Book description
One night in August 1323 a captive rebel baron, Sir Roger Mortimer,
drugged his guards and escaped from the Tower of London. With the king's
men-at-arms in pursuit he fled to the south coast, and sailed to France.
There he was joined by Isabella, the Queen of England, who threw herself
into his arms. A year later, as lovers, they returned with an invading
army: King Edward II's forces crumbled before them, and Mortimer took
power. He removed Edward II in the first deposition of a monarch in
British history. Then the ex-king was apparently murdered, some said
with a red-hot poker, in Berkeley Castle. Brutal, intelligent,
passionate, profligate, imaginative and violent: Sir Roger Mortimer was
an extraordinary character. It is not surprising that the queen lost her
heart to him. Nor is it surprising that his contemporaries were
terrified of him. But until now no one has appreciated the full evil
genius of the man. This first biography reveals not only the man's
career as a feudal lord, a governor of Ireland, a rebel leader and a
dictator of England but also the truth of what happened that night in
Berkeley Castle. Ian Mortimer has BA and PhD degrees in history from
Exeter University and an MA in archive studies from University College
London. From 1991 to 2003 he worked in turns for Devon Record Office,
Reading University, the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts, and
Exeter University. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical
Society in 1998. In March 2006, the second of his medieval biogrpahies,
The Perfect King: The Life of Edward III, Father of the English
Nation
was published by Jonathan Cape. He was awarded the Alexander Prize
(2004) by the Royal historical Society for his work on the social
history of medicine. His The Fears of Henry IV: The Life of England's
Self-Made King
will be published by Cape in 2007. He lives with his wife and three
children on the edge of Dartmoor.
