Richard de Beauchamp, 13th Earl of Warwick

Richard de Beauchamp, 13th Earl of Warwick (1382 - April 30, 1439) was an English nobleman and military commander.

He was the son of Thomas de Beauchamp, 12th Earl of Warwick, and Margaret, daughter of the 3rd Lord Ferrers of Groby. Soon after reaching his majority and taking responsibility for the earldom in 1403, he had to defend against a Welsh invasion led by Owen Glendower, which he drove off.

Warwick acquired quite a reputation for chivalry, and when in 1408 he went on pilgrimage to the Holy Land, he was challenged many times to fight in the sporting combat which was then popular. On the return trip he went through Russia and Eastern Europe, not returning to England until 1410.

Once back he was asked to serve in the retinue of the Prince of Wales, and in 1413 was lord high steward at the prince's coronation as Henry V. The next year he helped put down the Lollard uprising, and then went to Normandy. He spent much of the next decade fighting the French in the Hundred Years War. In 1419 he was created Count of Aumale, part of the king's policy of giving out Norman titles to his nobles.

Henry V's will gave Warwick the responsibility for the education of the infant Henry VI. This duty required him to travel back and forth between England and Normandy many times. In 1437 the royal council deemed his duty complete, and he was appointed lieutenant of France and Normandy. He remained in France for the remaining two years of his life.

Warwick first married Elizabeth Berkeley, by whom he had 3 daughters:

• Margaret (d. 1467), who married John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury, and whose great-grandson John Dudley was created Earl of Warwick and subsequently Duke of Northumberland;
• Eleanor, who married the 8th Lord Ros, and then married Edmund Beaufort, 2nd Duke of Somerset;
• Elizabeth, who married George Neville, 1st Lord Latimer.

Warwick then married Isabel, daughter of Thomas le Despenser, and widow of his cousin Richard de Beauchamp, Earl of Worcester, by whom he had:

• Henry, who succeeded his father as Earl of Warwick, and later became Duke of Warwick;
• Anne de Beauchamp, who was theoretically Countess of Warwick in her own right after the death of her infant niece and namesake, and who married Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick.