Katherine (Mortimer) de Beauchamp (abt. 1314 - abt. 1369)

Ancestors Descendants

Contents 1 Biography 1.1 Early Life 1.2 Marriage and Family 1.3 Court of King Edward III 2 Research Notes 2.1 Katherine’s Date of Marriage 2.2 Katherine’s Date of Death 3 Sources

Biography

Early Life

Katherine de Mortimer was born at Ludlow Castle, Shropshire, as a daughter of Roger de Mortimer, 1st Earl of March, and Joan de Geneville, Baroness Geneville.^[1]

Ludlow Castle as depicted in the 18th-century by Samuel Scott, painted between 1765 and 1769.

Katherine’s father, Roger, was a powerful Marcher lord, who served as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland before being imprisoned in the Tower of London for leading the Marcher lords in a revolt against King Edward II.

An engraving of the seizure of Roger de Mortimer by King Edward III, produced by Edmund Evans.

Later escaping to France, Roger began an affair with the King’s wife, the Capetian Queen Isabella, and the pair led a successful invasion of England.

The King was captured after he fled to Wales, and forced to abdicate the throne. Roger was the de facto ruler of England for three years before he himself was overthrown by Edward’s son King Edward III, and executed by hanging at Tyburn in 1330, when Katherine was about sixteen.

Marriage and Family

On 19 April, 1319 a dispensation was issued for the marriage of Thomas de Beauchamp to one of the daughters of Roger de Mortimer "in order to extinguish the dissension caused by Thomas’s occupation of land in the borders of Wales called 'Ebuel.'"^[2] For the term of his minority, Thomas’ custody was granted to Katherine’s father.^[3]

Together, Katherine and Thomas had fifteen confirmed children.^[4] Two other children, John and Hierome are part of the Beauchamp family but are unconfirmed as being born to this couple.^[5]

1. Margaret; married Guy de Montfort, and later became a nun following his death. Margaret died childless.
2. Philippa; married Hugh de Stafford, 2nd Earl of Stafford. She had nine children by him.
3. Maud; married Roger de Clifford and had issue.
4. Guy; married Philippa de Ferrers and had two daughters. He was the eldest son, but as he predeceased his father, the title and estates were passed on to their second son.^[6]
5. Joan; married Ralph Basset, 3rd Baron Basset of Drayton and died childless.
6. Thomas, 12th Earl of Warwick; married Margaret Ferrers and had issue.
7. William, 1st Baron Bergavenny; married Lady Joan FitzAlan and had issue. Through his daughter Joan, William was the third great-grandfather of Queen Anne Boleyn of England.
8. Roger
9. Reynburn
10. Alice; married first John Beauchamp, 3rd Baron Beauchamp and secondly Sir William Gournay.^[7] She died childless.
11. Elizabeth; married Thomas de Ufford, the brother of her sister Isabel's second husband.^[8]
12. Agnes; married Walter de Cokesey.
13. Juliana
14. Katherine; became a nun at Shouldham Priory.
15. Isabel; married first John le Strange, 5th Baron Strange and secondly William de Ufford, 2nd Earl of Suffolk. She died childless.

Court of King Edward III

At some point prior to 1355, Katherine became an important figure at the court of King Edward III. As a sign of royal favour she was chosen to stand as one of the godmothers to Queen Philippa of Hainault’s granddaughter Philippa, Countess of Ulster. This honour bestowed upon Katherine is described in the Friar's Genealogy as: "Her (Philippa, Countess of Ulster) godmother also was of Warwick Countess, a lady likewise of great worthiness."^[9]

Research Notes

Katherine’s Date of Marriage

As mentioned above, a marriage dispensation for Katherine and Thomas in 1319, however they did not marry until after 22 February 1325. We know this because the Papal Letters describes a dispensation issued on 22 February 1325 for the marriage of Thomas to a daughter of Edmund, Earl of Arundel,^[2] and so Thomas and Katherine can't have been married before this date. Ian Mortimer, in his book The Greatest Traitor (written about Katherine’s father), details a further theory on their marriage:

"Murimuth (p.57) states that at this time where was a double wedding at Hereford in which two of Roger's daughters married two heirs, namely Laurence de Hastings and Edward of Norfolk. This is almost certainly a mistake. It is unlikely that Roger's daughters, Agnes and Beatrice, could have been so advantageously matched before Roger himself was an earl, which did not occur until October 1328. Also it is unlikely that the Earl of Norfolk would have allowed his son and heir to marry Roger's daughter when he was considering rebellion against him, as he was in the summer of 1328.

