The New Murrey and Blue blog

I believe the first person to advance this theory was T.B. Pugh, in Henry V and the Southampton Plot.

(This book is still, incredibly, the best account of the early House of York, by which I mean that it pulls together quite a lot of information about them in one place. A thorough historical account of Edmund of Langley and his children is a remarkable gap in a crowded market. One only hopes that the eventual author of such a work will not be an apologist for John of Gaunt and the Lancastrians as so many authors, sadly, are.)

Pugh theorised that Richard was born in 1385. Before this, it was generally assumed that he was born in the late 1370s like his siblings. I must stress that there is no evidence of his date of birth, although we can assume he was born at Conisbrough. However, Pugh’s theory on the matter seems reasonable. Had he been only slightly younger than his brother Edward, he would surely have been (at least) knighted before the deposition of his godfather, Richard II. His family was in very high favour indeed, and the most likely explanation for such neglect is that he was still a fairly young boy in 1399.

The main ‘evidence’ that Richard was not Langley’s son is a tradition preserved by a man called Shirley, known to the Countess of Warwick, Langley’s granddaughter, that Chaucer’s poem The Complaint of Mars refers to an affair between Isabelle, Duchess of York, and John Holland, Richard II’s half-brother.

Of course, even if there was such an affair, it is scarcely proof that Richard was not York’s son. The Duchess of York might have known for sure, and possibly Edmund of Langley might have known too, both on the assumption that the married couple were not having sex at the relevant time. But it really is a bit of a stretch to say that we can be sure.

When Richard III was exhumed, his DNA suggested illegitimacy somewhere. But what is not understood is that the illegitimacy could as well be somewhere in the (much longer) Beaufort line than in the York line. The DNA evidence was not restricted to the York line but involved the line going forward to the Duke of Beaufort. Short of digging up everyone concerned and checking their DNA as well – a wholly impracticable course of action – no one can be certain where the flaw lies.

It is often stated that Edmund and Isabelle had an unhappy marriage. However, Isabelle wrote a will, and her status as a married woman meant that she needed her husband’s explicit consent to do so. Clearly, she received that consent, which implies they were on at least reasonable terms. Kathryn Warner has translated and analysed that will, and although she has not yet published her findings, my understanding is that there is no evidence within the will to suggest the couple were at odds – quite the contrary.

Much is made of the fact that she left her jewels to King Richard with a request he gave her son an annuity. (The King did so, and that remained Richard’s main source of income for life.) The truth is that Edmund of Langley could have vetoed this bequest had he wished to do so. He did not, so presumably he was quite happy with the arrangement.

Similarly, much is made of the fact that Edmund left Richard no land, or indeed anything. (No one mentions that he left nothing to his daughter, Constance, either. Does that imply she was illegitimate too? Scarcely.)

There was a tradition of passing all land to the eldest son. Where there were younger sons, the norm was to buy land for them, not alienate part of the family estates. This is exactly what John of Gaunt did for the Beauforts. The difference is that Gaunt had so much money he didn’t know what to do with it. Langley had a landed income, I have calculated, of about £900. While this was supplemented by Exchequer grants, these grants were no substitute for landed property, and the plain truth is that Edmund was running a dukedom on a pie’s nest. Unlike his greedy brothers, he was not always grumbling about how hard-done-to he was, but he was scarcely in a position to alienate land from his heir. More so as he had a young second wife, who was to draw a dower from York lands for all his heir’s life and a good twenty years beyond.

That Richard of Conisbrough was badly endowed cannot be denied, but his father can scarcely be blamed. Richard II might have given him more, had his kingship continued, but Henry IV, with sons and brothers to enrich, scarcely had the means to do so, even had he been so inclined.

Whoever Richard’s natural father was, there is absolutely no doubt that he was Edmund of Langley’s son in terms of English law. Moreover, Edmund made no attempt to repudiate him. Richard’s life is so scantily recorded that it is sheer speculation to say more. He may have been illegitimate, but to assert with confidence that he was so is, in my view, absurd.