“The closeness of the royal couple’s relationship was reflected in the architecture of their living spaces. Mary Whiteley compares the physical space of royal palaces in England and France. Between 1357 and 1368, Edward III remodeled part of Windsor Castle, which formed the main residence for Philippa of Hainault and their children. Philippa had given birth to two of their children at Windsor, Margaret in 1346 and William in 1348, and Edward held a number tournaments there, two of which were in celebration of Philippa’s churchings in 1348 and 1355. Although Philippa’s rooms were smaller and fewer in number than those of the king, the king and queen’s chambers were on the same level and their bedchambers close together, despite the facts that by the completion of Edward’s renovations, Philippa had already borne her last child in 1355. In comparison, the rooms that Jeanne de Bourbon (1338-78), wife of French king Charles V, occasionally stayed in at the Louvre palace were on the same level below that of her husband, although similar in size and shape. In their familial residences of St-Pol and Vincennes, Jeanne’s rooms were in an entirely different building, although with a connecting corridor at St-Pol. The difference in architecture may be attributable to their preferences or the relationships between the couples. Despite his changes to Windsor, during Edward’s reign, the layout of the queen’s rooms at palaces such as Westminster remained similar to their original design for Eleanor of Provence, wife of Henry III, at a distance from public areas. Likewise, at Kennington, Edward the Prince of Wales, built rooms for his wife [Joan of Kent] overlooking the gardens and away from the public areas, with no processional access and distanced from Edward’s rooms. The layout remained unchanged under Richard II and Anne of Bohemia. As Richard favoured this palace, perhaps because of the connection to his father, the unaltered states may have been sentimental rather than practical. However, the general changes in the principal royal residences, which had transformed the fortified castles of the twelfth century into more luxurious palaces by the fourteenth century, also reflect the increase in royal splendour under Edward III and Richard II. Although differences between the palace layouts represent general patterns in royal architecture, the layout of Windsor does suggest that Edward intended to live close to Philippa.”
— — Louise Tingle, Chaucer’s Queens: Royal Women, Intercession, and Patronage in England 1328-1394 (pages 22 and 23)
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