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Roger Mortimer (1374-1398), was 4th Earl of March and 6th (??) Earl of Ulster. His father was the powerful Edmund Mortimer, 3rd Earl of March, and his mother was Philippa, Countess of Ulster and March, the only issue of Lionel of Antwerp, Duke of Clarence, a son of King Edward III. For this reason Roger Mortimer was named by the childless King Richard II of England as his heir presumptive. He held enormous estates in Wales, but was killed at the Battle of Kells. He was the father of Anne Mortimer and Edmund Mortimer, 5th Earl of March.
He succeeded to the titles and estates of his family when a child of seven, and a month afterwards he was appointed lord-lieutenant of Ireland, his uncle Sir Thomas Mortimer acting as his deputy. Being a ward of the Crown, his guardian was the earl of Kent, half-brother to Richard II; and in 1388 he married Kents daughter, Eleanor. The importance which he owed to his hereditary influence and possessions, and especially to his descent from Edward III, was immensely increased when Richard II publicly acknowledged him as heir presumptive to the crown in 1385.
In 1394 he accompanied Richard to Ireland, but notwithstanding a commission from the king as lieutenant of the districts over which he exercised nominal authority by hereditary right, he made little headway against the native Irish chieftains. March enjoyed great popularity in England though he took no active part in opposing the despotic measures of the King; in Ireland he illegally assumed the native Irish costume. In August 1398 he was killed in a fight with an Irish clan, and was buried in Wigmore Abbey.
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