A younger son of Richard Fitzalan, 10th Earl of Arundel, he was
papally provided as Bishop of Ely on 13 August 1373 entirely by
reason of his father's status and financial leverage with the
Crown during the dotage of Edward III, happily abandoning his
student days at Oxford, from which he gained little pleasure. A
hugely wealthy near-sinecure, Ely seems to have captured the
young bishop's genuine interest until his brother's political
opposition to Richard II's policies both at home and towards
France grew rancorous and dragged him in. In an extremely grave
crisis, teetering towards civil war, 1386-8, the bishop found
himself, at least in formal terms, right at the front of the
dangerous attempts by five leading temporal lords to purge the
king's advisors and control future policy. On 3 April 1388, he
was elevated to the position of Archbishop of York at a time
when Richard II was, in effect, suspended from rule. Given Ely's
wealth and ease, this promotion was clearly as much to do with
status and consolidati