FIVE
THE RAINS CONTINUED. The harvest of 1314, which should have been taken in by the men who had fought at Bannockburn, was crushed by the appalling weather and rotted black in the fields. The following year was even worse. Animals collapsed and died, and their sodden bodies were to be seen decomposing in the wide stretches of water which had once been lowland meadows. Prices of corn and other foodstuffs in the markets rose alarmingly, and all the chroniclers speak of a terrible famine spreading across England, Wales and Ireland. Society was ill equipped to deal with two harvest failures in a row. It had no means of organising relief for large numbers of people facing starvation. On the political side, it had no means of raising the revenue required to equip itself militarily in a time of dearth. The way of raising revenue for war – a direct taxation of a tenth, fifteenth or twentieth, levied on possessions – was designed to pay wages of soldiers and to buy supplies, not to alleviate suffering, and the families of men required to do the fighting suffered all the more if their menfolk were taken away from their villages. The king could only order that it was illegal to charge more than a certain amount for corn. The result was that people did not sell the corn they had, or sold it furtively. People began to die of starvation. Lords found they had to buy imported grain at high prices, whereas before it had simply been grown and threshed for them on their manors. Providing supplies for garrisons of castles became extremely difficult. At the same time the trade in wool collapsed. Many townsmen lost their livelihoods, and towns lost their revenue from customs and tolls. The terrible economic depression, which over the next five years would reduce the population of England by more than a tenth, had begun.
Despite the drastic reduction in royal revenues, King Edward was sympathetic to Roger’s situation in Ireland. Just before his defeat at Kells, the king had ordered an inquisition into his debts to the Crown, freezing them until the following Easter. The king was not to know that his gesture came too late to help Roger in Ireland: he only learnt that when Roger himself returned to England and came to court, in January 1316.
Roger’s purpose in returning was to report on the state of Ireland and to ask for military assistance. It was his intention to return straightaway and resume the fight against Bruce. In respect of this Edward issued a special writ to him on 17 January requesting he attend Parliament, but only ‘if he had not yet returned to Ireland’.1 Edward’s reason for asking him to stay and attend was because of his need of support in England. Not just against the Earl of Lancaster, but against the many rebels taking arms now in this time of deprivation.
Roger obeyed the summons. He, with the earls, prelates and the king, met in a chamber of a house belonging to the Dean of Lincoln. Edward announced that he wished Parliament to conduct its proceedings speedily, so as to lessen the burden of providing food on the city and locality. But the Earl of Lancaster had not yet arrived. He did not do so until 12 February, two weeks late.
This delay had been costly. The important business of the parliament, as Lancaster well knew, was to discuss the state of the famine-struck country. People were starving to death. The Scots had torn apart the northern counties, so that manors were disappearing under the combined terrors of starvation and extortion. In the north even loyal English lords had taken to organised robbery to keep their retainers satisfied. If Robert Bruce could ravage the country and be allowed to get away with it, they reasoned, they might as well take what they could from their neighbours before Bruce did. In Wales the plight of the people was just as extreme. But there they had found a leader who not only inspired them, he inspired his enemies too. His name was Llywelyn Bren.
*
When the Earl of Gloucester had perished beneath the spears and axes of the Scots at Bannockburn, he left the country with a great problem. He had no heir, and, despite his wife desperately claiming she was pregnant, none was forthcoming. The dilemma lay in the fact that his earldom was the richest single lordship in the country, worth about £7,000 per annum, and his income was second only to that of the combined five earldoms of Thomas of Lancaster. Even after the dower lands had been counted off, and the lands which his father had granted as annuities or gifts to his men, there was still more than £4,000 per annum left to be partitioned between his three sisters and their husbands. For the people of Glamorgan, however, his death meant that their lands were taken into custody while negotiations for the ultimate dispersal of the estate took place. With no lord, with no local administration, the lordship of Clare, including the great Marcher lordship of Glamorgan, was left in the hands of a series of royal administrators. These could be cold men, like Ingelram de Berengar, who regarded his role as having to contain the Welsh of Glamorgan through force of arms, or they could be more judicious lords, like Bartholomew de Badlesmere, whose policy was more sympathetic to local grievances. But in July 1315, when the animals started dying in the fields, and when the suffering of the people was greatly on the increase, Bartholomew de Badlesmere was removed from office and the administration of Glamorgan was placed in the hands of Payn de Turberville.
It was a decision which had terrible consequences. De Turberville’s policy towards the suffering Welsh was to beat out of the people what money he could to swell the royal coffers. Bartholomew de Badlesmere’s careful alliances and considerate grants were ignored. Most importantly, those middlemen who had effected de Badlesmere’s policy were dismissed, and replaced with de Turberville’s instruments. Any Welshmen holding office were also dismissed as a matter of course. The most prominent of these Welshmen was Llywelyn Bren.
