Who Was Alice Perrers?

Description: Two documents in the National Archives (London) show that Alice Perrers was married to Janyn Perers, possibly an Italian, before becoming Edward III's mistress. These records hint that she was "a person of lower birth who made her fortune essentially through her own innate talent and ambition," thus disproving the hypothesis that she was an unmarried woman of genteel upbringing when she entered the household of Queen Philippa as a domicella.