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Like so many medieval princes, Edmund gained his identifying nickname from his birthplace: Kings Langley in Hertfordshire. At the age of twenty-one, he was created Earl of Cambridge. His first wife, Isabella, was the daughter of Pedro "the Cruel" of Castile, and they had two sons, Edward and Richard, Earl of Cambridge, as well as a daughter, Constance (ancestor of queen Anne Neville). In 1385, Edmund was created Duke of York.

After Isabella's death in 1392, Edmund married Joan de Holland, a granddaughter of Joan of KentJoan, Princess of Wales ( September 29, 1328 August 1385) is known to history as "The Fair Maid of Kent", and was the wife of Edward, the Black Prince. Joan's father, Edmund, Earl of Kent, was a son of King Edward I of England, and a half-brother of Edwar. Joan's sister, Margaret de Holland, was the daughter-in-law of Edmund's brother, John of GauntJohn of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster ( June 24, 1340 February 3, 1399), was the fourth son of King Edward III of England and is so called because he was born at Ghent in 1340. He became Duke of Lancaster by his first marriage to his cousin, Blanche ( 1359. They had no children. Edmund of Langley died in his birthplace, and was buried there, in the church of the mendicant friar s. His dukedom passed to his eldest son, Edward. However, it was through the marriage of his younger son, Richard, that the Yorkist faction in the Wars of the RosesThe Wars of the Roses 1455 to 1487, is the name generally given to the intermittent civil war fought over the throne of England between adherents of the House of Lancaster and the House of York. Both houses were branches of the Plantagenet royal house, tr made its claim on the throne.