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
Alice FitzAlan, Baroness Cherleton Eleanor of Lancaster, and her maternal grandparents were William de Bohun, 1st Earl of Northampton and Elizabeth de Badlesmere. On 21 September 1397, her father was executed at Tower Hill, Cheapside for high treason against King Richard II of England. Sometime before March 1392 Alice married John Cherleton, 4th Lord Cherleton (25 April 1362 – 19 October 1401). According to popular belief, following her marriage she became the mistress of Cardinal Henry Beaufort, and bore him an illegitimate daughter, Jane Beaufort. In Philip Yorke's "The Royal Tribes of Wales", he states that "Cardinal Beaufort left an illegitimate daughter by Alice,