In January 1349, at the height of the Black Death, King Edward III gathered his court at Windsor. They were not, as might be supposed, in a protective huddle. They were there to joust, wear fantastic costumes, feast and womanise. In the course of the festivities Edward founded the Order of the Garter, which had at least something to do with the rivalry of two of his knights for the Fair Maid of Kent. Meanwhile the corpses of murrained cattle lay stinking in the fields, and in London alone 200 bodies a day were being shovelled into plague-pits.
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