THE lives of Charles de Valois, duke of Orleans (1394–1465), and of William de la Pole, 4th earl and 1st duke of Suffolk (1396–1450), were closely intertwined, and some understanding of the circumstances of those lives is necessary to any account of their possible shared literary interests.

William de la Pole served in the 1415 French campaign, but was invalided home after the siege of Harfleur. The death of his father at Harfleur and of his elder brother, briefly the 3rd earl, at Agincourt (where Charles of Orleans was taken prisoner) brought him young to one of England's premier earldoms. He returned to France in 1417 and was an energetic captain in Henry V's wars. After Henry V's death, he continued to serve in France under the command of Thomas Montague, earl of Salisbury, and after Salisbury's death in 1428 he was appointed to chief military command under John, duke of Bedford, regent in France. He prosecuted the siege of Orleans with vigour, so that by February 1429 the city seemed doomed, but the appearance of Joan of Arc led to the raising of the siege in May. Suffolk himself was captured on 12 June 1429 and was briefly a prisoner of Jean de Dunois, bastard of Orleans (Charles of Orleans's half-brother), with whom he struck up a friendship, before being ransomed. He was reappointed to military command in the Cotentin, but by 1431 he was back in England after nearly seventeen years in France, ready to embark on his political career.