Bren means ‘royal’. The epithet was given to him as a mark of respect, not just as a mark of distinguished ancestry. His proper name was Llywelyn ap Gruffydd ap Rhys, his father being one of the warriors who fought in defence of Prince Llywelyn, the last free prince of Wales. Llywelyn Bren himself was lord of Senghennydd, and a favoured sub-lord of the dead Earl of Gloucester. Even the English chroniclers, normally biased, describe him with respect. ‘A great man and powerful in his own country,’ wrote one.2 His greatness imparted a sense of duty to his people. In 1315, with de Turberville persecuting the Welsh of Glamorgan, and taking arms against the people of Senghennydd itself, he could not ignore his countrymen’s plight. As a result, de Turberville accused him of sedition. Llywelyn did the only thing he could: he appealed to the king. He told Edward what troubles his people were suffering, and how they needed relief from the king’s self-interested officer. But Edward was not in a mood to listen, and, with a stunning lack of consideration or forethought, ordered Llywelyn to appear before Parliament to face a charge of treason. Edward also promised him that, if de Turberville’s charge was true, Llewelyn would be hanged. Shocked, Llywelyn took himself back to his estates to prepare for war.
On 28 January, as Parliament gathered in the chamber of the dean’s house at Lincoln, the Sheriff of Glamorgan was attending a sitting of a court outside the walls of Caerphilly Castle. As the voices cut through the chill air, the sheriff and the court became aware that they were being surrounded. Gradually a huge number of armed Welshmen appeared around them. For those at the court it was too late. In vain they tried to retreat into the castle. Before they could do so the portcullises came down and the drawbridge was raised. The sheriff’s men were slain in the outer bailey of the castle, which was then set alight. The inner castle itself, so well planned and constructed by the ancestors of the Earl of Gloucester, was impregnable, but the sheriff and the constable of the castle were both captured. Then started the chaotic looting and burning as Llywelyn’s men rampaged through Caerphilly with swords drawn, under the direction of Llywelyn’s five sons and his adopted son, Llywelyn ap Madoc ap Howel.
News of the attack reached Edward a few days later. His first reaction was to appoint William de Montagu and Hugh Audley, the husband of one of the three Gloucester co-heiresses, to recapture the castle. He then reconsidered and appointed the Earl of Hereford as commander in chief of the expedition to put down Llywelyn’s revolt, and directed both Lords Mortimer to assist him. ‘Go quickly and pursue this traitor, lest from delay worse befall us and all Wales rise against us’ were his instructions to the Marcher lords.3 Roger returned to Wigmore to coordinate the raising of his men. By the end of February the force was ready and had assembled in South Wales, and the attack was ready to begin.4
The campaign against Llywelyn was a demonstration of superior organisation and strength. The Lords Mortimer and the Earl of Hereford marched from the north, while from the south marched John Giffard of Brimpsfield. From the east, Henry of Lancaster (the younger brother of the Earl of Lancaster), William de Montagu and John de Hastings approached with a third contingent. On 12 March the eastern army joined Giffard at Cardiff. The whole of their force, numbering one hundred and fifty mounted men-at-arms and two thousand infantry, went north. They met little real resistance as they pushed on to Caerphilly, and in a short time the castle was relieved.
With the Earl of Hereford and the Mortimers in the north, and pressed from the south, Llywelyn fled north-westwards, taking his army towards the bleakness of Ystradfellte. Here, on the edge of the Great Forest, he and his men prepared to make one final stand. But on the morning of the final attack, 18 March, as the cold light dawned over the valley, Llywelyn declared to his companions that their deaths were futile. ‘I started this conflict,’ he said to them, ‘and I will end it. I will hand myself over on behalf of all my people. It is better that one man should die than the whole race be exiled or perish by the sword.’ His men tried to persuade him not to give himself up, and, inspired by his speech, they declared they were prepared to die alongside him. But his mind was made up. Alone, in full armour, he rode down from the mountain to meet the English. There he surrendered in the presence of the Earl of Hereford, Roger Mortimer of Wigmore, and John de Hastings.
Roger and the other English lords were impressed with the nobility of the man and his brave gesture. His rebellion was over, a hundred of his men were arrested by the English, but Roger saw no reason to exact revenge. He understood why the man had taken arms. Indeed, he and the earl agreed that they would speak to the king on his behalf.5 They took Llywelyn to the earl’s castle of Brecon, from which the earl wrote to Edward, urging him not to sentence Llywelyn until they had been able to discuss his fate. Then they rode with him and his family to London. Roger and Llywelyn, both being of princely Welsh blood, and both being literate, intelligent and military-minded men, became friends. The list of Llywelyn’s possessions recovered by the English from Llandaff Cathedral includes seven books in French and Welsh, including a copy of the Roman de la Rose, and jewellery and armour, as well as his Welsh chairs and charters and muniments. A few years later, a similar, albeit more extensive, list would be compiled of Roger’s possessions.
Roger and Hereford were at court by 21 April. He or the earl may well have been instrumental in having Payn de Turberville replaced by John Giffard of Brimpsfield. As for Llywelyn himself, both the earl and Roger did indeed speak to the king on his behalf, and they succeeded in causing the penalty of death, which in normal circumstances would certainly have been imposed, to be commuted to one of imprisonment in the Tower. Nor did Roger’s assistance to the man and his family stop there. In November it was at Roger’s request that the king ordered John Giffard to take action to protect Llywelyn ap Madoc ap Howel, adopted son of Llywelyn Bren, who was being attacked by Englishmen in reprisal for the war.6 Roger, it seems, was a man who remained loyal to those who had earned his friendship. Just how loyal would be shown later.
