempting to reduce the power of the crowd to act as a political force. Nowhere would this have worked so much to his advantage as in London, where riots had accompanied his assumption of power and threatened the stability of the administration. Riots had also
broken out at Abingdon and other places in the south. Through the central courts and local law-enforcement measures he sought to control the people as efficiently as he controlled the king and the peers.

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Following the parliament of Northampton, which ended on 15 May, Roger and Isabella made their way to Hereford, where a double wedding was to take place. Roger had had the rights of marriage of several important young men for a number of years, two of whom were now of an age to marry. He also had a large number of unmarried daughters. Although the details are confused by Adam Murimuth, the only chronicler to mention the event, it seems that on 31 May 1328 his daughter Joan was married to his ward James Audley, the fifteen-year-old lord of Heleigh.
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Probably at the same time, his daughter Catherine was married to another of his wards, Thomas de Beauchamp, the fourteen-year-old Earl of Warwick. After the event the wedding party made its way north, to Ludlow, for feasting and entertainment in the ancient castle of the de Geneville family, now Roger’s most spectacular residence.

Herein lay a problem. Ludlow Castle was Joan’s inheritance, and taking the royal party there raised the question of how to bring Isabella and Joan face to face without one or the other losing dignity. Under the laws of hospitality and precedence, when the queen came to Ludlow, Joan would have been expected to give up her position as lady of the castle. Normally there would be no problem in this, but when the queen was her husband’s mistress, the situation was potentially fraught. But Roger had anticipated the problem and had constructed a solution.

On entering the inner ward of Ludlow Castle, Isabella and members of the court would have found a newly completed but unfamiliar arrangement of buildings. The centre of a great building was always the great hall, and one could expect normally to find the private, solar accommodation (where the lord and his family mainly lived), at one end of this hall, and the kitchens, buttery and other catering and storage rooms at the other. At Ludlow, Joan’s father and mother had rebuilt the great hall and solar about forty years earlier. Recently, Roger had added a new top storey to the de Geneville solar block, and had built an entirely new complex of solar buildings at the other end of the hall. The kitchens were moved across to the other side of the courtyard. In effect the castle had two splendid and luxurious solars: one for Joan, and one for Isabella. Roger’s solution to the problem of housing both his wife and mistress under one roof, without his wife having to cede precedence to his mistress in her own castle, was an architectural masterpiece, two semi-detached medieval
palaces. Joan presumably remained in the extended de Geneville building while Isabella, Edward and Philippa stayed in the new solar, surrounded by the sculptures of kings and queens which formed part of the decoration. History does not relate which wing Roger himself retired to that night, or whether discretion proved the better part of valour and he slept in the gatehouse.

