244 HISTORICAL MEMORANDA OF 



try : consequently, among those wlio were summoned by writs to 

 attend the great council at Westminster, on Tuesday, the 16th of 

 April, were the Earl of March, Richard Plantagenet of Connes- 

 borough. Earl of Cambridge, who had espoused Ann, March's sister 

 and eventually his heiress, and his brother Edward, Duke of York. 

 They afterwards assembled at Southampton, to embark, with Hen- 

 ry V. for France, having sanctioned his expedition at that meeting. 

 The Duke of York had under him 100 men at arms, 1 baron, 4 

 knights, 94 Esquires, and 300 archers ; the Earl of Cambridge, 60 

 men at arms, 2 knights, 57 esquires, and 80 archers ; and the Earl 

 of Marjh, 60 men at arms, 1 baronet, 3 knights, 55 esquires, and 

 160 archers. Some of the bowmen were mounted, and some on 

 foot. As the king was about to sail from Southampton, a conspiracy 

 of three noblemen, one of whom was Richard, Earl of Cambridge, 

 was discovered, which endangered his life. They w^ere all execut- 

 ed.* Cambridge's first wife had conveyed to him the title claimed 

 by his descendants of heirs to the throne ; and enabled them to suc- 

 ceed to the proi)erty of the Earl of March. His second wife, by 

 whom he had no issue, was Maud, daughter of Thomas, Lord Clif- 

 ford. The Duke of York, Henry's kinsman, was slain, 25tli of Oc- 

 tober of the same year, 1415, in the battle of Azincour: and from 

 Leland we learn that " King Henry made the Erie of March capi- 

 tayne on the se.'* That author, however, appears to repeat an idle 

 tale, when he says that this nobleman *^'cam from the see to Hogges 

 in to Normandy, and there folowid hym, still a pigge instede of a 

 gide tyl he came^to Cane."t The Earl of March sat on his brother- 

 in-law's trial, and seems to have been sent as lieutenant of Ireland, 

 on the death of Henry V., whose funeral he had attended ; yet so 

 narrowly watched afterwards, that he died in 1424, at Trim Castle, 

 of a broken heart, in consequence of the indignities and ill usage he 

 received. He left no issue. 



Anderson assigns him another uncle, who is not mentioned in 

 the pedigree at the College of Arms, a Sir John IMortimer, who, he 

 adds, " was hanged and quartered for a sham plot, in 1424, to 

 countenance the perpetual imprisonment of his nephew. Earl Ed- 

 mund, who died that same year in goal.^J 



Thus did Wigmore Castle continue in the possession of one family, 



• Without the north gate of Southampton. — Leland, Coll., vol. ii., p. 487. 



t Collect., vol. ii., p. 488. 



X Royal Geneal.j ut supra. See, also, Hall's Chronicle. The Duke of 

 Gloucester was made Protector of the kingdom, while the Duke of Bedford 

 commanded the army in France, during the King's minority. 



