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 Chaucer, Duchess of Suffolk - pursued the unsuccessful Yorkist claim to the throne against Henry VII. Alice Chaucer, Duchess of Suffolk Alice de la Pole, Duchess of Suffolk (1404–1475) was a granddaughter of the English poet Geoffrey Chaucer. Married three times, she eventually became a Lady of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, an honour granted rarely to women and marking the friendship between herself and her third husband William de la Pole, 1st Duke of Suffolk (d.1450) with King Henry VI and his wife Margaret of Anjou. She was born as Alice Chaucer, a daughter of Thomas Chaucer by his wife Matilda