English royal mistress
Alice de Salisbury
, also known as
Alice de Windsor
(circa 1348 –1400/1401) was an
English royal mistress
, lover of
Edward III
,
King of England
. As a result of his patronage, she became the wealthiest and most influential woman in the country. She was widely despised and accused of taking advantage of the old king.
[1]
[2]
Life
[
edit
]
Early life
[
edit
]
Alice was born around 1348. No
birth record
remains, but it seems that Perrers was the
surname
of her first husband.
[3]
Her ancestry has been the topic of much speculation, which is detailed below. Around 1360, at the age of 12, she married Janyn Perrers, a
jeweler
who died around 1364.
[4]
[5]
Queen Philippa, employer of Alice Perrers at her coronation in 1330
Life at the royal court
[
edit
]
Perrers became a part of the
household
of
Queen Philippa
(1310/1315?1369) as a
domicella
("damsel") before 1359.
[3]
She became the
mistress
of the king,
Edward III
(1312?1377) around 1366, when she was around 18 years old and the king 55.
[6]
During the queen's life, they had three children together. Three years after their relationship started, the queen died, which devastated the king, causing him to lean more on Perrers. This resulted in her receiving more, mostly negative, attention from the
court
.
[
citation needed
]
Perriers exploited Edward's growing senility and convinced him to buy her the same jewels over and over again, which she would then turn in for more cash.
[7]
She amassed a fortune of more than
£
20,000, by doing so, which would be worth around £6,000,000 as of 2016.
[
citation needed
]
She was paraded around London in golden garments as the "Lady of the Sun" at the king's command, causing a wave of public criticism.
[
citation needed
]
King
Edward III
, Alice Perrers' lover and patron
Perrer's power further grew between 1370 and 1376. She reportedly provoked fear, and no one dared to sue her. She was seen as an ambitious, calculating, cold-hearted opportunist who manipulated the elderly king. Towards the end of Edward III's life, Perrers was even accused of making his life miserable, and it is reported that she even stole the rings off his fingers after the king died.
[8]
[9]
As the king's health was ailing, Perrers contracted a secret marriage in November 1375, at the age of 27, with 53-year-old
Sir
William de Windsor
,
Baron
Windsor (circa 1325?1384) to ensure her safety and
livelihood
after Edward's death. He was the king's
lieutenant
in
Ireland
.
[10]
De Windsor spent long periods of time away from England, thus making it less probable that the king would discover the marriage. The couple remained together until the death of the husband on 15 September 1384, but had no children.
[
citation needed
]
Exile
[
edit
]
In 1376, an ordinance aimed specifically at Perrers set penalties for women who practiced "maintenance", interfering in the due process of the law.
[11]
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 Perrers can forfeit and of being banished from the realm.
[11]
Perrers was tried for
corruption
and subsequently
exiled
from England by the
Good Parliament
, her lands
forfeit
. In May 1379, the
royal treasurer
Thomas Brantingham
delivered 21,868 pearls confiscated from Alice Perrers to the royal wardrobe.
[12]
She was later able to return and regain some of her lands, but she would spend the rest of her life trying to get everything back.
[7]
Church of St Laurence in Upminster, where Alice Perrers was buried
Death
[
edit
]
Perrers died during the winter of 1400/1401, aged around 52, and was buried in the
Church of St Laurence
in
Upminster
.
Lands
[
edit
]
At the height of her power, Perrers possessed 56
manors
,
castles
and town houses in over 25
counties
of
England
, only 15 of which were gifts from the king. These properties included
Playford Hall
in Suffolk,
[13]
and the manor of Gaynes in
Upminster
,
Essex
. When property disputes arose with the
abbot
of
St. Albans
in 1374, Perrers, with the King's authority behind her, sat in the
court
to intimidate the
judges
and ensured that the abbot abandoned his claim.
[
citation needed
]
Influence on literature
[
edit
]
Perrers is thought to have served as the
prototype
for
Geoffrey Chaucer
'
Wife of Bath
in
The Canterbury Tales
.
[14]
She was also a major
patron
of Chaucer.
[15]
[
clarification needed
]
Her influence on literature may also have extended to
William Langland
's Lady Mede in
Piers Plowman
.
