Richard of York, 3rd Duke of York (21 September 1411 – 30 December 1460), also known as Richard Plantagenet, was a leading English nobleman and principal Yorkist claimant to the throne during the opening decades of the Wars of the Roses. He was the father of two later kings of England, Edward IV and Richard III.
Biography[]
Descent and early life[]
Richard was born at Fotheringhay in September 1411, the son of Richard, Earl of Cambridge and Anne Mortimer. Through his father he was a male-line descendant of Edmund of Langley (a son of Edward III), and through his mother he descended from Lionel of Antwerp (another son of Edward III); a pedigree that later underpinned his dynastic claim. His mother died in or soon after his birth, and his father was executed in 1415 for his part in the Southampton Plot; Richard therefore spent his early years as a royal ward before inheriting the Yorkist estates that made him one of England’s great magnates.
Career and offices[]
Richard served in a variety of military and administrative roles: he was Lieutenant (or Lord Lieutenant) of Ireland, held important commissions in France and the Welsh Marches, and, through marriage to Cecily Neville, became allied to the powerful Neville affinity in the north of England. His large territorial base, court experience, and connections placed him at the centre of national politics as Henry VI’s government grew increasingly unstable in the 1450s.
Opposition to Henry VI and the Protectorate[]
From the late 1440s and into the 1450s Richard emerged as the focal point of aristocratic discontent with the Lancastrian court. When King Henry VI suffered a collapse of sanity in 1453, Parliament appointed Richard Lord Protector — effectively giving him custodial power over the realm — though this office was limited and contested. Renewed factional violence and rivalry with Queen Margaret of Anjou and her supporters led to open warfare between Yorkist and Lancastrian magnates (the Wars of the Roses).
Claim to the throne and the Act of Accord[]
In 1460 Richard returned from Ireland and, asserting his superior hereditary claim through the Mortimer line, pressed his right to the throne before Parliament. Negotiations produced the Act of Accord (October 1460), by which Parliament recognised Richard and his heirs as the successors to Henry VI — effectively disinheriting Henry’s son, Edward of Westminster — while allowing Henry to remain king for life. The Act momentarily formalised York’s dynastic position but also hardened opposition from Lancastrian loyalists.
Death at Wakefield[]
While campaigning in the north against Lancastrian forces, Richard occupied Sandal Castle but on 30 December 1460 sallied out and was defeated by a larger Lancastrian army at the Battle of Wakefield. He was killed in the fighting; his younger son Edmund, Earl of Rutland was also slain. The Yorkist cause, however, passed to his surviving son Edward, Earl of March, who soon after secured the throne as Edward IV.
After his death his body was taken to Fotheringhay; his tomb and commemoration were important foci for Yorkist memory in the later 15th century.
Gallery[]