*
The famine worsened. One clerk wrote of the conditions in 1316 in the following words:
After Easter the dearth of corn increased. Such scarcity has not been seen in our time in England, nor heard of for a hundred years … a great famine appeared, and after the famine came a severe pestilence, of which many thousands died in various places. I have even heard it said by some that in Northumbria dogs and horses and other unclean things were eaten … Alas poor England! You who once helped other lands from your abundance, now poor and needy are forced to beg. Fruitful land is turned into a saltmarsh; the inclemency of the weather destroys the fatness of the land; corn is sown and tares are brought forth … Spare, O Lord, thy people!7
As the country starved, tensions which had remained dormant for many years resurfaced. In Bristol, a long-running disagreement between the constable of the town, Bartholomew de Badlesmere, and the townsfolk once again erupted. The disagreement concerned the customs of Bristol. Fourteen merchants, including the mayor, claimed to have control of the customs of the town, on behalf of the constable, but this tradition was opposed by a growing number of merchants. The dispute was overseen by justices, men who were not from Bristol and who, it was suspected by the townsmen, were prejudiced in favour of the constable and the fourteen. In the words of the same chonicler who had bewailed the weather and the famine:
The leaders of the community, seeing that their objections were ignored, and that their rights were set aside by prejudice rather than reason, were much distressed as they left the hall where judgements are given, and spoke to the people, saying ‘Judges have come favourable to our opponents, and to our disadvantage admit strangers, from which our rights will be lost forever’. At these words the senseless crowd turned to rioting, and the whole populace trembled from fear of the disorder. Returning once more to the hall, they entered with a large following and there turned their right to wrong. For with fists and with sticks they began to attack those opposed to them, and nearly twenty men that day lost their lives for nothing. A very natural fear seized noble and commoner alike, so that many leaped out of top-storey windows into the street, and seriously injured their legs as they hit the ground.
About eighty men were indicted and were ordered to be taken to Gloucester. But the people of Bristol hid them. The culprits were ordered to be exiled for their non-appearance, but still the people of Bristol protected them. The king repeatedly summoned the people to present the wrongdoers, but they did not do so. They still had not done so by May 1316, more than two years after the original case had been heard.8
Events over the next two months demonstrate how closely the social life of the nobility and regional politics were meshed at this time. In 1316 Bartholomew de Badlesmere and Roger Mortimer were ordered to take action against the townsmen. At the same time, these two men were discussing an alliance between their families. The plan was that Roger’s son and heir, Edmund, who was turning out to be a clever boy, if not a fighting knight, should marry Badlesmere’s infant daughter, Elizabeth. Negotiations took place at Westminster in the spring and, in mid-May, Roger and his household, together with a number of important guests, made their way to Wigmore to celebrate the wedding. Badlesmere agreed to pay Roger the substantial sum of £2,000 for the marriage.9 At the same time Roger made a settlement of his estates, granting to his executors John de Hothum (recently elected Bishop of Ely) and Philip de Kyme (his steward) the castle and manor of Wigmore, the land of Maelienydd with the castles of Cefnllys and Dinbaud, the land of Cydewain with the castle of Dolforwyn, and the land of Deuddwr, together with the reversion or inheritance of the estates which his mother then held as part of her dower, including Radnor Castle. These the executors were empowered to pass to Edmund. Roger also made the young man the heir to his (Roger’s) mother’s Somerset and Buckinghamshire estates, including Bridgewater Castle. After the business was agreed, it was time for the wedding party to go to the Welsh Marches to hold the ceremony.
At the same time, Roger and many of his wedding guests prepared to attack Bristol.
It is typical of Roger’s character that he should combine in one journey his son’s marriage and a military offensive. To see these as complementary events, as he clearly did, it is necessary to appreciate that he was not a man who hated war but one who saw war as his honourable duty, his ‘profession’ and a matter of pride. Unlike the lords who had avoided Ireland through its difficult years, he had voluntarily gone to defend his estates, and had taken part in the fighting. Like the warrior king, Edward I, his vision of himself was as a leader in arms. War was totally compatible with the diplomatic event of a wedding ceremony. The marriage of his heir had as much to do with estates acquisition as producing a new generation. Testimony to this is the fact that the bride was only three years old at the time of the wedding.10 Marriage was also about military capacity, bringing within his influence a family whose wealth and power could be added to his own. He would henceforth be obliged to help and defend the de Badlesmere family, but he too would benefit from their help and strength. In this particular case, the advantages he would obtain from the marriage were not so much military as political, since Badlesmere had spent many years working his way into a position of great influence at court. In addition there was the £20,000. As early as 1308 Roger had had to acknowledge debts to the Bardi banking house of Florence (one of the principal banking houses of Europe), and had constantly borrowed from friends and family ever since. There was a sound reason why Badlesmere’s was a suitable family to which to link the Mortimers: Bartholomew was not known as Badlesmere the Rich for nothing.
