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John of Gaunt

John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster (6 March 1340 – 3 February 1399) was an English royal prince, military leader, and statesman. He was the third surviving son of King Edward III of England, and the father of King Henry IV. Due to Gaunt's royal origin, advantageous marriages, and some generous land grants, he was one of the richest men of his era, and was an influential figure during the reigns of both his father and his nephew, Richard II.[2][3] As Duke of Lancaster, he is the founder of the royal House of Lancaster, whose members would ascend the throne after his death. His birthplace, Ghent in Flanders, then known in English as Gaunt, was the origin of his name. When he became unpopular later in life, a scurrilous rumour circulated, along with lampoons, claiming that he was actually the son of a Ghent butcher. This rumour, which infuriated him, may have been inspired by the fact that Edward III had not been present at his birth.[4]

John of Gaunt
Duke of Lancaster
A portrait commissioned in c. 1593 by Sir Edward Hoby for Queenborough Castle, Kent, probably modelled on Gaunt's tomb effigy in Old St Paul's Cathedral.[1] His tabard shows the royal arms of Castile and León impaling his differenced Plantagenet arms, while on the shield Castile and León is shown as an inescutcheon of pretence, representing his claim to that kingdom by right of marriage to Constance of Castile.
Duke of Aquitaine
(as John II)
Reign2 March 1390 – 3 February 1399
PredecessorRichard II
King of Castile
(claimant)
Claimed29 January 1372 – 8 July 1388
Born6 March 1340
Saint Bavo's Abbey, Ghent, Flanders
Died3 February 1399 (aged 58)
Leicester Castle, Leicestershire, Kingdom of England
Burial15 March 1399
Spouses
(m. 1359; died 1368)
(m. 1371; died 1394)
(m. 1396)
Issue
more...
House
FatherEdward III of England
MotherPhilippa of Hainault
Military career
Allegiance Kingdom of England
Service1367–1388
Conflicts
Illustration of descent of John of Gaunt and of his first wife, Blanche of Lancaster, from King Henry III

John's early career was spent in France and Spain fighting in the Hundred Years' War. He made an abortive attempt to enforce a claim to the Crown of Castile that came through his second wife, Constance of Castile, and for a time styled himself as King of Castile. When Edward the Black Prince, Gaunt's elder brother and heir-apparent to the ageing Edward III, became incapacitated due to poor health, Gaunt assumed control of many government functions, and rose to become one of the most powerful political figures in England. He was faced with military difficulties abroad and political divisions at home, and disagreements as to how to deal with these crises led to tensions among Gaunt, the English Parliament, and the ruling class, making him an extremely unpopular figure for a time.

John exercised great influence over the English throne during the minority of King Richard II (Edward the Black Prince's son) and the ensuing periods of political strife. He mediated between the king and a group of rebellious nobles, which included Gaunt's own son and heir-apparent, Henry Bolingbroke.[5] Following Gaunt's death in 1399, his estates and titles were declared forfeit to the Crown, and his son Henry, now disinherited, was branded a traitor and exiled.[6] Henry returned from exile shortly after to reclaim his inheritance, and deposed Richard. He reigned as King Henry IV of England (1399–1413), the first of the descendants of John of Gaunt to hold the English throne.

All English monarchs from Henry IV onward are descended from John of Gaunt. His direct male line, the House of Lancaster, would rule England from 1399 until the time of the Wars of the Roses. Gaunt is also generally believed to have fathered five children outside marriage: one early in life by a lady-in-waiting to his mother;[citation needed] the others, surnamed Beaufort, by Katherine Swynford, his long-term mistress and third wife. They were later legitimised by royal and papal decrees, but this did not affect Henry IV's bar to their having a place in the line of succession. Through his daughter Joan Beaufort, Countess of Westmorland, he was an ancestor of the Yorkist kings Edward IV, Edward V and Richard III. Through his great-granddaughter Lady Margaret Beaufort he was also an ancestor of Henry VII, who married Edward IV's daughter Elizabeth of York, and all subsequent monarchs are descendants of their marriage. Two of John's daughters married into continental royal houses (those of Portugal and Castile). Through them, many royal families of Europe can trace lineage to him.

Early life Edit

 
Marriage of John of Gaunt to Blanche of Lancaster at Reading Abbey in 1359: painting by Horace Wright (1914)

John was the third surviving son of King Edward III of England. His first wife, Blanche of Lancaster, was also his third cousin; both were great-great-grandchildren of King Henry III. They married in 1359 at Reading Abbey as a part of the efforts of Edward III to arrange matches for his sons with wealthy heiresses. Upon the death of his father-in-law, the Duke of Lancaster, in 1361, John received half his lands, the title "Earl of Lancaster", and distinction as the greatest landowner in Northern England as heir of the Palatinate of Lancaster. He also became the 14th Baron of Halton and 11th Lord of Bowland. John inherited the rest of the Lancaster property when Blanche's sister Maud, Countess of Leicester (married to William V, Count of Hainaut), died without issue on 10 April 1362.

