Under One Sceptre, or Mortimer's Mission: The Story of the Lord of the Marches

by Emily Sarah Holt

The old bard had spoken truly, for the dust of Roger Mortimer was not left to repose in Ireland. Amid solemn pomp and glittering funeral gloom, the coffin of the heir of England was borne over St. George's Channel to his ancestral home at Wigmore. There they laid him with the elder Mortimers, and not, like his father, with his Montacute ancestors, at Bisham. There, by the side of the valiant and wise Edmund Mortimer and his royally descended Margaret, who may be termed the founders of the house, by the first Earl of darkened memory, by the young and royal mother whom he could barely remember, sleeps Roger Mortimer, heir presumptive of England, first and last Lollard of the House of March.

England has forgotten him long ago, her own chosen heir to whom her faith was sworn, and from whose lips, time after time, the cup of success seemed snatched, just as he was about to drink the sweet wine. But should Ireland utterly forget that scion of her ancient kings, the young, warm-hearted, gallant Prince who, prudently of imprudently, gave his life for her, and did not achieve the end in the hope of which he gave it?

CHAPTER XI.

HOME TO USK.

"We buried him where he was wont to pray,

By the calm lake,—even here,—at eventide;

We reared this cross in token where he lay,

For on the cross, he said, his Lord had died;

Now hath he surely reached, o'er mount and wave,

That flowery land whose green turf hides no grave."

—FELICIA HEMANS.

If any further item of failure could have come into the life of Roger Mortimer, it would have been conveyed by a royal letter, dated at Westminster just one week after his death, and, being addressed to himself, before the news of the calamity at Kenles had reached the King. In this letter, Roger Earl of Ulster and March, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, is told that "as, by the advice of our Council, we have constituted our beloved nephew Thomas Duke of Surrey our Lieutenant in our said land from the first day of September next, for one year, we command that you shall not hinder the said Duke from the execution of his office, and we also exonerate you from the charge aforesaid, from the coming of the said Duke."[#]

[#] Close Roll, 22 Ric. II., Part 1.

Roger was superseded—why, there is no information. It does not necessarily mean, by any means, that the King was displeased with him, or desired to revoke his policy. It may even have been at his own desire, but there remains no evidence of this. It is more probable that his royal cousin wished to have him nearer, and considered that the presence of his heir presumptive would be of service to himself in that thorny and difficult path which it had been the lot of Richard of Bordeaux to tread from his early youth. And now all that remained of Roger Mortimer was coming home indeed, but to another home and a longer rest than those which his royal cousin had designed for him. His crown was no longer a future possibility: it had come. He should never see evil any more.

It has been left on record that King Richard's grief and indignation at the news of Roger's death were very deep and true. It was indeed, apart from the personal regard which he entertained for his young cousin, one of the saddest calamities which could have happened for himself. His heir presumptive, instead of being a man who loved and honoured him, was now his most implacable enemy—that Henry of Bolingbroke who hated him worse than any other. For according to the old law of England, Roger's reign would have been an interlude, and his claim, without some further distinct disposition of the Crown, could scarcely devolve upon his children. Before the funeral procession set forth, there was an arrival at Trim Castle. The Lord Bardolf arrived from England, accompanied by his mother, the Lady Agnes Mortimer, wife of that Sir Thomas Mortimer who had played a part in Roger's early life. He had chosen to cast in his lot with Gloucester and the Lords Appellants, and he was now a fugitive in hiding.[#]

[#] The Irish Government was charged to search for him in September, 1397, as he was supposed to be in that country; and he was executed in England, before May 27th, 1399. (Close Roll, 21 Ric. II., Part 1; Patent Roll, 23 ib.)