Trent & Peak Archaeology / The University of Nottingham

Mortimer’s Hole  Castle Rock cave CD1 Truth, Legend, and Mortimer’s Hole   What do we really know about Mortimer’s Hole? What is the truth, and what is the legend?  Roger de Mortimer and the 19th October 1330 Sir Roger de Mortimer (1287-1330) was an English nobleman born at Wigmore Castle, in Hertfordshire. As a young man Mortimer campaigned for King Edward I in Ireland and Wales, but after Edward I’s death he became increasingly disillusioned with Edward II. His opposition to the King resulted in his imprisonment in the Tower of London in 1322, but he escaped after drugging the guards and fled to France. While in France Mortimer began an affair with Queen Isabella, the French-born wife of Edward II. In 1326 Isabella and Mortimer landed in England to depose the King. Edward II fled to Wales and abdicated in favour of his son, Edward III, but Isabella (known sometimes as ‘The She-Wolf of France’) and Mortimer ruled the country in his stead. Some historians believe that the couple had Edward II killed at Berkeley Castle in 1328. In October 1330, a parliament was called at Nottingham. Mortimer and Isabella stayed in the Royal Castle, and the 17-year-old Edward III and his supporters lodged in the town. On the night of the 19th October, Edward’s troops covertly entered the Castle via a secret tunnel, capturing Mortimer and Isabella. Despite his mother’s protestations, Mortimer was sent again to the Tower and then to Tyburn, where he was hanged on 29th November 1330. Such is the story, a fuller and more fanciful version of which can be read here. So where is the contention? The real Mortimer’s Hole? The question concerns the secret tunnel by which Edward’s troops gained access to the Castle. Could it really have been the tunnel we know now as Mortimer’s Hole? Did this tunnel even exist in 1330? Well, maybe. The only full proper plan of the medieval Castle, the Smythson Plan of 1617, clearly shows the entrance to to Mortimer’s Hole as polygonal turret with a spiral staircase leading downwards. The first reference to Mortimer’s Hole is from 1540, but the Pipe Rolls of Richard I refer to the construction of ‘a postern in the motte’ in 1194. Could this have been Mortimer’s Hole? It has been suggested that Mortimer’s Hole was well known in 1330 and would therefore have been properly guarded by a suspicious Mortimer with his enemy so close. But the contemporary accounts all state that the Castle’s constable, William Eland, was in on the plot and assisted the raiding party with access. This makes the modern Mortimer’s Hole a possibility. However those same contemporary accounts describe the use of ‘a postern open to the park’ (Schalachronica) and ‘an alley, that stretches out of the ward, under the earth into the castle, that goes to the west’ (Harley MS 1568). Neither of these descriptions fit with the modern Mortimer’s Hole. The most probable known cave heading out to the west, into the Park, is Davey Scot’s Hole, described by Lucy Hutchinson in 1643. Another possible route - a northern postern - is an almost unknown cave hand-marked on a copy of the 1882 Ordnance Survey map of the Castle, recently identified by Alan MacCormick.