 
Kenilworth Castle, a massive fortress extensively modernised and given a new Great Hall by John of Gaunt after 1350

John received the title "Duke of Lancaster" from his father on 13 November 1362. By then well established, he owned at least thirty castles and estates across England and France and maintained a household comparable in scale and organisation to that of a monarch. He owned land in almost every county in England, a patrimony that produced a net income of between £8,000 and £10,000 a year,[7] equivalent in 2023 to c.£170 – 213 million in income value, or £3.5 – 4.4 billion in relation to gdp.[8]

Military commander Edit

Because of his rank, John of Gaunt was one of England's principal military commanders in the 1370s and 1380s, though his enterprises were never rewarded with the kind of dazzling success that had made his elder brother Edward the Black Prince such a charismatic war leader.

War in France Edit

On the resumption of war with France in 1369, John was sent to Calais with Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford and a small English army with which he raided into northern France. On 23 August, he was confronted by a much larger French army under Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy. Exercising his first command, John dared not attack such a superior force and the two armies faced each other across a marsh for several weeks until the English were reinforced by the Thomas de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, at which the French withdrew without offering battle. John and Warwick then decided to strike Harfleur, the base of the French fleet on the Seine. Further reinforced by German mercenaries, they marched on Harfleur, but were delayed by French guerilla operations while the town prepared for a siege. John invested the town for four days in October, but he was losing so many men to dysentery and bubonic plague that he decided to abandon the siege and return to Calais. During this retreat, the army had to fight its way across the Somme at the ford of Blanchetaque against a French army led by Hugh de Châtillon, who was captured and sold to Edward III. By the middle of November, the survivors of the sickly army returned to Calais, where the Earl of Warwick died of the plague. Though it seemed an inglorious conclusion to the campaign, John had forced the French king, Charles V, to abandon his plans to invade England that autumn.[9]

In the summer of 1370, John was sent with a small army to Aquitaine to reinforce his ailing elder brother, the Black Prince, and his younger brother Edmund of Langley, Duke of York, Earl of Cambridge. With them, he participated in the Siege of Limoges (September 1370). He took charge of the siege operations and at one point engaged in hand-to-hand fighting in the undermining tunnels.[10] After this event, the Black Prince gave John the lieutenancy of Aquitaine and sailed for England, leaving John in charge. Though he attempted to defend the duchy against French encroachment for nearly a year, lack of resources and money meant he could do little but husband what small territory the English still controlled, and he resigned the command in September 1371 and returned to England.[11] Just before leaving Aquitaine, he married the Infanta Constance of Castile in September 1371 at Roquefort, near Bordeaux, Guyenne. The following year he took part with his father, Edward III, in an abortive attempt to invade France with a large army, which was frustrated by three months of unfavourable winds.

Probably John's most notable feat of arms occurred in August–December 1373, when he attempted to relieve Aquitaine by the landward route, leading an army of some 9,000 mounted men from Calais on a great chevauchée from north-eastern to south-western France on a 900-kilometre raid. This four-month ride through enemy territory, evading French armies on the way, was a bold stroke that impressed contemporaries but achieved virtually nothing. Beset on all sides by French ambushes and plagued by disease and starvation, John of Gaunt and his raiders battled their way through Champagne, east of Paris, into Burgundy, across the Massif Central, and finally down into Dordogne. Unable to attack any strongly fortified forts and cities, the raiders plundered the countryside, which weakened the French infrastructure, but the military value of the damage was only temporary. Marching in winter across the Limousin plateau, with stragglers being picked off by the French, huge numbers of the army, and even larger numbers of horses, died of cold, disease or starvation. The army reached English-occupied Bordeaux on 24 December 1373, severely weakened in numbers with the loss of at least one-third of their force in action and another third to disease. Upon arrival in Bordeaux, many more succumbed to the bubonic plague that was raging in the city. Sick, demoralised and mutinous, the army was in no shape to defend Aquitaine, and soldiers began to desert. John had no funds with which to pay them, and despite his entreaties, none were sent from England, so in April 1374, he abandoned the enterprise and sailed for home.[12]

John's final campaign in France took place in 1378. He planned a 'great expedition' of mounted men in a large armada of ships to land at Brest and take control of Brittany. Not enough ships could be found to transport the horses, and the expedition was tasked with the more limited objective of capturing St. Malo. The English destroyed the shipping in St. Malo harbour and began to assault the town by land on 14 August, but John was soon hampered by the size of his army, which was unable to forage because French armies under Olivier de Clisson and Bertrand du Guesclin occupied the surrounding countryside, harrying the edges of his force. In September, the siege was simply abandoned and the army returned ingloriously to England. John of Gaunt received most of the blame for the debâcle.[13]

