John, having spent the summer reorganizing his defenses across the rest of the kingdom, has seen several of his military household desert to the rebels, including his half-brother, William Longespée.

The rebels have by the end of the summer regained the southeast of England and parts of the north.

John in September 1216 begins a fresh, vigorous attack.

He marches from the Cotswolds, feigns an offensive to relieve the besieged Windsor Castle, and …

Henry III adds the so-called Round Tower in 1272 to the Middle Ward of Windsor Castle, the premier residence of England’s royal family since the reign of William the Conqueror.

The killing of John Comyn takes Edward by complete surprise.

News travels slowly: it is some thirteen days after the event that the details reach his court at Winchester, and even then the full circumstances are unclear.

The murder is initially described as the 'work of some people who are doing their utmost to trouble the peace and quiet of the realm of Scotland', but he learns the true facts later.

On April 5, he appoints Aymer de Valence, Comyn's brother-in-law, and the future Earl of Pembroke, as his plenipotentiary in Scotland, with powers to raise the Dragon Banner, signifying that no quarter will be given to Bruce and his adherents; or, as the chronicler John Barbour puts it, 'to burn and slay and raise dragon'.

A French invasion, supported by the English magnates and engineered by Isabella, King Edward II’s queen, and her lover, Roger de Mortimer, first Earl of March, the thirty-nine-year-old grandson of Edouard (Edward) I’s supporter of the same name, ends the oppressive rule of Edward and Despenser in 1326.

Together, Isabella and Mortimer depose her husband, who is succeeded by his fourteen-year-old-son son as Edward III, and take control of the government.

Edward, just eighteen, executes Mortimer on November 29, 1330, has his mother confined, and inaugurates his personal reign.

The Kings of England have attempted to subjugate the Scots for some time, which makes Scotland a natural ally of France.

In 1295, a treaty had been signed between France and Scotland during the reign of Philip the Fair.

Charles IV had formally renewed the treaty in 1326, promising Scotland that if England invades then France will support the Scots.

Similarly, the French will find Scottish support if their own kingdom is attacked.

Edward cannot succeed in his plans for Scotland if they can count on French support.

Philip VI had assembled a large naval fleet off Marseilles as part of an ambitious plan for a crusade to the Holy Land.

However, the plan had been abandoned and the fleet, including elements of the Scottish Navy, moves to the English Channel off Normandy in 1336, threatening England.

To deal with this crisis, Edward proposes that the English raise two armies, one to deal with the Scots "at a suitable time", the other to proceed at once to Gascony.

At the same time ambassadors are to be sent to France with a proposed treaty for the French king.

Edward III creates the first nonruling duke in England by making his oldest son, Edwar of Woodstock, Duke of Cornwall in 1337.

The ruinous expense of the war with France forces England’s Edward III to conclude a one year truce in 1341, thus provoking a crisis at home.

The war probably would have ended were it not for the death of the Duke of Brittany precipitating a succession dispute between the duke's half brother John of Montfort and Charles of Blois, nephew of Philip VI.

The Breton dukes have both a historical and ancestral connection to England and are also Earls of Richmond in Yorkshire.

Windsor Castle, originally designed to protect Norman dominance around the outskirts of London, and to oversee a strategically important part of the River Thames, Windsor Castle, had been built as a motte and bailey, with three wards surrounding a central mound.

Gradually replaced with stone fortifications, the castle withstood a prolonged siege during the First Barons' War at the start of the thirteenth century.

Henry III had built a luxurious royal palace within the castle during the middle of the century, and Edward III goes further, rebuilding the palace to produce an even grander set of buildings in what would become "the most expensive secular building project of the entire Middle Ages in England".

Edward III was born at Windsor Castle and uses it extensively throughout his reign.

The king  in 1344 announces the foundation of the new Order of the Round Table at the castle.

Edward begins to construct a new building in the castle to host this order, but it is never finished.

Chroniclers describe it as a round building, two hundred feet (sixty-one meters) across, and it is probably in the center of the Upper Ward.

Shortly afterwards, Edward abandons he new order for reasons that remain unclear, and instead establishes the Order of the Garter, again with Windsor Castle as its headquarters, complete with the attendant Poor Knights of Windsor.

The year is usually presumed to be 1348, however, the Complete Peerage, under "The Founders of the Order of the Garter", states the order was first instituted on April 23, 1344, listing each founding member as knighted in this year.

The list includes Sir Sanchet D'Abrichecourt, who died on October20,  1345.

Other dates from 1344 to 1351 have also been proposed.

As part of this process Edward decides to rebuild Windsor Castle, in particular Henry III's palace, in an attempt to construct a castle that will be symbolic of royal power and chivalry.

Eward is influenced both by the military successes of his grandfather, Edward I, and by the decline of royal authority under his father, Edward II, and aims to produce an innovative architecture.

Edward places William of Wykeham in overall charge of the rebuilding and design of the new castle and while work is ongoing Edward stayed in temporary accommodation in the Round Tower.

Edward's core design will last through the Tudor period, during which Henry VIII and Elizabeth I will make increasing use of the castle as a royal court and center for diplomatic entertainment.

Geoffrey Chaucer, whose father, John Chaucer, a prosperous London wine merchant with some influence in the court of Edward III, had by 1357 been placed as a seventeen-year-old page in the household of Elizabeth de Burgh, countess of Ulster and wife of the king’s third son, Lionel.

During military service in France in 1359, Chaucer had been captured near Reims but had been ransomed by the Crown.

Chaucer is believed to have studied, in the early 1360s, at the Inns of Chancery and the Inns of Court, and possibly at Oxford, as further preparation for an administrative career at court.

He marries Philippa de Roet, an aristocratic lady, in 1366.

Chaucer by 1367 becomes a yeoman, or valet (vallectus), in the household of King Edward; in 1368, he is mentioned as the king's armiger (esquire).

Blanche, duchess of Lancaster and wife of John of Gaunt, Edward’s fourth son, dies in 1368.

Chaucer in late 1369 or early 1370 writes “The Book of the Duchess,” an elegy for Blanche cast as a traditional French dream-vision and written in eight-syllable lines rhymed in couplets, a form characteristic of French poetry.