John Russell (died 1405) military service in Ireland under Sir William Windsor, the King's Lieutenant there, sailing across in 1373. Later, he was given the lease of lands in Northamptonshire forfeited in 1378 by Windsor's wife Alice Perrers, the disgraced mistress of King Edward III. In that year he had been knighted, and was elected MP for Worcestershire in both the 1378 and 1379 Parliaments. By 1382 he had married and the next year he became a retainer of Thomas Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick. Four years later he transferred to the Royal Household as a King's knight, with a lifetime salary. During the Merciless
Mistress of the Robes Mistress of the Robes The Mistress of the Robes is the senior lady in the royal household of the United Kingdom. Formerly responsible for the queen's clothes and jewellery (as the name implies), the post now has the responsibility for arranging the rota of attendance of the ladies-in-waiting on the queen, along with various duties at state ceremonies. In modern times, the Mistress of the Robes is almost always a duchess. During the 17th and 18th centuries, this role often overlapped with or was replaced as First Lady of the Bedchamber. In the past, whenever the queen was a queen