Richard was certainly a member of the Salopian family of Fox, although he does not appear in its pedigree. In 1421 he and John Fox were joint patrons of the church at Thonglands, but in 1425 he sold to William Burley of Broncroft his interest in the manor and advowson there along with the manor of Aldon.
Fox’s associates as Burnell’s feoffees included the prominent Essex lawyers John Doreward, Robert Darcy and Richard Baynard; and although between 1411 and 1421 he was occasionally described as ‘of Haselbeech, Northamptonshire’, he increasingly came into contact with these men, becoming closely involved in their personal affairs. It was Doreward’s stepdaughter and Baynard’s niece, Elizabeth Bygood, whom Fox took as his first wife, his marriage thus linking him with two sometime Speakers of the Commons. In 1417, shortly before his only known return to Parliament, Fox was recorded as a co-feoffee with Joan de Bohun, countess of Hereford, of land in Arkesden, Essex, where he himself had acquired property two years previously. The status of his associates and his own involvement in countless legal transactions as an attorney or trustee of land in Essex, Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire, point to Fox’s ability as a lawyer and strongly suggest that he was the man of this surname admitted to Lincoln’s Inn at some point before 1420. Among the many people for whom he acted as a mainpernor or feoffee-to-uses in the next few years were Richard Baynard himself, William Loveney (former keeper of the King’s wardrobe), Sir John Cornwall (afterwards Lord Fanhope), Joan, Lady Abergavenny (executrix of Lord Burnell’s will), and Ralph, Lord Cromwell, while among his colleagues was another Speaker, William Allington. Perhaps Fox’s most important client after Burnell’s death, and certainly the one to whom he then became most closely attached, was Burnell’s stepson, Lord Fitzwalter. On his behalf Fox was party as feoffee and attorney to many transactions concerning his estates in Essex and Lincolnshire.
Over the years Fox built up his landed holdings in Essex, starting in 1415 with the acquisition of the manor of ‘Woodhall’ in Arkesden, and continuing with the purchase of Dagworths in Elmdon and ‘Arnoldes’ in Clavering. His first marriage gave him an interest in the Bygood estates, of which his wife was one of three coheirs; these included the manors of Bacons in Dengie, Alfreton hall in Great Dunmow and ‘Pakenhohall’ (Essex), and Marham and ‘West Tofts’ in Norfolk, but for the most part they remained in the possession of his mother-in-law, Isabel Doreward, until her death in 1426. Before this date Fox’s wife had also died, leaving no living issue, but in May 1427 he paid £5 for a royal licence to retain her share of the Bygood lands for the rest of his life.