He was a member of the ruling House of Plantagenet by virtue of being a direct male-line descendant of Edmund of Langley, King Edward III's fourth surviving son.

He also inherited vast estates and served in various offices of state in Ireland, France and England, a country he ultimately governed as Lord Protector due to the mental instability of King Henry VI.

Richard of York already held a strong claim to the English throne, being the heir general of Edward III while also related to the same king in a direct male line of descent.

Despite his father's plot against the king, along with his provocative ancestry—one which had been used in the past as a rallying point by enemies of the House of Lancaster—Richard was allowed to inherit his family estates without any legal constraints.

His considerable lands as duke of York meant that his wardship was a valuable gift of the crown, and in December 1423 this was sold to Ralph Neville, 1st Earl of Westmorland.

[4] As a royal ward, in 1416 he was placed under the guardianship of the Lancastrian retainer Robert Waterton,[9] under whose tutelage he remained until 1423, in a low public profile.

The marriage, which took place by October 1429,[13] meant that Richard was now related to much of the English upper aristocracy, many of whose members had themselves married into the Neville family.

In the spring of 1434, York attended a great council meeting at Westminster which attempted to conciliate the king's uncles, the dukes of Bedford and Gloucester (heads of the regency government), over disagreements regarding the conduct of the war in France.

[16] York's appointment was one of a number of stop-gap measures after the death of Bedford to try to retain French possessions until the young King Henry VI could assume personal rule.

Rather than receiving the same powers Bedford had enjoyed as "regent", York was forced to settle for a lesser role as "lieutenant-general and governor", by which he was not allowed to appoint major financial and military officials.

Working with Bedford's captains, York had some success, recovering many lost areas in Normandy while establishing good order and justice in the duchy.

[20] The campaigns were mainly conducted by Lord Talbot, one of the leading English captains of the day, but York also played a part in stopping and reversing French advances, recapturing Fécamp and a number of towns in the Pays de Caux.

[22] York was keen to leave France as soon as his original twelve-month term of office expired, but he was instructed to remain until the arrival of his successor, the Earl of Warwick, and he did not return to England until November 1437.

[30] However, in 1443 Henry VI put the newly created Duke of Somerset, John Beaufort, in charge of an army of 8,000 men, initially intended for the relief of Gascony.

Not only that, but the terms of Somerset's appointment could have caused York to feel that his own role as effective regent over the whole of Lancastrian France was reduced to that of governor of Normandy.

Led by Jack Cade (taking the name Mortimer), they took control of London and killed James Fiennes, 1st Baron Saye and Sele, the Lord High Treasurer of England.

[citation needed] Gathering men on the march from Ludlow, York headed for London, only to find the city gates barred against him on Henry's orders.

At Dartford in Kent, with his army outnumbered, and the support of only two of the nobility (the Earl of Devon and Lord Cobham), York was forced to come to an agreement with Henry.

He was allowed to present his complaints against Somerset to the king, but was then taken to London and after two weeks of virtual house arrest, was forced to swear an oath of allegiance at St Paul's Cathedral.

Then, in August 1453, Henry VI suffered a catastrophic mental breakdown, perhaps brought on by the news of the defeat at the Battle of Castillon in Gascony, which finally drove English forces from France.

[citation needed] Once York took his army south of Leicester, thus barring the route to the Great Council, the dispute between him and the king regarding Somerset would have to be settled by force.

[citation needed] For the rest of the summer, York held the king prisoner, either in Hertford Castle or in London (to be enthroned in Parliament in July).

York was regarded with suspicion on three fronts: he threatened the succession of the young Prince of Wales; he was apparently negotiating for the marriage of his eldest son Edward into the Burgundian ruling family; and as a supporter of the Nevilles, he was contributing to the major cause of disturbance in the kingdom—the Percy–Neville feud.

York, the Nevilles and some other lords refused to appear, fearing that the armed forces that had been commanded to assemble the previous month had been summoned to arrest them.

Salisbury beat back a Lancastrian ambush at the Battle of Blore Heath on 23 September 1459, while his son Warwick evaded another army under the command of the Duke of Somerset, and afterwards, they both joined their forces with York.

His control of the English Channel meant that pro-Yorkist propaganda, emphasising loyalty to the king while decrying his wicked councillors, could be spread around southern England.

They marched north into the Midlands, and on 10 July, they defeated the royal army at the Battle of Northampton (through treachery among the king's troops), and captured Henry, whom they brought back to London.

However, in October 1460 Parliament did grant York extraordinary executive powers to protect the realm, and made him Lord Protector of England.

The Lancastrian armies were commanded by some of York's implacable enemies such as Henry Beaufort, 3rd Duke of Somerset, Henry Percy, 3rd Earl of Northumberland and John Clifford, 9th Baron de Clifford, whose fathers had been killed at the First Battle of St Albans, and included several northern lords who were jealous of York's and Salisbury's wealth and influence in the North.

The precise nature of his end was variously reported; he was either unhorsed, wounded and overcome fighting to the death[53] or captured, given a mocking crown of bulrushes and then beheaded.