English Aristocracy. 1st Earl of March. Born at Wigmore Castle, Herefordshire, the firstborn of Edmund Mortimer, 2nd Baron Mortimer and his wife, Margaret de Fiennes. At about age 15 he was betrothed to Joan de Geneville, the couple would eventually have at least eleven children. In July 1304 his father was killed in a military skirmish, and as de Mortimer was underage at the time, the king placed him in the custody of his controversial favorite, Piers Gaveston. Within a year he was knighted by King Edward. In 1314, he fought at the famed Battle of Bannockburn in Scotland; in 1315 he was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. As Edward II's reign faltered, de Mortimer joined the growing opposition to Edward II and his new favorites. Edward's army crushed the baronial revolt in January, 1322. de Mortimer was taken prisoner and incarcerated in the Tower. He escaped in 1324 and fled to France. By the following year, Edward's Queeen, Isabelle came to France to see her bother, Charles IV, in pursuit of peace talks. She found de Mortimer at the French court, and entered into an intrigue and also began an affair with him. The controversy they engendered at court necessitated a move to Flanders from whence they launched an invasion in the name of the Prince of Wales, landing in England in September 1326. Their force was joined by Henry, Earl of Lancaster; and London rose in support of the queen, the king fled, but was captured by November. Parliament granted their demand for the king's deposition, and cleared the way for the succession of his son Edward III. For nearly four years the Queen and de Mortimer ruled the country as regents to the underage king. In pursuit of his ambition, he was made constable of Wallingford Castle, and in September 1328 he was created Earl of March, he took over the lordships of Denbigh, Oswestry, and Clun, and he was granted the marcher lordship over Montgomery by the Queen. In March 1330, he ordered the execution of Edmund, Earl of Kent, the half-brother of Edward II, finally pushing the young king and his allies to take action. Days before the king's eighteenth birthday, de Mortimer and the Queen were seized, he was sent under guard to the Tower. Charged with assuming royal power and other high misdemeanors, he was condemned without trial and hanged at Tyburn, his estates forfeit to the crown. His long neglected widow received a pardon in 1336 for her associations. A letter was recently discovered in which she petitioned Edward III for the return of her husband's body for burial at Wigmore Abbey, he had been initially buried at Greyfriars, Coventry following his hanging, Edward III refused. The king later relented, and Mortimer's body was transferred to Wigmore Abbey, where Joan was later buried beside him.