14 Feb. 1424 shipping was ordered for his journey. It was high time he went, for many of the Irish lords were questioning the authority of his deputy, and the chronic confusion there was getting worse than ever. So far back as 1407 great loss had been inflicted on his Irish estates by the invasion of Ulster by the Earl of Orkney (Adam of Usk, p. 61). After his arrival March busied himself in negotiating with the native septs, who held nearly all his nominal earldom of Ulster; but on 19 Jan. 1425 he was cut off suddenly by the plague.
By his wife Anne, daughter of Edmund de Stafford, earl of Stafford, Edmund left no family, and as his brother Roger had predeceased him, the male line of the earls of March became extinct, while the Mortimer estates went to Richard, duke of York, son of Richard of Cambridge and Anne Mortimer, who was now recognised as Earl of March and Ulster (Rot. Parl. iv. 397). Dugdale (Baronage, i. 151-2) gives a list of the places of which March was seized at the time of his death. His widow, who had some difficulty in getting her dower from Humphrey of Gloucester, the guardian of the Mortimer estates, married, before 1427, John Holland, earl of Huntingdon (afterwards duke of Exeter), and died a few years later. At her request John Lydgate [q. v.] wrote his 'Life of St. Margaret.'
The friendly Wigmore chronicler describes Edmund as 'severe in his morals, composed in his acts, circumspect in his talk, and wise and cautious during the days of his adversity. He was surnamed "the Good," by reason of his exceeding kindness' (Monasticon, vi. 355). A poem attributed to Lydgate describes him as 'gracious in all degree' (Nicolas, Agincourt, p. 306).
March was the founder of a college of secular canons at Stoke-by-Clare in Suffolk. In that village there had long been a small Benedictine priory, which was a cell of Bee in Normandy. Richard II had freed the house from the rule of Bee by making it 'indigenous.' But though thus technically saved, it seemed likely to be involved in the common destruction now impending on all the 'alien priories.' March got permission from Pope John XXII, in a bull dated 16 Nov. 1414, to 'secularize' the foundation. The royal assent was also given. In 1421 March augmented its revenues, and in 1423 drew up statutes for it. In its final form the college was for a dean and six prebendaries (Monasticon, vi. 1415-1423). A charter of March to his Welsh follower Maredudd ap Adda Moel is printed in the 'Montgomeryshire Collections,' x. 59-60, of the Powysland Club.
[Dugdale's Monasticon, vi. 355; Dugdale's Baronage, i. 150–2; Doyle's Official Baronage, i. 470; Nicolas's Battle of Agincourt; Rymer's Fœdera; Adam of Usk, ed. Thompson; Annales Henrici IV, apud Trokelowe, Rolls Ser.; Monk of Evesham, ed. Hearne; Gesta Henrici V, ed. Williams, Engl. Hist. Soc.; Ellis's Original Letters, 2nd ser. vol. i.; Ramsay's Lancaster and York, vol. i.; Wylie's Henry IV.; Stubbs's Const. Hist. vol. iii.; Gilbert's Viceroys of Ireland, pp. 319–20; Tyler's Henry V.]
MORTIMER, Mrs. FAVELL LEE (1802–1878), authoress, second daughter of David Bevan, of the banking firm of Barclay, Bevan, & Co., born in London in 1802, was religiously educated, and in 1827 passed through the experience of conversion. She at once threw herself with great zeal into educational work, founding parish schools on her father's estates, and taking an active and intelligent part in their management. Through her brother she made the acquaintance of his schoolfellow and college friend, Henry Edward Manning [q. v.], with whom she corresponded on religious topics, and on whom she exercised for a time a considerable influence. In after years at his instance she returned his letters, while she allowed her own to remain in his hands. In 1841 she married Thomas Mortimer, minister of the Episcopal Chapel, Gray's Inn Road, after whose death in 1850 she devoted herself to the care of the destitute and the afflicted. She died on 22 Aug. 1878, and was buried in the churchyard, Upper Sheringham, Norfolk.
She is best known as the author of educational works for the young, of which the most popular, 'The Peep of Day, or a Series of the Earliest Religious Instruction the Infant Mind is capable of receiving,' has passed through a multitude of editions, the sixth in 1840 and the latest in 1891, and has been translated into French and several barbarous dialects. It was followed by little manuals of a similar kind, viz. 'Line upon Line,' London, 1837, 12mo; 'More about Jesus,' London, 1839, 12mo; 'Lines left out,' London, 1862, 12mo; 'Precept upon Precept,' London, 1867, 16mo, 2nd edit. 1869. Hardly less deservedly popular were Mrs. Mortimer's manuals of elementary secular instruction, viz. 'Near Home, or the Countries of Europe described,' London, 1849, 8vo; 'Far off, or Asia and Australia described,' London, 1852-1854, 16mo, latest edit. 1890, 8vo; 'Reading without Tears,' London, 1857, 12mo; 'Reading Disentangled,' London, 1862, 16mo; 'Latin without Tears, or One Word a Day,' London, 1877, 8vo.
Mrs. Mortimer also published the following miscellanea : 1. 'The History of a Young
