Richard FitzAlan, 10th Earl of Arundel
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Richard FitzAlan, 10th Earl of Arundel (c. 1313–January 24, 1376) was an English nobleman and military leader.
Fitzalan was the eldest son of Edmund FitzAlan, 9th Earl of Arundel, and Alice Warenne. His birthdate is uncertain, but could not have been before 1307. Around 1321, FitzAlan's father allied with King Edward II's favorites, the Despensers, and Richard was married to the daughter of Hugh the Younger. Fortune turned against the Despenser party, and in 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 Earl of Arundel as well as the great estates his father had held in Sussex and in the Welsh Marches. Beyond this, in 1334 he was made justice of North Wales (later his term in this office was made for life), sheriff for life of Caernarvonshire, and governor of Caernarfon Castle.
Despite his high offices in Wales, in the following decades 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.
In 1340 he fought at the Battle of Sluys, and then at the siege of Tournai. 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 Lieutanant of Aquitaine in 1340.
Arundel was one of the three principal English commanders at the Battle of Crécy. He spent much of the following years on various military campaigns and diplomatic missions.
In 1353 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.
Arundel married twice. His first wife (as mentioned above), was Isabella Despenser. He repudiated her, and had the marriage annulled on the grounds that he had never freely consented to it. After the annulment he married Eleanor of Lancaster, daughter of Henry Plantagenet, 3rd Earl of Leicester.
By his first marriage he had one daughter. By the second he had 3 sons: Richard, who succeeded him as Earl; John Fitzalan, who was a Marshall of England, and drowned in 1379; and Thomas Arundel, who became Archbishop of Canterbury. He also had 2 surviving daughters by his second wife: Joan, who married Humphrey de Bohun, 7th Earl of Hereford, and Alice, who married Thomas Holland, 2nd Earl of Kent.
| Preceded by: Edmund FitzAlan | Earl of Arundel | Followed by: Richard FitzAlan |