Anne de Mortimer

Anne de Mortimer
Conisbrough Castle, home of the family of Anne Mortimer's husband
Spouse	Richard, 3rd Earl of Cambridge
Issue
Isabel of York Henry Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York
Father	Roger Mortimer, 4th Earl of March
Mother	Eleanor Holland
Born	(1390-12-27)27 December 1390 New Forest, Westmeath, Ireland
Died	c. 22 September 1411(1411-09-22) (aged 20)
Burial	Kings Langley, Hertfordshire

Anne de Mortimer, Countess of Cambridge (27 December 1390 – c. 21 September 1411) was the mother of Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York, and the grandmother of King Edward IV and King Richard III.

Early life

Anne Mortimer was born at New Forest, Westmeath, one of her family's Irish estates, on 27 December 1390, the eldest of the four children of Roger Mortimer, 4th Earl of March, and Eleanor Holland. She had two brothers, Edmund Mortimer, 5th Earl of March, and Roger (born 23 April 1393, died c.1413), and a sister, Eleanor, who married Sir Edward de Courtenay (d. 5 December 1419), and had no issue.

Anne Mortimer's mother was the daughter of Thomas Holland, 2nd Earl of Kent, and Alice Arundel, the daughter of Richard de Arundel, 10th Earl of Arundel, and his second wife, Eleanor, daughter of Henry, 3rd Earl of Lancaster, grandson of King Henry III.

Anne Mortimer was thus a descendant of Henry III through her mother, and more importantly, a descendant of King Edward III through her grandparents, Edmund Mortimer, 3rd Earl of March, and Philippa Plantagenet, daughter of King Edward III's second surviving son, Lionel of Antwerp, 1st Duke of Clarence. Because King Richard II had no issue, Anne's father, Roger Mortimer, 4th Earl of March, was heir presumptive during his lifetime, and at his death in Ireland on 20 July 1398 his claim to the crown passed to his eldest son, Edmund.

On 30 September 1399, the fortunes of Anne Mortimer and her brothers and sister changed entirely. Richard II was deposed by the Lancastrians led by Henry Bolingbroke, who became King Henry IV and had his own son, the future King Henry V, recognized as heir apparent at his first Parliament. Anne's brothers, Edmund and Roger, were kept in custody by the new King at Windsor and Berkhampstead castles, but were treated honourably, and for part of the time brought up with the King's own children, John and Philippa.

According to Griffiths, Edmund Mortimer's sisters, Anne and Eleanor, who were in the care of their mother until her death in 1405, were not well treated by Henry IV, and were described as 'destitute' after her death.

Marriage and issue

In May 1406 Anne married Richard of Conisburgh, the second son of Edward III's fourth surviving son, Edmund of Langley, 1st Duke of York, and his first wife, Isabel, the daughter and coheir of Pedro the Cruel, King of Castile and Leon. The marriage took place without parental consent, and was validated on 23 May 1408 by papal dispensation.

Anne Mortimer and Richard, Earl of Cambridge, had two sons and a daughter:

• Isabel of York (1409 - 2 October 1484), who in 1412, at three years of age, was betrothed to Sir Thomas Grey (1404 – d. before 1426), son and heir of Sir Thomas Grey (c.1385-1415) of Heaton in Norham, Northumberland, and his wife, Alice Neville, the daughter of Ralph Neville, 1st Earl of Westmorland, by whom she had no issue. Isabel married secondly, before 25 April 1426, the marriage being later validated by papal dispensation, Henry Bourchier, 1st Earl of Essex, by whom she had seven sons, William, Sir Henry, Humphrey Bourchier (d.1471), John Bourchier, Lord Ferrers of Groby (d.1495), Sir Thomas, Edward and Fulk, and one daughter, Isabel.
• Henry of York.
• Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York (21 September 1411 – 30 December 1460), who married Cecily Neville, youngest daughter of Ralph Neville, 1st Earl of Westmorland, by whom he had twelve children, Anne of York, Duchess of Exeter; Henry; Edward IV of England; Edmund, Earl of Rutland; Elizabeth of York, Duchess of Suffolk; Margaret of York, Duchess of Burgundy; William; John; George, Duke of Clarence; Thomas; Richard III of England; and Ursula.