Edmund Mortimer, then aged about fourteen, was married to Elizabeth de Badlesmere in the chapel of the manor house of Ernwood, in Kinlet, Shropshire, on 27 June 1316. At the door of the chapel the ‘couple’ received the manor of Ernwood itself, plus the manors of Cleobury Mortimer, Stratfield Mortimer, and the reversion of the manors of Arlegh in Staffordshire, then held by Hugh Audley, and Bisley in Gloucestershire, then held by Joan, the widow of Henry de Bohun (the knight killed at Bannockburn by Robert Bruce). Those witnessing the gift and present at the wedding included a number of close Mortimer allies. The full list of the witnesses includes, besides Roger himself, his uncle Lord Mortimer of Chirk, William de Montagu, William de la Zouche, lord of Ashby de la Zouche, Roger Damory, John de Charlton, Thomas Botetourt, Robert de Waterville, Thomas de Lovaigne, Thomas Roscelyn, Bartholomew de Burghersh (Badlesmere’s nephew), Giles de Mompesson, John de Coleville, another Robert de Waterville, Robert de Harley, John de Sapy, Robert de Sapy, Edmund Hakelut, Philip ap Howel, Master John Walwayn, Master Richard de Clare, Henry de Burghersh and John de Chelmsford.11 These were the close circle of Mortimer adherents. Interestingly their number included fanatical supporters as well as men who would betray him. Among them was one whose son would ultimately lead Roger to his death.
After the wedding the guests probably returned to Wigmore. This stay, from approximately the end of May to the end of August 1316 (with a couple of weeks away to besiege Bristol), was the longest period Roger would be at his ancestral seat for the rest of his life. At roughly this time the castle was almost totally rebuilt. No accounts survive, since the family archive was mostly destroyed in the late sixteenth or early seventeenth century,12 but architectural historians have always ascribed the huge rebuilding programme to Roger’s lifetime, and recent archaeological work has confirmed this theory. Roger inherited a largely defensive thirteenth-century fortress in 1306, but he constructed a grander, more luxurious castle on the same site. This served as his caput – his principal permanent residence, head office, armoury and treasury – for the rest of his life. Thus, it is quite possible that Roger treated his guests to a preview of the building works he planned at Wigmore, before advancing with them to attack Bristol.
Badlesmere had not been able to attend the wedding of his daughter at Ernwood as his presence was required at court. He remained with the king throughout June 1316, and left to go to Bristol to put down the revolt with the Earl of Pembroke and Lord Berkeley in early July. There they met with Roger and his army. The earl took the lead in demanding that the people of Bristol surrender the culprits. He spoke to the leaders in their hall:
The king on hearing your cause has found you guilty, and he warns and commands you to obey the law. Hand over the killers and the guilty, and you and your town shall remain in peace. I promise that if you do this, the king will not be hard but merciful towards you.
The reply from the Bristol townsmen was defiant:
We were not the authors of this wrong; we have not failed the king in anything. Certain men tried to take away our rights, and we, as was proper, tried to defend them. Therefore if the king will remit his penalties, if he will grant us life and limb, rents and property, we will obey him and do as he wishes; otherwise we shall continue as we have begun, and defend our liberties and privileges to the death.13
Having heard this, the Earl of Pembroke returned to the king to discuss his final judgement. It was, predictably, to effect a full siege of the town, if only as an example to other towns and cities that they should obey the law. Badlesmere was placed in charge of the attack, but as he himself was not a military leader, it is likely that Roger organised the setting up of the siege engines.14 These machines, six of which were kept at Wigmore, were capable of projecting heavy stone shot or burning matter for many hundreds of yards. In this case, the purpose was to force the town into submission, so while the townsfolk were incarcerated within their walls without supplies, the siege engines sent huge stones flying into their buildings at five-or ten-minute intervals, flattening houses and crushing property and defences. Such constant crashing and crumbling of buildings invoked terrible fear, which was harder to endure than the lack of food. The townsfolk of Bristol held to a hope that the attackers would give up and go away, as the Earl of Gloucester had done in an earlier assault on the town, but Roger, Badlesmere and the others dutifully carried through their mission. Fearing the whole town would be destroyed, the people of Bristol surrendered on 26 July.15
*
Crushing the revolts of Llywelyn Bren and the Bristol merchants were marks of efficient leadership, but they were nothing compared with what was required in Ireland. That country had been driven into a state so appalling, so mutilated and starved under the weight of an occupying army that it was hardly recognisable as a part of Christendom. After Roger had left in December 1315, Edward Bruce had destroyed Kells and moved to Granard, taking what he could from the manor before burning it. This was to be his policy from now on: to take, plunder and destroy. He spent Christmas at Loughsewdy. His army killed any inhabitants who had not fled, took what they wanted and burnt the place behind them. Led by the de Lacy brothers, the Scots ransacked their way around the country, through Leinster to Tethmoy and then to Kildare.16 Here Bruce attacked the castle, but was repulsed by a vigilant garrison. Unable to sustain supplies for his army for any length of time owing to the destruction wrought by his own men and the inclement weather, he could not lay siege to the castle, and moved on to Castledermot. Near here, at Ardscull, on 26 January 1316, he met Edmund Butler, the Justiciar, and other lords, including John FitzThomas and Arnold le Poer, in battle. It was a close conflict, and the Scots losses were heavier than the English, but again it was the English who were put to flight, although their army had been quite large enough to defeat the Scots, according to John de Hothum.17 Once more the English lords had defeated themselves by their own internal divisions. Trim Castle still held out under Roger’s vassal Walter de Cusack, but only because, like Kildare, it was strong enough to resist assault, and there was insufficient food in the vicinity to sustain a besieging army for any length of time. In April, having ransacked and despoiled the south of the country, the Scots returned to the north. On 1 May at Dundalk, Edward Bruce was crowned King of Ireland. And with the exception of Dublin and a few English castles, it was a justified title. It was even more so after the death of Felim O’Connor in August, and the fall of Carrickfergus Castle in September.
