Isabella, Countess of Bedford

[4] The household was headed by Isabella de la Mote, chief maistresce of the king’s children.

Isabella travelled on important occasions, such as when she and Joan celebrated the feast of St John the Evangelist in the royal chapel at the Tower of London on 27 December 1340.

Isabella's husband had been brought to England in 1360 as a hostage exchanged for the freedom of King John II of France, an English prisoner.

[2] Her father, Edward III, gave her a dowry of £4,000 and a large lifetime annual income, together with expensive amounts of jewellery and lands; de Coucy was restored to his family's lands in Yorkshire, Lancaster, Westmorland and Cumberland, and was released as a hostage without any need for ransom.

In November 1365, Isabella and her husband were permitted to enter France; their first daughter, Marie, was born at the family lands at Coucy in April 1366.

[9] Isabella petitioned the first Parliament of Richard's reign,[10] claiming femme sole status since her husband’s desertion of both the marriage and country, requesting a grant of revenue and the return to her of the manor of Kendal.

Molly Costain Haycraft's fictionalized account of Isabella's life and courtship with her husband, The Lady Royal, recounts several incidents in the lives of the princess and other members of Edward III's family, but contains a number of historical errors.

One reviewer commented that "Edward III's proclamation of the intended marriage... conveys more of the cadence of Plantagenet Britain than do pages of Mrs Haycraft's dreary efforts.