Anne Mortimer died soon after the birth, on 22 September 1411, of her son, Richard. She was buried at Kings Langley, Hertfordshire, once the site of Kings Langley Palace, perhaps in the conventual church which houses the tombs of her husband's parents, Edmund of Langley, 1st Duke of York, and Isabel of Castile.

After Anne Mortimer's death, Richard, Earl of Cambridge, married Maud Clifford, divorced wife of John Neville, 6th Baron Latimer, and daughter of Thomas de Clifford, 6th Baron de Clifford, but had no issue by her.

The Southampton Plot

In 1415 Cambridge conspired with Henry Scrope, 3rd Baron Scrope of Masham, and Sir Thomas Grey (to whose son, Thomas, he had betrothed his young daughter, Isabel), to depose King Henry, and place his late wife Anne's brother, Edmund Mortimer, 5th Earl of March, on the throne. Mortimer revealed the plot to the King, and was on the commission which condemned Cambridge to death. Although Cambridge pleaded with the King for clemency, he was beheaded on 5 August 1415 and buried in the chapel of God's House at Southampton. The fleet set sail for France a few days later on 11 August 1415.

Although Cambridge's title was forfeited, he was not attainted, and his and Anne Mortimer's four-year-old son, Richard, was his heir. Within three months Cambridge's elder brother, Edward of Norwich, 2nd Duke of York, was slain at Agincourt, and Cambridge and Anne's four-year-old son was eventually heir to his uncle's titles and estates as well.

In the parliament of 1461 King Edward IV annulled the sentence which had been passed on his grandfather, Richard, Earl of Cambridge.

Shakespeare and Richard, Earl of Cambridge

The Southampton Plot is dramatized in Shakespeare's Henry V, and in the anonymous play, The History of Sir John Oldcastle.

References

• Cokayne, George Edward (1912). The Complete Peerage, edited by H.A. Doubleday II. London: St. Catherine Press. pp. 493–5. 
• Cokayne, George Edward (1932). The Complete Peerage, edited by H.A. Doubleday VIII. London: St. Catherine Press. pp. 445–53. 
• Griffiths, R.A. (2004). Mortimer, Edmund (V), fifth earl of March and seventh earl of Ulster (1301-1425). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Retrieved 2 October 2012. (subscription required)
• Harriss, G.L. (2004). Richard , earl of Cambridge (1385–1415). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Retrieved 4 October 2012. 
• Keenan, Desmond (2010). Ireland 1170-1509, Society and History. pp. 509–10. 
• Pugh, T.B. (1988). Henry V and the Southampton Plot of 1415. Alan Sutton.  ISBN 0-86299-541-8
• Richardson, Douglas (2011). Magna Carta Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families, ed. Kimball G. Everingham I (2nd ed.). Salt Lake City.  ISBN 1449966373
• Richardson, Douglas (2011). Magna Carta Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families, ed. Kimball G. Everingham II (2nd ed.). Salt Lake City.  ISBN 1449966381
• Richardson, Douglas (2011). Magna Carta Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families, ed. Kimball G. Everingham III (2nd ed.). Salt Lake City.  ISBN 144996639X
• Richardson, Douglas (2011). Magna Carta Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families, ed. Kimball G. Everingham IV (2nd ed.). Salt Lake City.  ISBN 1460992709
• Tout, Thomas Frederick (1885-90). Mortimer, Edmund de (1391-1425) 39. Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1890. pp. 123–5. Retrieved 2 October 2012. 

External links

• The Cambridge conspiracy in The History of Sir John Oldcastle