John de Southeray soldiers. After his troops went unpaid, John led them in a mutiny; he may have been only a figurehead for the mutineers, though, as he (unlike the other conspirators) went unpunished afterwards. 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
Alice Perrers her lands forfeit. She was later able to return to England and work to regain some of her lands. Alice Perrers died in the winter of 1400/1401 at 52 years old and was buried in the church of St Laurence, Upminster. Perrers is thought to have served as the living prototype of Geoffrey Chaucer's oft-married Wife of Bath in the Canterbury Tales. Her influence on literature may also have extended to William Langland's Lady Mede in Piers Plowman. In that work, the Lady represents, to the dreaming narrator, a woman of high status, one adorned with jewels and fine robes,