John of Gaunt III's rule was becoming unpopular due to high taxation and his affair with Alice Perrers, political opinion closely associated the Duke of Lancaster with the failing government of the 1370s. Furthermore, while King Edward and the Prince of Wales were popular heroes due to their successes on the battlefield, John of Gaunt had not won equivalent military renown that could have bolstered his reputation. Although he fought in the Battle of Nájera (1367), for example, his later military projects proved unsuccessful. When Edward III died in 1377 and John's ten-year-old nephew succeeded as Richard II of England, John's influence strengthened.
Throne of England the existence of the government. It evolved naturally as a separation of the literal throne and property of the nation-state from the person and personal property of the monarch. According to tradition, the roots of British monarchy extend into legends before the ninth-century king Alfred the Great. On 1 May 1707, the Kingdom of Great Britain was created by the political union of the Kingdom of England (which included Wales) and the Kingdom of Scotland. In this period, the "Throne of the United Kingdom" was merged in usage with the "Throne of England." The modern Queen or King is a