English and British royal mistress cousin, the Earl of Lancaster, a group of the barons seized and executed Gaveston in 1312. Edward III appears to have been devoted to his wife, Philippa of Hainault, who bore him 12 children. However, late in their marriage the aged King met Alice Perrers, a young lady-in-waiting to the Queen. Some sources have it that she became his mistress in 1363, six years before his wife's death; others date their relationship to the time when the Queen was terminally ill. The affair was not made public until after the Queen's death, when the King lavished gifts and honours on
Alice Perrers ‘maintenance’, the offence of interfering in the due process of the law. A contemporary description of the ordinance is as follows: Because a complaint was made to the king that some women have pursued various business and disputes in the king's courts by way of maintenance, bribing and influencing the parties, which thing displeases the king; the king forbids any woman to do it, and especially Alice Perrers, on penalty of whatever the said Alice can forfeit and of being banished from the realm. She was ultimately tried for corruption and subsequently banished from the kingdom by the Good Parliament,