That autumn, as the Scots were celebrating their almost total success in Ireland, the Mortimers were once again very much in favour in England. Roger had shown himself to be a thoroughly competent commander by the capture of Llywelyn and the siege of Bristol. At the beginning of October, Lord Mortimer of Chirk was once again restored to his position as Justiciar of Wales, although only for the north part at first, from which he had been removed by adherents of the Earl of Lancaster in January 1315. At the same time he cleverly manipulated the return of the constableship of two royal castles which had been confiscated from him under the Ordinances, claiming that they had been rewards for good service as opposed to demonstrations of unwarranted royal favour. Thus it is not surprising that, although summoned in August to fight the Scots in Scotland, in November Roger convinced Edward to let him return to fight the Scots in Ireland.18
For more than a year the Scots had stretched English resources by fighting a war on two fronts. Roger now persuaded Edward that, by releasing more money and men to continue the war in Ireland, the situation there could be turned to the English advantage. Accordingly Edward gave Roger command of a royal army.19 On 23 November Roger was officially appointed King’s Lieutenant of Ireland20 – Viceroy. It was the most important position a member of the family had held since his grandfather had been guardian of England during the absence of Edward I, forty-five years before. It was a position higher than that of Justiciar, the normal governor of the country. It was the same position that Edward had conferred upon Gaveston in the summer of 1308, when he had been trying to thwart the earls who had forced Gaveston into exile. Roger effectively embodied the government and the legal system of the country, or what there was left of it. Ten years of faithful service had finally reaped the reward of real power.
The next few months were occupied wholly with planning the invasion. Roger remained at court in the north until at least early December, receiving grants for his own benefit and to help him pay his expenses. He was given possession of all lands in Ireland conquered by the Scots. He was given power to remove officials and to receive and pardon felons as he saw fit. He was given authority to make covenants with those who had assisted the Scots, to remit debts due to the Exchequer, to sell or grant custodies of land, wardships of minors, marriages of unmarried lords’ heirs: in other words, anything of value which might be due to the king. Pardons for crimes committed were granted to any men travelling to Ireland in Roger’s company. Orders were given to the Bardi banking house to advance large sums of money to him. His kinsmen and vassals also benefited from his new-found favour. One in particular who later played a small but crucial role later in Roger’s life, Robert de Fiennes, was created Seneschal of Ponthieu.
For those men of status travelling to Ireland with Roger, grants of protection were given. From these we can see that his company included a number of his tried and trusted followers. Hugh de Turpington was in his company, one of many who had fought in Ireland with him in 1310–12 and 1315. Edmund Hakelut and William de la Zouche, who had attended the wedding of Edmund Mortimer, were also present. John Maltravers, who had been knighted with Roger in 1306, had fought with him at Bannockburn and would remain a friend to his dying day, was another. Others included Robert de Harley and Hugh de Croft, who had also both fought with Roger in Ireland in 1310–12, and Gilbert de Bohun, a distant cousin of Roger’s and a relative of the Earl of Hereford. William de Fiennes, another cousin of Roger’s on his mother’s side, also went. John Wogan was of the company, a former Justiciar of Ireland. Many more knights accompanied him, along with one hundred and fifty men-at-arms and five hundred footsoldiers. These numbers were swelled by the order on 4 January to all the lords of the realm who had lands in Ireland, except the Earl of Pembroke, to go in person ‘or send sufficient people according to the quantity of their lands to stay on them for defence’.21 All these men were to muster with their equipment and their horses at Haverford on 2 February 1317. Their writs attested to the fact that they were under the orders of ‘the king’s cousin, Sir Roger Mortimer of Wigmore’.22
As things turned out, it took longer than expected to assemble the army. A fleet had to be organised, with ships from Bristol and Haverford and the ports in between. Payment had to be arranged through the king’s clerk for the men, for the supplies, and for the mariners ferrying the men across to Ireland. A new captain of the fleet had to be recruited. Sir John de Athy, fomerly a sheriff in Ireland, was appointed, and given orders that when Roger landed, he (de Athy) was to ‘remain at sea for the defence of Ireland and the king’s land of Scotland’. That inevitably meant a battle with the successful Scottish naval captain, Thomas Dun, who still lurked off the coast and patrolled the ports of Ireland. Negotiations began for a thousand Genoese soldiers in plate armour to be placed at Roger’s disposal.23 The schedule began to slip. On 28 January the fleet was still not ready, and the king had to issue a mandate ‘to hasten the navy ordained for the passage of the king’s cousin Sir Roger Mortimer of Wigmore to Ireland, so that it be ready at the day and place assigned and the voyage not be delayed’.24
As the delays continued, the news from Ireland was not good. Confident that the English were unable to stage a meaningful attack on Scotland, and that Ireland was the real frontier, Robert Bruce had gone to help his brother secure his kingdom against Roger’s invasion. Robert Bruce landed in January, and straightaway set about a campaign to take the Scots into the central and southern parts of Ireland in one great effort to raise the tribes and the unfaithful Anglo-Irish lords against the English. With the hero of Scotland at their head, the Scots again marched south. On 16 February they were at Slane, in Meath, from where they marched straight through Roger’s lands towards Dublin.25 The Earl of Ulster ambushed them near his manor of Ratoath, but was defeated and forced to flee to Dublin, where the citizens arrested him on 21 February, and locked him up in the mistaken belief that he was a Scottish sympathiser.26 Left with no other defence, the Dubliners made desperate preparations for a siege of their city. On 23 February they burnt the northern suburbs and built a new defensive wall along the quay.
