jul 31, 1415 - The Southampton Plot

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The Southampton Plot was a conspiracy to depose King Henry V of England, revealed in 1415 just as the king was about to sail on a campaign to France as part of the Hundred Years' War. The plan was to replace him with Edmund Mortimer, 5th Earl of March.
Edmund Mortimer had a stronger claim than Henry V due to it coming from him being the Great Grandson of Lionel Antwerp [2nd eldest surviving son of King Edward III] King Henry IV and V claim came from John of Gaunt [The third eldest son] Moreover, Edmund Mortimer's father, Roger Mortimer, 4th Earl of March, had been widely considered heir presumptive to King Richard II, who had no issue, and Edmund Mortimer himself had been heir presumptive to Richard II while a young child.[1]

The three ringleaders of the plot were Edmund Mortimer's brother-in-law, Richard of Conisburgh, 3rd Earl of Cambridge (also grandson of Edward III through his fourth surviving son, Edmund of Langley, and thus also Mortimer's first cousin twice removed); Henry Scrope, 3rd Baron Scrope of Masham (whose uncle Richard le Scrope had been executed for his part in a 1405 revolt); and Sir Thomas Grey, whose son, Thomas, had been betrothed in 1412 to Cambridge's only daughter, Isabel.[2]

The nominal principal, the Earl of March, informed King Henry of the plot on 31 July, stating that he had only just become aware of it. Richard, Scrope, and Grey were promptly arrested. The trial took place in Southampton; traditionally it is claimed that trial took place on the site now occupied by the Red Lion Inn, but there are no contemporary records of this. Grey was beheaded on 2 August and the two peers on 5 August, both in front of the Bargate.[3] Satisfied, Henry sailed for France on 11 August.

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