A forgotten Mortimer

Two of the children of Roger Mortimer, 4th Earl of March, are relatively famous. Edmund the 5th Earl, who was involved in the Southampton Plot, and Anne Mortimer who is the ancestress of anyone who is anybody in England – and many others besides.

The younger son, Roger, who died at some point after 1405 but before he could become a man, and the younger daughter, Eleanor, are, by contrast, almost unknown.

Eleanor was born in 1395 (location unknown) and proved to be the last child of her parents. In 1398 her father was killed, but Eleanor and her elder sister remained in the care of her mother, Alianore Holland, Countess of March, even after the Lancastrian usurpation, at which point Henry IV took her brothers into his no doubt devoted care.

Alianore, Lady March was a very wealthy woman indeed, and it is unlikely that her daughters lacked anything of a material nature at this point. They soon had a stepfather, because Alianore decided to marry Sir Edward Charlton, who became Lord Powys in 1401 on his brother’s death.

Unfortunately, Alianore died (in childbirth) in 1405, and her two daughters were left destitute. Henry IV generously allowed the girls £100 a year for the maintenance. However, in those days government benefits did not drop into your bank account each month by direct debit. You had to extract the money from the Exchequer, and that was far from straightforward. Especially in times of financial pressure such as the middle years of Henry IV’s reign.

Anne and Eleanor Mortimer were the daughters of a man who had been one of the richest in the country. However, this meant but little to Henry Bolingbroke, who was generous to himself and very generous to his wife, but rather less bothered about lesser people, especially those with little political ‘kick’.

Where the two girls lived is not clear. Perhaps with stepfather Lord Charlton or in the household of some great lady. Between 1405 and 1408 (roughly) Anne married Richard of Conisbrough (strictly Richard of York in his lifetime) younger brother of the Duke of York. However, Richard was almost as poor as his new wife and sister-in-law. It appears York allowed his brother the use of Conisbrough Castle in Yorkshire. Maybe Eleanor then lived with her sister, but this is pure guesswork.

Before 20 November 1409, Eleanor married Sir Edward Courtenay. This was a ‘good’ marriage, as he was heir to the Earl of Devon. Whether Eleanor was provided with a dowry is not clear. If she was not, then it was a very good marriage indeed.

They did not have any children together and in 1418 Edward was killed in a fight at sea while acting as an admiral for Henry V. (He had been briefly suspected of involvement in the Southampton Plot, so it may be that military service was a good plan. Or so it may have seemed at the time.) He was one of those who had fought at, and survived, Agincourt.

Eleanor then married an obscure knight, Sir John Harpeden. He was another Agincourt veteran and had fought in the retinue of Sir John Cornwall (widower of the King’s aunt.) In 1422 Harpeden received a general pardon and also received leave to take the body of ‘Dame Eleanor Courtenay’ back to England. This shows that Eleanor, as was the norm, retained the use of her higher-ranking title despite her remarriage. It also shows that she was in France with Harpeden when she died.

A short life of only 27 years. Yet that was by no means unusual in her family. Sadly, few Mortimers of either gender made old bones.