WIGMORE CASTLE^ HEREFORDSHIRE. J5 



But, upon the accession of Edward II., he was restored to favour, 

 and constituted the king's lieutenant and justice of Wales, having 

 all the castles of the principality committed to his charge. In the 

 second year of Edward II. he was made governor of Beaumaris 

 castle, in the isle of Anglesey, and two years after, of Blaynleveng* 

 and Dinas. In 1308 and 1310 he was again in the wars of Scot- 

 land, and in 1314 he petitioned that he might be allowed the ex- 

 penses he incurred, when justice of Wales, in raising a force to 

 repel the attack which Sir Griffith de la Pole made on the castle of 

 Pole, on which occasion he had expended altogether £332. 19s. 2d. 

 In the same year he set forth that he held the land of Grufydd, son 

 of Madoc ab Grufydd, and prayed to be allowed to retain the same 

 during his minority. 



Early in the ninth of Edward II., he was one of the manucap- 

 tors for Hugh le Despenser, who was accused of having assaulted 

 and drawn blood from Sir John de Boos, in the cathedral court of 

 York, in the presence of the king and parliament. In the tenth of 

 Edward II., Mortimer was constituted justice of North Wales, and 

 in the following year was ordered to provide one hundred men out 

 of his lordships of Blaynleveng and Talgarth, in Brecknockshire, 

 and two hundred out of his territory of Lanledu,t for the wars of 

 Scotland. He was again in arms against the Scots in the twelfth 

 and thirteenth, and £100 were assigned for his services therein ; 

 and he had been appointed governor of the castle of Buelt, in 

 Brecknockshire. On the 28th of March, 1321, he was commanded 

 to attend at Gloucester, to devise how the insurrection in Wales 

 might be suppressed, and he was, consequently, again made justice 

 of Wales. 



Having taken an active part against the Despensers, the favo- 

 rites of the young monarch, he exposed himself to Edward's enmi- 

 ty ; and two records are extant which, though from immediately 

 opposite parties, tend equally to prove the unenviable situation in 

 which he was placed. In this very year, he and his nephew joined 

 the Earl of Hereford against the Spencers, and, having entei-ed and 

 burnt the town of Bridgnorth, in Shropshire, his Majesty declared 

 them and other barons to have forfeited their lands. About the 

 same time, the commonalty of North and South Wales petitioned 

 the crown, praying that, as Mons. Roger de Mortimer the nephew, 

 and Mons. Roger de Mortimer the uncle, who had the custody of 



• Blaenlly vni, in Brecknockshire, 

 t Query— the proper name ? 



