Anne de Mortimer - Early Life

Early Life

Anne Mortimer was born at New Forest, Westmeath, one of her family's Irish estates, on 27 December 1390, the eldest of the four children of Roger Mortimer, 4th Earl of March, and Eleanor Holland. She had two brothers, Edmund Mortimer, 5th Earl of March, and Roger (born 23 April 1393, died c.1413), and a sister, Eleanor, who married Sir Edward de Courtenay (d. 5 December 1419), and had no issue.

Anne Mortimer's mother was the daughter of Thomas Holland, 2nd Earl of Kent, and Alice Arundel, the daughter of Richard de Arundel, 10th Earl of Arundel, and his second wife, Eleanor, daughter of Henry, 3rd Earl of Lancaster, grandson of King Henry III.

Anne Mortimer was thus a descendant of Henry III through her mother, and more importantly, a descendant of King Edward III through her grandparents, Edmund Mortimer, 3rd Earl of March, and Philippa Plantagenet, daughter of King Edward III's second surviving son, Lionel of Antwerp, 1st Duke of Clarence. Because King Richard II had no issue, Anne's father, Roger Mortimer, 4th Earl of March, was heir presumptive during his lifetime, and at his death in Ireland on 20 July 1398 his claim to the crown passed to his eldest son, Edmund.

On 30 September 1399, the fortunes of Anne Mortimer and her brothers and sister changed entirely. Richard II was deposed by the Lancastrians led by Henry Bolingbroke, who became King Henry IV and had his own son, the future King Henry V, recognized as heir apparent at his first Parliament. Anne's brothers, Edmund and Roger, were kept in custody by the new King at Windsor and Berkhampstead castles, but were treated honourably, and for part of the time brought up with the King's own children, John and Philippa.

According to Griffiths, Edmund Mortimer's sisters, Anne and Eleanor, who were in the care of their mother until her death in 1405, were not well treated by Henry IV, and were described as 'destitute' after her death.