Nicholas Carew (Lord Privy Seal) the Royal Household. In 1371 he was appointed Keeper of the Privy Seal, the first layman to hold the post, and remained in office until the king's death in 1377. He was one of the group of courtiers around Edward III, including William, Lord Latimer, Lord John Neville, Sir Alan Buxhull, Richard Lyons, and the king's mistress Alice Perrers, who increasingly controlled access to and decisions emerging from the king as his health failed. Influential in the royal campaign in 1376 against William Wykeham, bishop of Winchester, he was named as an executor and trustee of the king's will. After
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