Roger was now a month late, and still not much nearer to setting out. In March the brothers Bruce marched around Dublin and went into Kildare, desperately trying to rouse the native Irish and the Anglo-Irish into rebellion. In each village where they were not welcomed they killed the inhabitants, plundered the settlement and burnt the houses. But their rapacity was soon to come to a halt. At the end of the month the army reached the Shannon, at Castleconnell, near Limerick, and there they heard that Roger had landed with a large army at Youghal, on the southeast coast, on 7 April.
Roger had with him only six hundred and fifty men in the royal army, together with perhaps a hundred or so of his own men, and a few hundred supplied by the knights and lords with lands in Ireland. Even so, the Irish and Anglo-Irish considered this a fine display. Annalists stated that his army was fifteen thousand men strong; it was probably no more than a tenth of this number on landing, and no more than five thousand after gathering the local Irish levies and the army which was with the Justiciar, Edmund Butler, at Cork. But it was enough. Great joy spread through Ireland that the continual depradations of the Scots, the plundering and looting, had come to an end. Dublin, which had held out for so long, was ecstatic. The Scots, seeing that they had signally failed to win the hearts of the Irish, and knowing they were in no condition to fight a fresh army, retreated at speed and by night through Kildare and Trim.
Roger knew he did not have to fight the Scots straightaway. Nor, for that matter, would he have been able to do so. To follow them would mean his army having to live off the same land through which the Scots had already passed: a land of corpses, burnt-out cottages, plundered towns, despoiled fields and wide-eyed starving men, women and children, suffering from the extreme famine. Instead, by letting the Scots go, he was able to use the famine as a weapon. Since Bruce had failed to take the important castles in the south of Ireland, his army had no choice but to live off plunder. They had few places outside Ulster where they could build up reserves, or replenish their resources. However brave, the Scots were suffering from fatigue, malnutrition and disillusionment. They were, in effect, already beaten.
With the Scots on the run, Roger’s responsibility was to secure the law of the land and to effect the king’s law. Although the king had given him extensive powers with which to govern, he clearly wished to orchestrate events from a distance. On 23 April he sent instructions to Roger to inquire into the reasons for the incarceration of the Earl of Ulster.27 Roger was to call together the king’s council to discuss whether it would be ‘to the king’s honour and profit’ if the earl were sent to the king in England or were detained longer in Dublin Castle. In another letter, dated 22 April, the king ordered Roger not to grant pardons for murder and other felonies ‘unless the matters had been considered by him and such of the king’s council of those parts as he shall think fit to govern, notwithstanding the fact that the king lately gave him power to receive felons and outlaws’.28 A third letter, dated 27 April, asked him not to harass the people of Dublin for their arrest of Richard de Burgh, Gilbert de Burgh, Hubert de Burgh and Henry le Clerk. And so it went on. At the end of May he was again requested to inquire into the circumstances of the Earl of Ulster. The king’s involvement in Roger’s government in Ireland hints either at a lack of complete confidence or a growing lack of respect on the part of the king, as if Roger was liable to pursue his own course of justice. Clearly Edward realised that in Roger he had a competent and loyal subject, but an independently-minded one as well.
