John of Gaunt III's rule was becoming unpopular due to high taxation and his affair with Alice Perrers, political opinion closely associated the Duke of Lancaster with the failing government of the 1370s. Furthermore, while King Edward and the Prince of Wales were popular heroes due to their successes on the battlefield, John of Gaunt had not won equivalent military renown that could have bolstered his reputation. Although he fought in the Battle of Nájera (1367), for example, his later military projects proved unsuccessful. When Edward III died in 1377 and John's ten-year-old nephew succeeded as Richard II of England, John's influence strengthened.
Alice Ross-King the AANS in September 1919. During the war Ross-King met and became engaged to Harry Moffitt, an officer in the 53rd battalion AIF, but he was killed during the Battle of Fromelles in July 1916. During the voyage to Australia in 1919 Ross-King met Dr Sydney Appleford and they married in August 1919, settling in Lang Lang, Victoria where they raised their four children. Between the wars Alice Ross King has become involved in the training of Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) personnel in Victoria. With the outbreak of the Second World War Ross-King enlisted into the VAD and when, in