Richard Grey

Who was Richard Grey?

Sir Richard Grey was an English knight and the half-brother of King Edward V of England.

Richard Grey was the younger son of Sir John Grey of Groby and Elizabeth Woodville, later Queen Consort of King Edward IV. Richard was a 3-year-old child when his father was killed fighting for the House of Lancaster at the Second Battle of St Albans on 17 February 1461. Richard was 6 years old when his widowed mother married the Yorkist King, Edward IV, in secret, on 1 May 1464. Richard first appeared on the public scene when he took part in the jousts to celebrate the creation of his half-brother Richard as Duke of York in 1474, a feat he repeated at the Duke's marriage celebrations in 1478.

Grey was knighted in 1475 and was nominated four times to membership of The Most Noble Order of the Garter between 1476 and 1482. His political role also started in 1475, the year he was knighted, when he began to serve in Wales and the bordering English counties as part of the political rule of the council of his other half-brother, Edward, Prince of Wales. Grey served as a Justice of the Peace in Herefordshire from 1475 and sat at sessions of the peace in Hereford and Ludlow in 1476 and 1477.