In Ireland, Roger was like a snarling dog suddenly unleashed. He ignored the king’s commands and set himself as his first military objective the challenge which had been in his mind for the last fourteen months: revenge upon the de Lacys. They had deserted him at Kells, and, being a soldier, he was not a man to forgive men who failed in battle. After his defeat they had led Edward Bruce through Leinster, consorting with the Scots every step of the way. When Roger had been appointed King’s Lieutenant in November 1316, he had ordered the Justiciar to prosecute them. But they made a show of loyalty and persuaded several of their countrymen to swear that they had only acted on Roger’s orders. Roger was furious: his claims against them were being thrown back at him. And yet, as he understood the sequence of events, the de Lacys had responded to Bruce’s initial letter to the Irish before the invasion with a promise of military aid if the Scots assisted them in ousting Roger. They had then ‘turned their shields’ on him at Kells, and they had led the Scots through Leinster. Any subsequent pretence of constant loyalty was an insult. An even greater insult was that, as soon as the court case was decided in their favour, they acted again as guides for the Scots, leading them from Slane through Meath, around Dublin, and assisting in looting and burning on the way to Kildare.
As a show of justifying his attack on the de Lacys, Roger called together the king’s council of Ireland at Kilkenny in early May and there proclaimed his war against his rebellious vassals. Revenge was uppermost in his mind. On 11 May he was at Naas, seemingly on his way towards Dublin, but he avoided the city and headed straight for his own lands in Meath. On 22 May he and his army were at Trim Castle, making final preparations for the assault on the de Lacy brothers and their adherents. As a last gesture of conciliation he sent one of his most faithful knights, Sir Hugh de Croft, to the de Lacys. Sir Hugh, who had served in Roger’s household in both England and Ireland, carried letters bearing the royal seal, which ordered the brothers to come and submit to the King’s Lieutenant. Not only did they not obey, they killed Sir Hugh.
It was a shocking act, without the slightest justification. If it was done to impress the Scots, it was too little too late: they were not moved to come to the aid of the de Lacys, whose squabbles with Roger did not interest them. Robert Bruce had left Ireland with Thomas Randolph on 22 May, and Edward Bruce was not strong enough to leave Ulster. If the murder was meant to impress the other lords of Meath, it was a demonstration which failed. The lords of Meath were in no position to take up arms against their liege lord, with a royal army at his command, in favour of two disgruntled murderous local lords and their equally murderous but starving and distant Scots allies. Roger was in the ascendancy.
No chronicler recorded the battle which ensued on 3–4 June 1317 in any detail, and most of what is known comes from a court case in 1334.29 It is not even known exactly where it took place. It seems Roger managed to surprise Walter de Lacy and his army, as Walter alone of his clan faced Roger on the first day. Roger came at Walter’s army with the banners of the king unfurled, signifying that he came for war. Overwhelmed by a better equipped, more experienced and far larger army, it was not long before Walter’s men were in flight, or dead, Walter’s standard-bearer being among the corpses trampled into the ground. The following day, Walter again mustered his men and joined with the rest of the de Lacy clan in an attempted surprise attack on Roger’s army. With him were Hugh de Lacy, his brother, Robert de Lacy, Almaric and Simon de Lacy (brothers), John de Lacy (illegitimate son of Hugh), John de Lacy (illegitimate son of Walter), Walter de Say, Walter le Blount, John de Kemerdyn and many others. The de Lacys mustered behind Hugh’s banner, which was ranged against that of the king. They attacked, but their attack soon turned into flight. Meath was once more securely under Roger’s control.
Like Bruce in Scotland, Roger had a sense of urgency. There was no time for celebration; there was still much to do to subdue the rest of the land. At the end of June he summoned the Irish Parliament to Dublin to attend to royal business, and agreed the terms under which the people of Dublin would set free the Earl of Ulster. On 2 July John de Athy, faithfully sailing off the coast of Ireland, met the feared Thomas Dun in battle, and defeated him. Thomas Dun and forty of his men were captured, and Dun’s head was hacked off and sent to Roger in Dublin. In mid-July, in an ever-increasing position of power, Roger summoned the king’s council to approve his judgement of the de Lacy brothers. On 20 July he declared them felons and outlaws, guilty of breaking their vows of allegiance to him and the Crown, and enemies of the king. He confiscated all their goods, chattels and lands, and banished them from Ireland. His authority had never been so great.
For the rest of 1317 Roger continued to sweep across southern Ireland, participating in a series of small-scale battles all ending with Irish and Anglo-Irish lords surrendering to his authority. From Dublin he set out for Drogheda, a town which had prevailed upon King Edward to grant it protection. In another one of his interfering commands, on 10 June Edward had ordered Roger not to allow men to be housed in the town, nor to take provisions from it. Roger carefully obeyed this command and was even considerate enough of the king’s order to kill a number of Ulstermen as they came to attack the Drogheda region and to steal cattle. Those who were not killed were led to Dublin Castle.30 Roger’s next target was Lord O’Farrell of Annaly. Roger destroyed all his people’s houses, and forced O’Farrell to sue for peace and to surrender hostages. Pausing briefly back at Dublin to accuse and sentence further supporters of the de Lacy family, and to arrest the Bishop of Ferns for complicity in the Scottish campaign,31 he started out again. On 11 September he marched against the Irish of Imail, ‘where more Irish were killed than English’ at Okinselagh.32 His next confrontation was with the O’Byrne clan, whose chief was forced to surrender and locked up in Dublin Castle. By the end of October, Roger had pacified any and all of those Irish and Anglo-Irish lords who had considered siding with the Scots. Although Edward Bruce still held Ulster, his claim to rule Ireland was now an absurdity.
