Richard (Cropped Hat) Fitz Alan, 10th Earl of Arundel and 8th Earl of Surrey

Male 1306 - 1376  (70 years)


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  • Name Richard (Cropped Hat) Fitz Alan 
    Suffix 10th Earl of Arundel and 8th Earl of Surrey  
    Born 1306  Arundel, Sussex, England Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Gender Male 
    Died 24 Jan 1376  Sussex, England Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Buried Chichester Cathedral, Chichester, West Sussex, England Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Notes 
    • Wikipedia

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_FitzAlan,_10th_Earl_of_Arundel

      He was an English nobleman and medieval military leader and distinguished admiral. Arundel was one of the wealthiest nobles during the reign of Edward III.

      Richard was born in Sussex, England. His birth date was uncertain perhaps 1306 or 1313. FitzAlan was the eldest son of Edmund FitzAlan, 9th Earl of Arundel (8th Earl of Arundel per Ancestral Roots), and his wife Alice de Warenne.

      Around 1321, FitzAlan's father allied with King Edward II's favourites, Hugh le Despenser, 1st Earl of Winchester and his namesake son, and Richard was married to Isabel le Despenser, daughter of Hugh the Younger. Fortune turned against the Despenser party, and on 17 November 1326, FitzAlan's father was executed, and he did not succeed to his father's estates or titles. However, political conditions had changed by 1330, and over the next few years Richard was gradually able to reacquire the Earldom of Arundel as well as the great estates his father had held in Sussex and in the Welsh Marches.

      Arundel spent much of his time fighting in Scotland (during the Second Wars of Scottish Independence) and France (during the Hundred Years' War). In 1337, Arundel was made Joint Commander of the English army in the north, and the next year he was made the sole Commander.

      After a short term as Warden of the Scottish Marches, he returned to the continent, where he fought in a number of campaigns, and was appointed Joint Lieutenant of Aquitaine in 1340. The successful conclusion of the Flanders campaign, in which Arundel saw little fighting encouraged the setting up of the Knights of the Round Table attended every Whitsun by 300 great knights. A former guardian of the Prince of Wales, Arundel was also a close friend of Edward III, and one of the four great earls - Derby, Salisbury, Warwick and himself. With Huntingdon and Sir Ralph Neville he was a Keeper of the Tower and guardian to the prince with a garrison of 20 men-at-arms and 50 archers.

      Arundel was one of the three principal English commanders at the Battle of Crécy, his experience vital to the outcome of the battle with Suffolk and the bishop of Durham in the rearguard. Throughout he was entrusted by the King as guardian of the young Prince Edward.

      In 1347, he succeeded to the Earldom of Surrey (or Warenne), which even further increased his great wealth. (He did not however use the additional title until after the death of the Dowager Countess of Surrey in 1361.) He made very large loans to King Edward III but even so on his death left behind a great sum in hard cash.

      He married twice:

      Firstly, on 9 February 1321 at Havering-atte-Bower, to Isabel le Despenser (born 1312, living 1356, and may have died circa 1376-7). At that time, the future earl was either eight or fifteen, and his bride nine years old. Later he repudiated this bride, and was granted an annulment by Pope Clement VI in December 1344 on the grounds that he had been underage and unwilling.

      However, Isabel's family was politically weak, compared to the family of his second wife. Historians theorize that after Isabel's father was executed, she was suddenly destitute and had no family estate, Richard simply wished to be rid of her.

      By this marriage, Richard and Isabel had one son (when Richard was either fourteen or twenty-one, and Isabel fifteen), who was bastardized by the annulment:

      1. Sir Edmund de Arundel, knt (b ca 1327; d 1376-1382), bastardized by the annulment. Edmund was nevertheless knighted, married at the age of twenty, in the summer of 1347 Sybil de Montacute [Montagu], a younger daughter of William Montacute, 1st Earl of Salisbury and Catherine Grandison, whose elder sister Elizabeth was married to his maternal uncle, of whom it was said he arranged.

      Edmund protested his bastardization bitterly in 1347, but was apparently ignored. After his father's death in 1376, Edmund disputed his half-brother Richard's inheritance of the earldom and associated lands and titles in 1376 and apparently tried to claim the six manors allotted to his deceased mother. He was imprisoned in the Tower of London in 1377, and finally freed through the intervention of two of his brothers-in-law (his wife's brother John de Montacute and the second husband of Elizabeth de Montacute, Lady Le Despencer). They had three daughters who were his co-heiresses and who brought a failed suit in 1382 against their half-uncle the Earl:

      a)Elizabeth (or Alice de Arundel, who married Sir Leonard Carew (1343-1369) of Mohuns Ottery in Devon, feudal lord of Carew Castle in Pembrokeshire and lord of the manor of Moulsford in Berkshire. From Alice are descended all the members of the prominent and widespread Carew family, except Carew of Beddington in Surrey, descended from one of Sir Leonard's great-uncles.

