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

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