[16]
Langland describes Lady Meed wearing rings of purest "perreize", a word for precious stones possibly chosen to play on the surname Perrers.
[17]
Ancestry
[
edit
]
As no birth record of Alice Perrers remains, many unfounded theories have arisen about her parentage. The earliest tradition spoke of a lowly birth, either as a niece of
William of Wykeham
(1320/1324?1404),
Bishop of Winchester
and
Lord Chancellor
, or as the daughter of a
weaver
from
Devon
. According to contemporary
chronicler
Thomas Walsingham
, she was "from the town of Henny" and "of low birth" as the daughter of a
thatcher
.
[18]
Walsingham's account is often questioned because of his open hostility against the
royal court
and especially Perrers.
[19]
Other evidence suggests that her
birth surname
was Salisbury
[20]
and that she had at least one brother, John.
[21]
[22]
Later traditions established a higher birth for her: it has been suggested that she was the daughter of John Perrers of
Holt
and wife of
Sir
Thomas of
Narford
, or the
illegitimate daughter
of an
Earl of Warenne
(most likely
Richard Fitzalan
, 1346?1397) by a member of the Narford family. Haldeen Braddy has argued that she was the second wife of William Chaumpaigne of London and stepmother of Cecilia Chaumpaigne, the woman in whose
kidnapping or rape
Geoffrey Chaucer
might have played a role, but this has already been disproven by Martha Powell Harley.
[23]
According to the
Encyclopædia Britannica
,
she probably belonged to the
Hertfordshire
family of Perrers.
[1]
This would likely make her the daughter of Sir Richard Perrers.
[3]
At that same time there was a woman in England called Alice Perrers. She was a shameless, impudent
harlot
, and of low birth, for she was the daughter of a
thatcher
from the town of
Henny
, elevated by fortune. She was not attractive or beautiful, but knew how to compensate for these defects with the seductiveness of her voice. Blind fortune elevated this woman to such heights and promoted her to a greater intimacy with
the king
than was proper, since she had been the
maidservant
and
mistress
of a man of
Lombardy
. And while
the queen
was still alive, the king loved this woman more than he loved the queen.
Issue
[
edit
]
Perrers had three
illegitimate children
with King Edward III during the lifetime of Queen Philippa, thus between 1366 (when their relationship started) and 1369 (the queen's death):
[
citation needed
]
From her marriage to William de Windsor, she had no children.
[8]
In fiction
[
edit
]
Candace Robb
features Alice Perrers in her Medieval Mysteries series and Perrers is the main protagonist in Robb's
The King's Mistress
written as
Emma Campion
.
[26]
She appears in
Anya Seton
's 1954 novel
Katherine
. Alice Perrers is the main character in
Vanora Bennett
's 2010 novel
The People's Queen
. She is a character in
Jean Plaidy
's
Vow on the Heron
. She is portrayed in
Rebecca Gable
's
Das Lacheln der Fortuna
, a historical novel in the German language about the time-period. She is the protagonist of the 2012 novel
The King's Concubine
by Anne O'Brien. She also appears in
The Traitor's Noose
, the fourth novel in the
Lions and Lilies
series by Catherine A. Wilson and Catherine T. Wilson.
References
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
"Alice Perrers"
.
britannica.com
. Retrieved
18 May
2022
.
- ^
Kingsford, Charles Lethbridge
(1896).
"Perrers, Alice"
. In
Lee, Sidney
(ed.).
Dictionary of National Biography
. Vol. 45. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
- ^
a
b
c
Ormrod, W. M. (2006).
"Who Was Alice Perrers?"
.
The Chaucer Review
.
40
(3): 219?229.
doi
:
10.1353/cr.2006.0005
.
ISSN
0009-2002
.
JSTOR
25094322
.
- ^
Ormrod, W. M. (2008). "The trials of Alice Perrers".
Speculum
.
83
(2): 369.
doi
:
10.1017/S0038713400013361
.
JSTOR
20466215
.
S2CID
154399794
.
- ^
Laura Tompkins, 'Alice Perrers and the Goldsmiths' Mistery: New Evidence Concerning the Identity of the Mistress of Edward III',
The English Historical Review
, 130:547 (December 2015), pp. 1361-1391
doi
:
10.1093/ehr/cev319
- ^
"Alice Perrers"
.
