11.07
Edmund de Mortimer, 5th Earl of March and 7th Earl of Ulster was born on this date in 1391. In 1398 Edmund succeeded his father not only as earl of March and Ulster but as heir presumptive to the childless Richard II. In 1399 after the usurpation of the throne by the Lancastrian Henry IV, Mortimer was imprisoned, although allowed to inherit his estates. On the accession of Henry V in 1413, he was released and served Henry in the French wars. He refused to stand for plots of supporters to raise him to the throne. In 1422, after Henry V’s death, Mortimer became a member of the regency council for the young Henry VI. In 1424 he took the post of lieutenant of Ireland, where his death in 1425 by plague ended the male line of the Mortimers. His heiress was his sister Anne, whose son by Richard, Earl of Cambridge, was Richard, Duke of York, father of Edward IV and Richard III.