Partly as a result of these failures, and those of other English commanders at this period, John was one of the first important figures in England to conclude that the war with France was unwinnable because of France's greater resources of wealth and manpower. He began to advocate peace negotiations; indeed, as early as 1373, during his great raid through France, he made contact with Guillaume Roger, brother and political adviser of Pope Gregory XI, to let the pope know he would be interested in a diplomatic conference under papal auspices. This approach led indirectly to the Anglo-French Congress of Bruges in 1374–77, which resulted in the short-lived Truce of Bruges between the two sides.[14] John was himself a delegate to the various conferences that eventually resulted in the Truce of Leulinghem in 1389. The fact that he became identified with the attempts to make peace added to his unpopularity at a period when the majority of Englishmen believed victory would be in their grasp if only the French could be defeated decisively as they had been in the 1350s. Another motive was John's conviction that it was only by making peace with France would it be possible to release sufficient manpower to enforce his claim to the throne of Castile.

Succession to the throne Edit

After the death in 1376 of his older brother Edward of Woodstock (also known as the "Black Prince"), John of Gaunt contrived to protect the religious reformer John Wycliffe,[15] possibly to counteract the growing secular power of the church. However, John's ascendancy to political power coincided with widespread resentment of his influence. At a time when English forces encountered setbacks in the Hundred Years' War against France, and Edward III's rule was becoming unpopular due to high taxation and his affair with Alice Perrers, political opinion closely associated the Duke of Lancaster with the failing government of the 1370s. Furthermore, while King Edward and the Prince of Wales were popular heroes due to their successes on the battlefield, John of Gaunt had not won equivalent military renown that could have bolstered his reputation. Although he fought in the Battle of Nájera (1367), for example, his later military projects proved unsuccessful.

When Edward III died in 1377 and John's ten-year-old nephew succeeded as Richard II of England, John's influence strengthened. However, mistrust remained, and some[who?] suspected him of wanting to seize the throne himself. John took pains to ensure that he never became associated with the opposition to Richard's kingship.[16] As de facto ruler during Richard's minority, he made unwise decisions on taxation that led to the Peasants' Revolt in 1381, when the rebels destroyed his home in London, the Savoy Palace. Unlike some of Richard's unpopular advisors, John was away from London at the time of the uprising and thus avoided the direct wrath of the rebels.

In 1386 John left England to seek the throne of Castile, claimed in jure uxoris by right of his second wife, Constance of Castile, whom he had married in 1371. However, crisis ensued almost immediately in his absence, and in 1387 King Richard's misrule brought England to the brink of civil war. John had to give up on his ambitions in Spain and hurry back to England in 1389. Only John's intervention in the political crisis succeeded in persuading the Lords Appellant and King Richard to compromise to usher in a period of relative stability. During the 1390s, John's reputation of devotion to the well-being of the kingdom was largely restored.

Marriages and family Edit

John was married three times. His first wife, Blanche of Lancaster, was also his third cousin; both were great-great-grandchildren of King Henry III. They married in 1359 at Reading Abbey. They had seven children; only three survived to adulthood.

After Blanche's death in 1368, shortly after the birth of her last child, John married, in 1371, Infanta Constance of Castile, daughter of King Peter of Castile, giving him a claim to the Crown of Castile. They had one daughter. Constance died in 1394.

During his second marriage, some time around 1373 (the approximate birth year of their eldest son, John Beaufort) John of Gaunt entered into an extra-marital love affair with Katherine Swynford, the daughter of an ordinary knight, which would produce four children for the couple. All of them were born out of wedlock, but were legitimised upon their parents' eventual marriage. The adulterous relationship endured until 1381, when it was ended out of political necessity.[17]

On 13 January 1396, two years after the death of Constance of Castile, Katherine and John of Gaunt married in Lincoln Cathedral. Their children were given the surname "Beaufort" after a former French possession of the duke. The Beaufort children, three sons and a daughter, were legitimised by royal and papal decrees after John and Katherine married. A later proviso that they were specifically barred from inheriting the throne—the phrase excepta regali dignitate ("except royal status")—was inserted with dubious authority by their half-brother Henry IV.

Regent Edit

Head of government Edit

On his return from France in 1374, John took a more decisive and persistent role in the direction of English foreign policy. From then until 1377, he was effectively the head of the English government due to the illness of his father and elder brother, who were unable to exercise authority. His vast estates made him the richest man in England, and his great wealth, ostentatious display of it, autocratic manner and attitudes, enormous London mansion (the Savoy Palace on the Strand) and association with the failed peace process at Bruges combined to make him the most visible target of social resentments. His time at the head of government was marked by the so-called Good Parliament of 1376 and the Bad Parliament of 1377. The first, called to grant massive war taxation to the Crown, turned into a parliamentary revolution, with the Commons (supported to some extent by the Lords) venting their grievances at decades of crippling taxation, misgovernment, and suspected endemic corruption among the ruling classes. John was left isolated (even the Black Prince supported the need for reform) and the Commons refused to grant money for the war unless most of the great officers of state were dismissed and the king's mistress Alice Perrers, another focus of popular resentment, was barred from any further association with him. But even after the government acceded to virtually all their demands, the Commons then refused to authorise any funds for the war, losing the sympathy of the Lords as a result.

