Mortimer
Mortimer names 2 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.
Mortimer ROGER, EARL OF MARCH
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
ROGER, EARL OF MARCH, an English politician; born about 1287. On the death of his father, in the Welsh wars in 1303, he was made the ward of Piers Gaveston. He served under Edward I. in the Scotch war, in 1306-1307, and during the first 14 years of the reign of Edward II. was employed in Scotland, Ireland, and France, and was appointed lieutenant in Ireland 1317. Three years later he joined the barons in revolt to banish the king's favorites, the Spensers, but was taken and imprisoned in the Tower. Having escaped to France, he allied himself with Isabella, Queen of Edward II., and the barons who shared her discontent. The queen accepted him as her paramour, and having obtained aid from the Count of Hainault, they came to England in 1326, deposed and imprisoned the king, and governed the kingdom at their will. The young prince was proclaimed (Edward III.); Mortimer was created Earl of March, and took a large share of the estates of the Spensers; the deposed king was shamefully murdered by his orders; and at last Edward, weary of subjection to this insolent usurper, and backed by the public hatred of him, assumed the government. Mortimer was seized at the government. castle of Nottingham, and hung at Tyburn, Nov. 29, 1330.
Mortimer EDMUND, EARL
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
EDMUND, EARL, espoused Philippina, daughter of Lionel, second son of Edward III., King of England. ROGER, son of the preceding, was declared heir to the crown in 1385, but died in 1399, leaving an only daughter, who married Richard, Duke of York, giving to that family a claim to the throne of England. Hence arose the wars of the "Red and White Roses," between the houses of York and Lancaster.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The bare outline Collier's gave in 1921 still stands: Roger Mortimer escaped the Tower, invaded with Queen Isabella in 1326, ruled as Earl of March, and was hanged at Tyburn on 29 November 1330. What has shifted is the confident line that Edward II was "shamefully murdered by his orders" - the lurid red-hot-poker story has no contemporary authority, and since the later twentieth century historians have argued over the Fieschi Letter and the possibility that the deposed king was not killed at Berkeley at all. The second entry's genealogy also needs correcting: Roger Mortimer, 4th Earl of March, died in Ireland in 1398, not 1399, and left a son, Edmund, as well as a daughter, Anne, who married not Richard, Duke of York, but Richard of Conisburgh, Earl of Cambridge - their son became the Duke of York whose claim helped ignite the Wars of the Roses.
Written for this edition, 2026.