Richard of Shrewsbury, 1st Duke of York

Richard of Shrewsbury, 1st Duke of York

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Richard of Shrewsbury, 1st Duke of York

Richard of Shrewsbury, 1st Duke of York and 1st Duke of Norfolk (17 August 1473 – 1483?) was the sixth child and second son of King Edward IV of England and Elizabeth Woodville. He was born in Shrewsbury. He was a younger brother of Elizabeth of York, Mary of York, Cecily of York, Edward V of England and Margaret Plantagenet (Princess of York). He was also an older brother of Anne of York, George Plantagenet, Duke of Bedford, Catherine of York and Bridget of York.

He was created Duke of York in 1474. From this time on, it became a tradition for the second son of the British sovereign to be Duke of York. On 15 January 1478, when he was about 4 years old, he married the 5-year-old Anne de Mowbray, 8th Countess of Norfolk, who had inherited the vast Mowbray estates in 1476. Because York's father-in-law's dukedom had become extinct when Anne could not inherit it, he was created Duke of Norfolk in 1481.

King Edward V and the Duke of York in the Tower of London by Paul Delaroche

His father died on 9 April 1483. Thus his brother Edward, Prince of Wales, became King of England and was acclaimed as such, and Richard his Heir Presumptive. This was not to last. Robert Stillington, the Bishop of Bath and Wells, testified that Edward IV had agreed to marry Lady Eleanor Talbot in 1461. Lady Eleanor was still alive when Edward married Elizabeth Woodville in 1464. The Regency council under Richard Plantagenet, 1st Duke of Gloucester, concluded that this was a case of bigamy, invalidating the second marriage and the legitimacy of all children of Edward IV by this marriage. Under Richard's influence, both Edward and Richard were declared illegitimate and removed from the line of succession on 25 June 1483. The Duke of Gloucester, as a surviving younger brother of Edward IV, became King Richard III.

The Duke of York was sent to the Tower of London by King Richard in mid-1483. What happened to him and his brother—the Princes in the Tower—after that has been the subject of much speculation and debate. In the 1490s, Perkin Warbeck claimed to be Richard, Duke of York, but he is generally considered to have been an imposter, and was labelled thus by the Tudor regime. Richard's might have been the smaller of two skeletons discovered in a chest in the Tower in 1674, but there is as yet no conclusive (by modern investigative standards) evidence one way or the other.

In popular culture
Titles, styles, honours and arms

Arms

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In popular culture

The comedy series The Black Adder features an alternative history where Richard succeeded his uncle King Richard III to the throne as King Richard IV of England (reigned 1485–1498, though Richard has two grown up sons in The Black Adder in 1485, when in reality he would have been twelve years old) before being poisoned and succeeded by King Henry VII.

Coat of arms of Richard, 1st Duke of York

Titles, styles, honours and arms

Arms

As son of the sovereign, Richard was granted use of the arms of the kingdom, differentiated by a label argent, on the first point a canton gules.^[1]