English and British royal mistress her. Richard II (6 January 1367– February 1400) was King of England from 1377 until he was deposed on 30 September 1399. A member of the close circle around the king was Robert De Vere, Earl of Oxford (Aubrey De Vere's nephew), who emerged as the King's favourite. De Vere's lineage, while an ancient one, was relatively modest in the peerage of England. Richard's close friendship to De Vere was disagreeable to the political establishment and this displeasure was exacerbated by the earl's elevation to the new title of Duke of Ireland in 1386. The chronicler Thomas Walsingham suggested the
Edmund de Lacy, Baron of Pontefract his mother Margaret de Quincy and on her death would have inherited the Earldom of Lincoln that vested in her. (His father had only been Earl by rights of his wife.) As he predeceased his mother he never became the Earl of Lincoln. He was an important landholder in northern England, with a strategic manor at Stanbury which was important for east-west communication, and as Lord of the Honour of Pontefract he possessed Pontefract Castle. He was brought up at the royal court of Henry III of England and Eleanor of Provence, and made a 'Savoyard' marriage to one of