RICHMOND, EARLS AND DUKES OF. The title earl of Richmond appears to have been in existence in England a considerable time before it was held in accordance with any strict legal principle. Alan, surnamed "Le Roux," and his brother Alan (c. 1040-1089), surnamed "Le Noir," relatives of Geoffrey, count of Brittany, and kinsman of William the Conqueror, took part in the latter's invasion of England ; and Le Roux obtained grants of land in various parts of England, including manors formerly held by Earl Edwin in Yorkshire, on one of which he built the castle of Richmond, his possessions there being formed into the honour of Richmond, to which his brother Alan Le Noir, or Alan Niger (c. 1045-1093), succeeded in 1089. The latter was in turn succeeded as lord of the honour of Richmond by Stephen (d. 1137), count of Penthievre, who was either his son or another brother. These Breton counts are often reckoned as earls of Richmond, though they were not so in the strict and later sense. The same should perhaps be said of Stephen's son Alan Niger II. (c. 1116-1146).
This Alan married Bertha, daughter and heiress of Conan, reigning count of Brittany; and his son Conan (c. 1138-1171), who married Margaret, sister of Malcolm IV. of Scotland, asserted his right to Brittany, and transferred it in his lifetime to his daughter Constance (c. 1162-1201). As he left no sons the honour of Richmond and his other English possessions passed to the king in 1171, though Constance is also loosely spoken of as countess of Richmond in her own right. Constance was three times married, and each of her husbands in turn assumed the title of earl of Richmond, in conjunction with that of count, or duke of Brittany. They were: Geoffrey Plantagenet (1158-1186), son of Henry II., king of England; Randolph de Blundevill, earl of Chester (c. 1172-1232), the marriage with whom Constance treated as null on the ground of consanguinity; and Guy de Thouars (d. 1213), who survived his wife for 12 years. The only son of the first marriage, Arthur of Brittany (1187-1203), was styled earl of Richmond in his mother's lifetime, and on his mur der at the hands of his uncle, King John, the earldom was resumed by the crown.
By her third husband Constance had two daughters, the elder of whom, Alice, was given in marriage by Philip Augustus, king of France, to Peter de Braine in 1213, after which date Peter was styled duke of Brittany and earl of Richmond till about 1235, when he renounced his allegiance to the king of England and there upon suffered forfeiture of his English earldom.
In 1241 Henry III. granted the honour of Richmond to Peter of Savoy (1203-1268), uncle of Queen Eleanor, who was there ' after described as earl of Richmond by contemporary chroniclers, though how far he was strictly entitled to the designation has been disputed. By his will he left the honour of Richmond to his niece, the queen consort, who transferred it to the crown. In the same year (1268) Henry III. granted the earldom specifically to John, duke of Brittany (1217-86), son of Peter de Braine, in whose family the title continued—though it frequently was for feited or reverted to the crown and was re-granted to the next heir—till 1342, when it was apparently resumed by Edward III. and granted by that sovereign to his son John of Gaunt, who sur rendered it in 1372. It was then given to John de Montfort, duke of Brittany, but on his death without heirs in 1399, or possibly at an earlier date through forfeiture, it reverted to the crown.
The earldom now became finally separated from the duchy of Brittany, with which it had been loosely conjoined since the Conquest, although the dukes of Brittany continued to assume the title till a much later date. From 1414 to 1435 the earldom of Richmond was held by John Plantagenet, duke of Bedford, and in 1453 it was conferred on Edmund Tudor, uterine brother to King Henry VI., whose wife, Margaret Beaufort, was the foundress of St. John's college, Cambridge, and of the "Lady Margaret" professorships of divinity at Oxford and Cambridge. (See RICHMOND AND DERBY, MARGARET, COUNTESS OF.) When Edmund Tudor's son Henry ascended the throne as Henry VII. in 1485, the earldom of Richmond merged in the crown, but in 1525 Henry Fitzroy, natural son of Henry VIII. by Elizabeth Blound, was created duke of Richmond and Somerset and earl of Nottingham, all these titles becoming extinct at his death without children in 1536.