On Monday, November 9, 2009 at 11:20:38 AM UTC-5, Matt Tompkins wrote:
> On 9 Nov, 14:16, Douglas Richardson <royalances...@msn.com> wrote:
> > Dear Matt
> > You're correct to question the name of Sir John Mortimer's wife in his
> > IPM as being Alice.
> >
> > Sir John Mortimer's only known wife and subsequently his widow was
> > Eleanor Rossall, daughter and co-heiress of Walter Rossall, of
> > Rossall, Shropshire. She was born about 1377, and died 28 Dec.
> > 1432. At the time that Sir John Mortimer married Eleanor Rossall c.
> > 1409, she was then the widow of Sir Nicholas Dagworth (died 1402), of
> > Blickling, Norfolk. Sir Nicholas Dagworth was a a favorite of King
> > Richard II and a prominent knight of the king's chamber. Sir John
> > Mortimer and Eleanor Rossall had no issue. At her death in 1432,
> > Eleanor's heir was her sister, Alice Rossall's son, John Englefield,
> > then aged 30 and more.
> >
> > For more detailed information on the life of Eleanor (Rossall)
> > (Dagworth) Mortimer, see Complete Peerage, 4 (1916): 29-31 (sub
> > Dagworth) and Roskell, House of Commons 1386–1421 2 (1992): 733–734
> > (biog. of Sir Nicholas Dagworth).
> Ah! Well done, Douglas - a good bit of sleuthing. I wonder what
> caused Stirnet to think Sir John Mortimer's marriage in 1409 was to
> "Alice Neville, daughter of John, 3rd Lord Neville of Raby and widow
> (since 1381) of William, 3rd Lord Deincourt." Was she perhaps the
> husband of a different Sir John Mortimer, knt? There was a Sir John
> Mortimer of Martley and Kyre Wyrard in Worcestershire who died on 28
> Oct 1415 (his IPM is in Birmingham City Archives - he left a son and
> heir, also called John, aged 5 and over - and he is mentioned in the
> VCH Worcs chapter on Kyre Wyrard, iv, 289-97) - could he have been her
> husband?
> The tiny landholdings of the Sir John Mortimer who was executed in
> 1424 - smaller even than a single manor - is surely an argument
> against his having been a legitimate or close relation of the earls of
> March, and a pointer towards his having been a bastard, or at best the
> younger son of a younger son. It's interesting, too, that his first
> and only wife was a widow - by coincidence, I have just been reading
> Christine Carpenter's comments in 'Locality and Polity: a Study of
> Warwickshire Landed Society, 1401-1499', p. 102, that heiresses tended
> to be married to heirs, or if to younger sons then to scions of
> prominent families, and that men with little land or unimpressive
> connections often had to make do with widows (whose landed wealth was
> only a temporary benefit).
> Matt