John de Southeray John de Southeray John de Southeray (1364 - 1383) was an illegitimate son of King Edward III of England by his mistress Alice Perrers. He was the oldest of Perrers' three acknowledged illegitimate children by her royal lover. He was knighted in April 1377, alongside the future King Richard II. That same year, he was married to a daughter of Henry de Percy, 3rd Baron Percy; she divorced him in 1380, claiming she had not consented to the marriage. During the abortive Castilian campaign led by his half-brother the Earl of Cambridge in 1381, John led a contingent of English
John of Gaunt the closing of Parliament on 10 July left John with all the reins of power. He immediately had the ailing king grant pardons to all the officials impeached by the Parliament; Alice Perrers too was reinstated at the heart of the king's household. John impeached William of Wykeham and other leaders of the reform movement, and secured their conviction on old or trumped-up charges. The parliament of 1377 was John's counter-coup: crucially, the Lords no longer supported the Commons and John was able to have most of the acts of 1376 annulled. He also succeeded in forcing the Commons to