Encyclopædia Britannica
. Retrieved
7 November
2018
.
- ^
a
b
Herman, Eleanor (2004).
Sex With Kings: 500 Years of Adultery, Power, Rivalry, and Revenge
(1st ed.). New York, NY: HarperCollins.
- ^
a
b
"Alice Perrers, Mistress of the King"
.
Historytheinterestingbits.com
. 31 July 2015
. Retrieved
16 May
2018
.
- ^
Gambier-Parry, T.R. (1932). "Alice Perrers and Her Husband's Relatives".
The English Historical Review
.
47
(182): 272?276.
doi
:
10.1093/ehr/xlvii.clxxxvi.272
.
- ^
Ormrod, W. M. (2008). "The trials of Alice Perrers".
Speculum
.
83
(2): 372.
doi
:
10.1017/S0038713400013361
.
JSTOR
20466215
.
S2CID
154399794
.
- ^
a
b
Ormrod, W.M. (2008). "The trials of Alice Perrers".
Speculum
.
83
(2): 370.
doi
:
10.1017/S0038713400013361
.
JSTOR
20466215
.
S2CID
154399794
.
- ^
Laura Tompkins, 'Edward III's Gold-Digging Mistress', Cathleen Sarti,
Women and Economic Power in Premodern Royal Courts
(Leeds: ARC, 2020), pp. 61, 67.
- ^
Bothwell, James (1998). "The management of position; Alice Perrers, Edward III, and the creation of a landed estates, 1362?1377".
Journal of Medieval History
.
24
(1): 31?51.
doi
:
10.1016/s0304-4181(97)00017-1
.
- ^
Braddy, Haldeen (1946). "Chaucer and Dame Alice Perrers".
Speculum
.
21
(2): 222?228.
doi
:
10.2307/2851319
.
JSTOR
2851319
.
S2CID
161165433
.
- ^
Harley, Marta Powell (1993). "Geoffrey Chaucer, Cecilia Chaumpaigne, and Alice Perrers: a closer look".
The Chaucer Review
.
28
(1): 78?82.
JSTOR
25095830
.
- ^
Rogers, William Elford (2002).
Interpretation in Piers Plowman
. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press.
ISBN
9780813210926
.
- ^
Laura Tompkins, 'Edward III's Gold-Digging Mistress', Cathleen Sarti,
Women and Economic Power in Premodern Royal Courts
(Leeds: ARC, 2020), p. 62.
- ^
Ormrod, W.M. (2006).
"Who was Alice Perrers?"
.
The Chaucer Review
.
40
(3): 219.
doi
:
10.1353/cr.2006.0005
. Retrieved
30 September
2018
.
- ^
Tompkins, Laura (2015).
"Alice Perrers and the goldsmith's mistery: New evidence concerning the identity of the mistress of Edward III"
.
English Historical Review
.
130
(547): 1362.
doi
:
10.1093/ehr/cev319
.
- ^
"Alice Perrers: From royal mistress to one of England's wealthiest"
.
Royal Central
. 18 August 2021
. Retrieved
18 May
2022
.
- ^
Tompkins, Laura (2015).
"Alice Perrers and the goldsmith's mistery: New evidence concerning the identity of the mistress of Edward III"
.
English Historical Review
.
130
(547): cev319.
doi
:
10.1093/ehr/cev319
.
- ^
Ormrod, W. M. (2008). "Alice Perrers and John Salisbury".
English Historical Review
.
123
(501): 381.
doi
:
10.1093/ehr/cen011
.
- ^
"The Legal Documents ? De raptu meo"
. Retrieved
18 May
2022
.
- ^
"Alice Perrers: Known as Edward III's Extravagent, Powerful Mistress"
.
Womenshistory.about.com
. Archived from
the original
on 1 July 2016
. Retrieved
16 May
2018
.
- ^
"Robert Skerne"
.
History of Parliament
. Retrieved
4 August
2018
.
- ^
Goldsmith, Belinda (4 August 2010).
"Book Talk: Candace Robb finds new voice as Emma Campion"
.
Reuters
.
External links
[
edit
]
Media related to
Alice Perrers
at Wikimedia Commons