Apparently in the same terms of the bishops licence of 1389. King writes "Hutchinson very rightly points out that this licence from Richard II must have been 'intrusional or merely confirmatory'. (Bishop) Skirlaw had been forced upon the King by the Appellants in 1388, which may supply a clue to the reasons for this very unusual entry; but the exact narrative is likely to remain a mystery." (Lumley is in the County Palatinate of Durham)

Alternatively, Lomley, a new baron wanted additional royal recognition and cachet. He was loyal to Richard and died plotting to return him to the throne in 1400.

RALPH DE LUMLEY, brother and heir, was aged 13 or 14 at his brother's death, John de Neville (Lord Neville) of Raby being his guardian. He had order for livery of his lands 20 August 1383. He was summoned to Parliament from 15 September 1384 to 30 September 1399, by writs directed Radulpho de Lomley, whereby he is held to have become LORD LUMLEY. Certain French prisoners, taken by Ralph Lumley, then chivaler, in September 1384 had leave to return home to arrange their ransom. In January 1385 he was in the retinue of Henry de Percy, Earl of Northumberland, in Scotland, and in 1387 and 1388 associated with him in the defence of Berwick-on-Tweed. In 1388 he was also a commissioner of array in Chester Ward, co. Durham. At the battle of Otterburn ("Chevy Chase," 19 August 1388) he was taken prisoner by the Scots, but was at liberty by October 1389, when he was under orders for Berwick, then in the keeping of the Earl of Nottingham, a service on which he appears not to have proceeded. In the autumn of 1391 he was appointed captain of Berwick under the Earl of Northumberland. In October 1392 he obtained from the King permission to build and crenellate a castle at (Little) Lumley. He was on the commission of the peace in the North 'Riding of Yorkshire, 1394 and 1397. He was in the Parliament at Westminster, September 1397, when all the prelates, lords, and commons were sworn on the shrine of Edward the Confessor to maintain their proceedings in support of King Richard's coup d'état, and also sat in the first Parliament of Henry IV (1399), and with all the other prelates and peers assented to the imprisonment of the late King; but at Christmas 1399 he joined the unsuccessful conspiracy of Richard's half-brother, the Earl of Huntingdon, to murder Henry IV and restore Richard. He was taken, with others of the conspirators, by the townsfolk of Cirencester, and beheaded in January 1399/1400. He was attainted of treason in Parliament in March 1400/1 whereby his peerage was forfeited, his possessions having been granted already on 22 January 1399/1400 to John, Earl of Somerset, brother of Henry IV.
He married Eleanor, daughter of the above said John (NEVILLE), LORD NEVILLE of Raby (by his ist wife, Maud PERCY), and sister of Ralph (NEVILLE), 1st EARL OF WESTMORLAND, and of Thomas (NEVILLE), LORD FURNIVALLE. She was still living in 1441. (Complete Peerage VIII:269-70)