In his tour of duty Roger did suffer some setbacks. The first of these stemmed from the king’s desire to try to control Ireland through Roger, rather than leaving him to govern the country independently. On 7 July Roger appointed his clerk, Nicholas de Balscot, to the chancellorship of Dublin Cathedral. In England, however, the king decided to appoint James d’Ardingel of Florence to the post. Finding that he had clashed with Roger, the king annulled Roger’s appointment in favour of his own. This clash may have been connected to the second problem Roger faced at the end of 1317: the influence of his rival Hugh Despenser over Edward. While Roger had found preferment in Ireland, Despenser had found equal success at court. As husband of the eldest of the three heiresses of the Earl of Gloucester, Despenser was allowed to claim the largest third of the inheritance, the county of Glamorgan, in November. This was bad enough news for Roger, but what happened next was truly awful. Despenser celebrated his triumph by removing Llywelyn Bren from the Tower of London without any authority. He had him taken to Cardiff, and there, at the castle, had him executed in the most barbaric manner. The lord of Senghennydd, whom Roger and the Earl of Hereford had both sworn to protect, was drawn behind two horses to a gallows beside the Black Tower where he was hanged. As he was dying, the executioner cut out his heart and intestines with a knife and threw them into a nearby fire. His limbs were hacked off and distributed throughout Glamorgan. The man to whom the king had promised mercy was no more.33
Whatever Roger’s immediate reaction to the news of Llywelyn’s murder, there was nothing he could do about it in Ireland. The disadvantage of his Irish authority was that he was trapped across the sea; returning to the mainland without the king’s permission would have jeopardised his standing at court. He could do nothing but wait, and concentrate on governing.
Roger’s position as King’s Lieutenant allows us to reconstruct a putative itinerary for him far more detailed than anything to date. Although the contents of the Irish Public Record Office were largely destroyed in 1922, calendars of the rolls of letters granted under the king’s seal by Roger and the Justiciar, Edmund Butler, were published in 1828. In addition the accounts for his administration survive and have recently been published.34 Thus we know that shortly after his victory at Okinselagh Roger returned to Trim and then to Dublin, where he remained throughout October. In November he took the government to Cork, where he remained for the rest of the year, spending the sum of £316 14s on curbing the rebellion in Cork and Desmond. In January he moved to Clonmel, and the accounts mention him fighting in ‘Waterford, Leinster and elsewhere in Ireland’. In effect what Roger was doing was to use the Justiciar as his deputy while he himself went off to fight battles. Royal grants were made at Thomastown on 28 January and 2 February, presumably under the Justiciar’s authority, but Roger himself was already back in Dublin by this time, dusting himself down from battle to grant a manor to Hugh de Turpington.35 He was acting in a way which was remarkably free from the responsibilities of government, more like a conquering king than the head of a bureaucracy.
In true conqueror style, on 19 February Roger held a great feast at Dublin Castle at which he exercised his right as the king’s representative to create new knights. One of those he dubbed was John de Bermingham, a ferociously loyal Anglo-Irish soldier and a commander of considerable ability, as later events would show. Another was Roger’s faithful retainer Hugh de Turpington. A third is described in the St Mary’s chronicle as ‘Lord John Mortimer’.36 This seems to have been his fourth son, who must have been a very young esquire in his father’s service, perhaps between seven and ten years old. In conferring the honour on his son Roger was able to demonstrate his family’s high status as well as his own authority.
In early March Roger undertook a last campaign to Drogheda, where he remained for four weeks. He held discussions with the king’s council over the partition of estates and the awards of lands to the Irish, and plans were made for the final push towards Ulster. All resistance in Ireland had been crushed; Roger was master of all southern Ireland, but still Edward Bruce held out in the north. If he were to complete the reconquest and kill Bruce, a very great victory would be his, and most probably the dignity of an earldom too.
It was not to be. At the end of April Roger learnt that he was being summoned back to England. He returned to Dublin and set about winding up his activities. He appointed William FitzJohn, Archbishop of Cashel, to govern in his place, and then set about exacting a final shard of revenge upon the de Lacys. It seems that John de Lacy, the son of either Walter or Hugh, had been caught and imprisoned in Dublin. He was now taken to Trim for an audience with Roger. Unlike others, such as Miles de Verdon, who had begged forgiveness for their treachery, the de Lacys had thrown all hope of reconciliation back at Roger by killing Sir Hugh de Croft. Roger sentenced John de Lacy to be starved to death in Trim Castle, which his family had so desperately coveted.37
On 5 May Roger relinquished his command and prepared to sail for Wales. He must have left with a heavy heart, for he was passing up his opportunity of completing a glorious reconquest of Ireland from the Scots. When Sir John de Bermingham led the royal army north five months later to fight Edward Bruce, he was in effect Roger’s surrogate. In his army were some of Roger’s closest retainers: men like Sir Hugh de Turpington, Richard Tuit and John de Cusack. And his enemies amongst the Scots included men like Walter and Hugh de Lacy. It was Roger’s campaign, a war which in many ways was of his creation, but he was not there to fight it.