John Russell (died 1405) military service in Ireland under Sir William Windsor, the King's Lieutenant there, sailing across in 1373. Later, he was given the lease of lands in Northamptonshire forfeited in 1378 by Windsor's wife Alice Perrers, the disgraced mistress of King Edward III. In that year he had been knighted, and was elected MP for Worcestershire in both the 1378 and 1379 Parliaments. By 1382 he had married and the next year he became a retainer of Thomas Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick. Four years later he transferred to the Royal Household as a King's knight, with a lifetime salary. During the Merciless
Alice Perrers Parliament for Surrey. Due to the king's advancing age and the fact that after his death she would no longer have his protection, Alice contracted a secret marriage in November 1375 to Sir William Windsor, a Westmorland knight, who was appointed as the King's lieutenant in Ireland. He was 53 and she was 27. As William was a Royal Lieutenant in Ireland, he spent long periods of time absent from England and Alice, lessening the probability of the King discovering their marriage. William and Alice were married until William's death on 15 September 1384. He was 62 years old. They