The jousting mentioned by Murimuth in the context of the double wedding is probably the same as the jousting mentioned by Knighton and the longer version of the Brut as a Round Table tournament. The earliest of these sources, the Brut, places this in 1329; Knighton (p.449) seems to have copied Murimuth in having one Hereford event, a Round Table tournament, in 1328 (his copyists in turn have mistaken "Hereford" for "Bedford" in one manuscript and "Hertford" in another).

It is likely therefore that there were in fact two Mortimer double weddings, one at Hereford at the end of May 1328, and one in autumn 1329, possibly also at Hereford. If this is correct, the pair of daughters married on the first occasion were Catherine and Joan, not Agnes and Beatrice, whose husbands were granted their lands in February and June 1329 respectively."

In a further passage in his book, one which gives a brief summary of the lives of Roger’s children, Mortimer wrote this in the passage for Catherine:

"She was married after October 1326 to Thomas de Beauchamp [...] If there were two Mortimer double weddings at Hereford, one in 1328 and another in 1329, Catherine would have been in the first pair. [...] However, Roger granted these two wards their lands at different times in the first half of 1329, and this might more closely reflect their wedding dates. Thus there is reason to suppose that Catherine was married before February 1329, possibly as part of a double wedding on 31 May 1328."

However, despite this theory, the only definitive date that can be given is that Katherine and Thomas married at some point after 22 February 1325, and so the data fields reflect this.

Katherine’s Date of Death

Katherine wrote her will on 4 August 1369, yet there are several theories about when she actually died. Richardson states that she died on the same day that she wrote her will in Royal Ancestry, while The Complete Peerage suggests a date between August 4 and September 6; the September date is the date that Thomas made his will, and within it he alludes to his wife being deceased.^[10]

Sources

1. ↑ Richardson, Douglas, Royal Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families. Salt Lake City : Douglas Richardson, 2013. Volume IV, pp 170-172 (see additional notes, below).
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1} Bliss, William Henry, Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers Relating to Great Britain and Ireland. London : Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1895. pp 186, 242.
3. ↑ Costain, Thomas B., The Three Edwards. New York : Popular Library, 1962. pp 237-238.
4. ↑ Richardson, Douglas, Magna Carta Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families, 2nd Edition. Salt Lake City : Douglas Richardson, 2011. Volume I, p 142 (see additional notes, below).
5. ↑ Dugdale, William, The Antiquities of Warwickshire Illustrated: From Records, Leiger-Books, Manuscripts, Charters, Evidences, Tombes, and Armes : Beautified with Maps, Prospects, and Portraictures. London : Thomas Warren, 1656. p 321.
6. ↑ Warwick, Frances Evelyn Greville, Countess of, Warwick Castle and its Earls. London : Hutchinson & Co., 1903. Volume I, p 100.
7. ↑ M. C. B. Dawes, A. C. Wood and D. H. Gifford. "Inquisitions Post Mortem, Richard II, File 31," in Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem: Volume 15, Richard II, (London : Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1970), 368-386. British History Online, accessed January 19, 2019.
8. ↑ Cokayne, George Edward, Complete Peerage, or a History of the House of Lords and All its Members from the Earliest Times. London : St Catherine Press, 1953. Volume XII, part I, p 432 (footnote I).
9. ↑ Strickland, Agnes, Lives of the Queens of England from the Norman Conquest: With Anecdotes of the Courts, First Published From Official Records and Other Authentic Documents, Private as Well as Public. Boston : Taggard & Thompson, 1864. Volume I, p 200.
10. ↑ Cokayne, George Edward, Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom. London : St Catherine Press, 1959. Volume XII, part II, p 374.