Mortimer, a tough lord of the Welsh March, was a busy man. In the winter of 1294 he served in the first expeditionary force sent to recover Gascony from the French, and was present at the storming of St-Macaire. He was then appointed captain of Blaye, one of two remaining ducal citadels in the northern part of the duchy. Mortimer was still in Gascony the following August, where he obtained quittance for his service. In July 1297 he was summoned again to serve overseas, this time in Flanders.
As one of Edward I’s most experienced captains, Mortimer naturally served on the Falkirk campaign. In April 1298 he and William de la Pole were ordered to raise 600 Welsh foot from the lands of ‘Lanhudo’, Maskyn and Moghelan, and lead them to the King at Chester. Mortimer and his retinue were placed in the king’s own battalion, ‘Le batayle de Roy’, among such big nobs as Thomas of Lancaster, Hugh Despenser, the Earl of Warwick and John of Brittany. His kinsman, Hugh Mortimer of Richard’s Castle, served in the same bataille.
The horse-rolls for the English army at Falkirk show that Mortimer’s own troop or conroi consisted of twenty men and included three more Mortimers, Henry, John and another Roger. There were also two Welshmen, Jereward Voiel and Ivan ab Adam, and an Adam de Wygemore, doubtless raised from Mortimer’s own lordship of Wigmore on the March.
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