| Edward III (1327–1377) | |||||||||||
| Edward, Prince of Wales ('the Black Prince') d. 1376 | Lionel, Duke of Clarence | John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster | |||||||||
| Richard II (1377–1399) | Philippa, m. Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March | Henry IV (1399–1414) | |||||||||
| Roger M., Earl of March | Edmund M. | Elizabeth M. m. Harry Percy | |||||||||
| Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March, d. 1424 | |||||||||||
Shakespeare follows the chroniclers in confusing Edmund Mortimer, the son of Philippa, with Edmund Mortimer, the son of Roger. It was Roger Mortimer who was King Richard's heir, and was so proclaimed in the October Parliament of 1385. At his death in 1398, one year before King Richard's, his seven-year-old son succeeded to his claim. But it was the elder Edmund, brother to Roger, who fought Glendower and married his daughter. Hotspur's brother-in-law, therefore, was not heir to the throne. The heir, as the table shows, was the nephew of Lady Percy, and in III. i. 195 Mortimer refers to Lady Percy as 'my aunt Percy.' Here (l. 156), and in l. 80, Mortimer is represented as Hotspur's brother-in-law.
I. iii. 245. York. Edmund of Langley, Duke of York, younger brother to John of Gaunt, uncle to
