Maud de Braose, Baroness Mortimer of Wigmore

Maud was born in Wales in 1224, the second-eldest daughter and co-heiress of Marcher lord William de Braose and Eva Marshal.

[citation needed] As the eldest son of Ralph de Mortimer and his Welsh wife, Princess Gwladys Ddu, Roger was himself a scion of another important Marcher family, and had succeeded his father in 1246, upon the latter's death.

[8] She, like all medieval women, was expected to govern her husband's estates, manage his business affairs, arbitrate in tenants' disputes, and defend the family property during the times he was absent.

It was Maud herself who devised a plan for the escape of Prince Edward after he had been taken hostage by Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester following the Battle of Lewes.

At a signal from one of the horsemen, Edward galloped off to join the party of his liberators, and they escorted him to Wigmore Castle, twenty miles away, where Maud was waiting.

[2] At the Battle of Evesham on 4 August 1265, Maud's husband Roger fought on the side of Prince Edward, and personally killed Simon de Montfort.

[12] In 1300, Maud is recorded as having presented to a vacant benefice in the Stoke Bliss parish church in Herefordshire, its advowson having originally belonged to the Mortimers, but was bequeathed to Limebrook Priory by Roger.

[9] Mitchell goes on to eulogise her as "one of the great architects of the late medieval March", which were the words used by Welsh historian R. R. Davies to sum up Maud's husband.