He was the seventh and youngest son of John de la Pole, 2nd Duke of Suffolk and his wife Elizabeth of York. His mother was the second of the three surviving daughters of Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York and Cecily Neville. She was a younger sister to Edward IV of England, as well as Edmund, Earl of Rutland and Anne of York, Duchess of Exeter, and an older sister to Margaret of York, George Plantagenet, 1st Duke of Clarence and Richard III of England.