So why is it thought that this English King didn’t speak the native tongue of his subjects well? For starters, besides spending the bulk of his life outside of England, both of his parents were of French Norman descent, so the English royal family favoring the French tongue.Another factor to consider is that during Richard’s time, French was the official court language, and was used by anyone with any social standing. English was still the language of the common folk, and it would be hundreds of years before it was recognized as the official language of the English court. So, in reality, Richard was certainly not alone in eschewing English, especially among the privileged classes, as many of them also traced their ancestry back to Normandy in France.