The rebuilding of the interior of Ludlow was not undertaken simply out of duty; Roger enjoyed spending his money on building work. It was one of his pleasures, along with exotic clothes and fine textiles, jewellery, silverware, armour, wine and jousting. At the same time as working on Ludlow, he was continuing the rebuilding of Wigmore Castle, which was probably why he asked the king to give him all the lead then being stripped from the royal castle at Hanley.
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He was also having a chantry added to Leintwardine church, probably building an extension to the parish church at Wigmore for the use of the parishioners,
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and, in the outer ward of Ludlow Castle, he was having a chapel to St Peter built. Building chapels might appear a little out of character for Roger: by comparison with his contemporaries, and especially compared to Isabella, he was not an overtly religious man. He went on no pilgrimages – although he did once promise to go
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– and he made few grants to monastic institutions. Most of those he did make were on account of members of his family. It was only when extreme situations faced him that his mind turned to God. One such occasion had been in the Tower on the eve of his escape. Then he had promised that if St Peter would deliver him from the Tower he would build a chapel dedicated to the saint, hence the chapel under construction in the outer ward of Ludlow Castle. He also constructed a semi-circular tower adjacent to this chapel, now known as Mortimer’s Tower. Two priests, for whom the tower was probably built as a residence, were paid to sing masses in the chapel daily, to celebrate for eternity the miracle of his escape from the most daunting prison in the country.
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Roger was now at the height of his power. He could afford to relax and feast with the royal entourage, to go hawking with the young king, and to joust with his sons and members of the court. Perhaps he joined in the dancing, or listened to romances read aloud in the company of his wife and Isabella. He was surrounded by splendid embroideries and tapestries, exotic armour and silver and gold ornaments. Although the bedspreads and cushions and tapestries and luxurious fabrics and textiles mentioned in the inventories of Roger’s and Joan’s possessions in 1321–2 had all gone, a glimpse of the interior of the castle is possible from an inventory of Roger’s goods found at Wigmore and Ludlow in 1330. Roger’s personal travelling possessions and Joan’s personal items were not recorded, but
there were several gilt silver-lidded cups, including one which, inside, was decorated with the figure of a baboon with a bow in his hand, and another which had a shield engraved at the bottom with the arms of England and France. There were several silver water vessels, and a great hall curtain illustrating historical scenes from Welsh history. Most suggestively, there was a set of silk bedclothes with a bedspread embroidered with a castle of love, with accompanying hangings of green silk with ray taffeta, and four matching green rugs covered with white and red roses. In addition there was a set of white linen bedcovers, decorated with butterflies, with an accompanying bedspread and four matching carpets, and a set of red woollen bedclothes with a matching bedspread and two carpets. There was a great arras tapestry for the hall, of eighteen pieces, in white, again decorated with butterflies. There were two tunics emblazoned with the arms of Roger’s uncle, Lord Mortimer of Chirk, one of velvet, the other of silk covered with yellow velvet and lined with red sindon (a fine linen), and a yellow padded tunic decorated with lilies and yellow roses.
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With regard to the possessions which travelled with him, a few silver items were recorded in a London goldsmith’s in 1330, and this short list reveals more of the splendour in which Roger now lived on a daily basis. He had a great silver dish weighing nineteen pounds; a large silver wine goblet, the lid and base of which were gilt and enamelled with his arms. There was a cup with a cover and tripod, all of silver, engraved with foliage, gilt and enamelled with the arms of Mortimer and de Geneville, and a silver wine jug enamelled with the various arms of Roger’s ancestors, with a matching water jug. There were four wine goblets of which one had a gilt interior and the others had bases enamelled with Roger’s arms. There was a great salt cellar with a silver cover weighing more than six pounds, and a cloth-of-silver table cover.
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There is no doubt that from the silk bedclothes to the silverware, Ludlow Castle in June 1328 was as opulent and luxurious as any palace in the kingdom.

Besides architecture and fine living, Roger’s principal entertainment was still the tournament. Although all his old armour had been sold by Edward II after his imprisonment in 1322, he had acquired more. At Ludlow and Wigmore he kept what was spare, including a pair of armour plates covered with gold cloth, and another pair covered with red sindon; a red velvet jousting suit with silver embroidery, an accompanying shield decorated with butterflies whose wings were the Mortimer coat of arms, and a matching banner of sindon; a set of green velvet horse trappings for jousting, two banners of the arms of Mortimer, one of sindon, the other old and battered; various pieces of metal armour for the shoulders, arms, hands and legs; three hardened leather thigh protectors; two pairs of shoes;
ten coats of Welsh cloth quartered with one sleeve red; four tournament bascinets (close-fitting helmets), four jousting helmets (three of which were gilt); six iron corsets; three war helmets and various other odds and ends. The velvet suit for jousting sounds very similar to those given by Edward II to Piers Gaveston in 1307, and the quartered coats with one arm red are reminiscent of the green tunics quartered with one sleeve yellow which Roger’s men wore in the 1321 rebellion. This was more than mere nostalgia. This was his attempt to create his own knightly court: to promote himself in men’s estimations and to live up to the highest chivalric ideal.