In the middle decades of the fourteenth century, England occupied centre stage in international diplomacy and culture. The English victories of the 1340s held the promise of a new golden age for Britain. Edward III, the new Arthur, celebrated his triumph with a magnificent series of feasts and tournaments and the founding of a new chivalric order, the Order of the Garter. The ravages of the Black Death must have cast a pall over the celebrations, but the victory at Poitiers in 1356 appeared to reaffirm the inauguration of a new Britain. King Jean of France and many other noblemen were made captive and brought as prisoners to England, where King David of Scotland, captured at Neville's Cross a decade earlier, still remained in captivity. From 1357 to 1360, England was thus not only the focus of international diplomacy, but also very much thecentreofinternational court culture. The festivities between autumn 1357 and spring 1358 were especially splendid. The cycle began with a tournament at Smithfield which was attended by the kings of England, France and Scotland as well as by noblemen and knights from all three kingdoms. There was a great feast at Marlborough at Christmas before the court moved on for a courtly and chivalric extravaganza at Bristol at Epiphany. They were merely the prelude, though, to the festivities held around St George's Day at Windsor. They certainly impressed King Jean of France who reputedly observed, all too aware that his ransom provided the English king an almost inexhaustible source of credit, that he had never seen such expenditure without payment of gold and silver. He also noted in a letter to the townsmen of Nimes the attendance of three queens: Edward III's wife Queen Philippa, Edward's sister the queen of Scotland and - a ghost from the past - Edward's mother Isabelle of France.

The presence of Isabelle of France, the queen mother, is especially worthy of note. In a number of sources and histories it is assumed that after the coup of 1330 she was in disgrace, or at least rusticated, at Castle Rising in Norfolk. A close analysis of the sources does reveal, however, that in the 1340s she remained in contact with her son, and appeared at a number of court functions.