      b)Philippa de Arundel (died 18 May 1452), who married (as his 2nd wife) Sir Richard Sergeaux, Knt, of Colquite, Cornwall. A Victorian historical novel ascribes the following five children to her: Richard, born 21 December 1376, and died childless, 24 June 1396; Elizabeth, born 1379, wife of Sir William Marny; Philippa, born 1381, wife of Robert Passele; Alice, born at Kilquyt, 1 September 1384, wife of Guy de Saint Albino; Joan, born 1393, died 21 February 1400. "Philippa became a widow, 30 September 1393, and died 13 September 1399."

      c)Alice Sergeaux, later Countess of Oxford (c. 1386-18 May 1452), who married 1stly Guy de St Aubyn of St. Erme, Cornwall, and 2ndly about 1406-7 (as his 2nd wife) the 11th Earl of Oxford and widower of Alice de Holand (dsp. 1406, niece of Henry IV), and was the mother of two sons by him
      John de Vere, 12th Earl of Oxford and Robert de Vere, whose grandson, John, became the 15th Earl of Oxford.

      2. Katherine de Arundel, who married Robert Deincourt.

      Secondly on 5 April 1345 he married Eleanor of Lancaster, a young widow, the second youngest daughter and sixth child of Henry Plantagenet, 3rd Earl of Lancaster and Maud Chaworth. By Papal dispensation he was allowed to marry his first wife's first cousin by their common grandmother Isabella de Beauchamp. Eleanor was the widow of John de Beaumont, 2nd Lord Beaumont. The second marriage may have been a love marriage (there is some evidence that the widowed Eleanor became the earl's mistress on a pilgrimage circa 1343), or Richard may have been waiting to obtain a suitable high-born wife with royal connections.

      The king, Edward III, himself a kinsman of both wives, attended this second marriage. By now, the Earl of Arundel had rebuilt the family wealth and was apparently a major financier of the Crown, and financial sweeteners may have been used to reconcile both the Church and the Crown. By this second marriage 5 February 1345, Richard and Eleanor had 3 sons and 3 surviving daughters:

      1. Richard FitzAlan, 11th Earl of Arundel, who was his son and heir; succeeded him 10th Earl of Arundel.

      2.John FitzAlan, 1st Baron Arundel, 1st Baron Maltravers, who was a Marshall of England, and drowned in 1379.

      3. Thomas Arundel, who became Archbishop of Canterbury

      4. Lady Joan FitzAlan (1348-7 April 1419) who married Humphrey de Bohun, 7th Earl of Hereford. They were the maternal grandparents of Henry V of England through their daughter Mary de Bohun.

      5. Lady Alice FitzAlan (1350-17 March 1416), who married Thomas Holland, 2nd Earl of Kent, matrilinear brother of King Richard II.

      6.Lady Eleanor Fitzalan (1356-before 1366).

      Richard died on 24 January 1376 at Arundel Castle, aged either 70 or 63, and was buried in Lewes Priory. He wrote his will on 5 December 1375. In his will, he mentioned his three surviving sons by his second wife, his two surviving daughters Joan, Dowager Countess of Hereford and Alice, Countess of Kent, his grandchildren by his second son John, etc., but left out his bastardized eldest son Edmund.

      Richard requested to be buried "near to the tomb of Eleanor de Lancaster, my wife; and I desire that my tomb be no higher than hers, that no men at arms, horses, hearse, or other pomp, be used at my funeral, but only five torches...as was about the corpse of my wife, be allowed."

      In his will Richard asked his heirs to be responsible for building FitzAlan Chapel, which was duly erected by his successor. The memorial effigies depicting Richard FitzAlan and his second wife Eleanor of Lancaster in Chichester Cathedral.

      FitzAlan died an incredibly wealthy man, despite his various loans to Edward III, leaving £60,000 in cash [today's currency value of £118.6 billion]. He had been as astute in business, as he had in diplomatic politics. He was a cautious man, and wisely saved his estate for future generations.

    Person ID I36050  Master File
    Last Modified 7 Oct 2016 

    Father Edmund FITZALAN, Lord of Arundel,   b. 1 May 1285, Surrey, England Find all individuals with events at this location,   d. 17 Nov 1326, Hereford, Worcestershire, England Find all individuals with events at this location  (Age 41 years) 
    Mother Alice DE WARREN,   b. 15 Jun 1287, Warren, Sussex, England Find all individuals with events at this location,   d. 23 May 1338, Arundel Arun District West Sussex, England Find all individuals with events at this location  (Age 50 years) 
    Married 1305  Arundel, Sussex, England Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Family ID F5150  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

    Family Isabel le Despenser, Countess of Arundel,   b. 1312, England Find all individuals with events at this location,   d. 1356, Herefordshire, England Find all individuals with events at this location  (Age 44 years) 
    Married 09 Feb 1321  Havering-atte-Bower, London Borough of Havering, England Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Children 
     1. Sir Edmund Fitz Alan,   b. ca 1327, Surrey, England Find all individuals with events at this location,   d. 1376-1382  (Age ~ 55 years)
    Last Modified 8 Sep 2016 
    Family ID F14858  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart