English and British royal mistress her. Richard II (6 January 1367– February 1400) was King of England from 1377 until he was deposed on 30 September 1399. A member of the close circle around the king was Robert De Vere, Earl of Oxford (Aubrey De Vere's nephew), who emerged as the King's favourite. De Vere's lineage, while an ancient one, was relatively modest in the peerage of England. Richard's close friendship to De Vere was disagreeable to the political establishment and this displeasure was exacerbated by the earl's elevation to the new title of Duke of Ireland in 1386. The chronicler Thomas Walsingham suggested the
Gilbert Denys William Dennis in 1701, last of the male line. Following Gaunt's death in 1399, Denys joined the retinue of Edmund, Earl of Stafford(d.1403), and probably fought with the Earl in Henry IV's campaign against the Scots in 1400. In 1403 he was appointed by the King as constable of the late Earl of Stafford's Newport Castle, Monmouth, in charge of 80 archers and 40 lances, specifically to resist the rebellion of Glendower. Having been discouraged from attacking nearby Chepstow Castle, a far larger fortification, Glendower turned his force on Newport, which Denys's force was clearly unable to resist, for the