Sir Richard FitzAlan by Ky White

[Dept of PMM Artists & things]

Jan 24, 1376 - Sir Richard FitzAlan, 10th Earl of Arundel, died. He was known as ‘copped hat.’ He’s been mentioned a few times lately. He was about 13 when his father was beheaded by Edward II.. He had been married to the daughter of Despencer, but after the death of Edward II, this was not a good political marriage. Since he and his bride were only 7 and 8 years old at the time of the wedding, the Pope granted the annulment. "Obviously, what really happened was that the powerful Earl desired to get rid of the woman to whom he had been married as a child, and who, since her father's attainder and execution, had ceased to be of any importance, that he might marry the woman with whom he was then living in adultery: and the pope very obligingly annulled the marriage and bastardized the issue: a very unfair proceeding as far as Edmund d'Arundel was concerned." -The Complete Peerage (Arundel).

Richard, known by the nickname 'Copped Hat', was arrested in the summer of 1330 after plotting to overthrow Mortimer, but a few months later was restored to his father's earldom and estates by Edward III.

He married Eleanor Plantagenet daughter of the Earl of Lancaster. His mother was the heir to her brother the last Earl of Warenne and Surrey. Through the inheritance he was enormously wealthy.

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 Lieutenant 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 a campaign of 1375, at the end of his life, he destroyed the harbor of Roscoff.

For Edward III he was Admiral of the West and took part in the wars in France. At the Battle of Crecy on August 26, 1346 he commanded the 2nd Division of the English Army that so devastated the French nobility and proved the superiority of the longbow over armor and mounted knights. He was at the fall of Calais in 1347.

During almost the whole of his long life he was taking a leading part in warfare either by land or by sea.