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
John de Braose Braose. His grandfather had had his lands seized and his grandmother Maud de St. Valery had been captured by forces of King John of England in 1210. She was imprisoned, along with John's father William, in Corfe Castle and walled alive inside the dungeon. Both mother and son starved to death on the King's orders. This was probably due to John's grandfather's conflict with the monarch, open rebellion and subsequent alliance with Llewelyn the Great. John's nickname "Tadody" means "fatherless" in the Welsh. At his family's fall from Royal favour John de Braose was initially hidden on Gower and spent