only surviving son of Richard Fitzalan, the 4th earl, and a champion of Henry IV and Henry V of England.

King Richard II made him a ward of John Holland, duke of Exeter, from whose keeping he escaped about 1398 and joined his uncle, Archbishop Thomas Arundel, at Utrecht, returning to England in 1399 with Henry of Lancaster, afterward King Henry IV. In October 1400 he was restored to his father's titles and estates. Arundel joined the party of the Beauforts and was one of the leaders of the English army that went to France in 1411; then after a period of retirement he became lord treasurer on the accession of Henry V and was at the taking of Harfleur in 1415.

His wife was Beatrice (d. 1439), a natural daughter of John I, king of Portugal, but they left no children, and the lordship of Arundel passed to his second cousin, John.