The death of the Black Prince on 8 June 1376 and the onset of Edward III's last illness at the closing of Parliament on 10 July left John with all the reins of power. He immediately had the ailing king grant pardons to all the officials impeached by the Parliament; Alice Perrers too was reinstated at the heart of the king's household. John impeached William of Wykeham and other leaders of the reform movement, and secured their conviction on old or trumped-up charges. The parliament of 1377 was John's counter-coup: crucially, the Lords no longer supported the Commons and John was able to have most of the acts of 1376 annulled. He also succeeded in forcing the Commons to agree to the imposition of the first poll tax in English history—a viciously regressive measure that bore hardest on the poorest members of society.[18] There was organised opposition to his measures and rioting in London; John of Gaunt's arms were reversed or defaced wherever they were displayed, and protestors pasted up lampoons on his supposedly dubious birth. At one point he was forced to take refuge across the Thames, while his Savoy Palace only just escaped looting.[19] It was rumoured (and believed by many people in England and France) that he intended to seize the throne for himself and supplant the rightful heir, his nephew Richard, the son of the Black Prince, but there seems to have been no truth in this and on the death of Edward III and the accession of the child Richard II, John sought no position of regency for himself and withdrew to his estates.[20]

John's personal unpopularity persisted, however, and the failure of his expedition to Saint-Malo in 1378 did nothing for his reputation. By this time, too, some of his possessions were taken from him by the Crown. For example, his ship, the Dieulagarde, was seized and bundled with other royal ships to be sold to pay off the debts of Sir Robert de Crull, who during the latter part of King Edward III's reign had been the Clerk of the King's Ships, and had advanced monies to pay for the king's ships.[21] During the Peasants' Revolt of 1381, John of Gaunt was far from the centre of events, on the March of Scotland, but he was among those named by the rebels as a traitor to be beheaded as soon as he could be found. The Savoy Palace was systematically destroyed by the mob and burned to the ground. Nominally friendly lords and even his own fortresses closed their gates to him, and John was forced to flee into Scotland with a handful of retainers and throw himself on the charity of King Robert II of Scotland until the crisis was over.[22]

King of Castile Edit

Upon his marriage to Constance of Castile in 1371, John assumed (officially from 29 January 1372) the title of King of Castile and León in right of his wife, and insisted his fellow English nobles henceforth address him as "my lord of Spain".[23] He impaled his arms with those of the Spanish kingdom. From 1372, John gathered around himself a small court of refugee Castilian knights and ladies and set up a Castilian chancery that prepared documents in his name according to the style of Peter of Castile, dated by the Castilian era and signed by himself with the Spanish formula "Yo El Rey" ("I, the King").[24] He hatched several schemes to make good his claim with an army, but for many years these were still-born due to lack of finance or the conflicting claims of war in France or with Scotland.

It was only in 1386, after Portugal under its new King John I had entered into a full alliance with England, that he was actually able to land with an army in Spain and mount a campaign for the throne of Castile (that ultimately failed). John sailed from England on 9 July 1386 with a huge Anglo-Portuguese fleet carrying an army of about 5,000 men plus an extensive "royal" household and his wife and daughters. Pausing on the journey to use his army to drive off the French forces who were then besieging Brest, he landed at Corunna in northern Spain on 29 July.

 
John of Gaunt dines with John I of Portugal, to discuss a joint Anglo-Portuguese invasion of Castile (from Jean de Wavrin's Chronique d'Angleterre)

The Castilian king, John of Trastámara, had expected John would land in Portugal and had concentrated his forces on the Portuguese border. He was wrong-footed by John's decision to invade Galicia, the most distant and disaffected of Castile's kingdoms. From August to October, John of Gaunt set up a rudimentary court and chancery at Ourense and received the submission of the Galician nobility and most of the towns of Galicia, though they made their homage to him conditional on his being recognised as king by the rest of Castile. While John of Gaunt had gambled on an early decisive battle, the Castilians were in no hurry to join battle, and he began to experience difficulties keeping his army together and paying it. In November, he met King John I of Portugal at Ponte do Mouro on the south side of the Minho river and concluded an agreement with him to make a joint Anglo-Portuguese invasion of central Castile early in 1387. The treaty was sealed by the marriage of John's eldest daughter Philippa to the Portuguese king. A large part of John's army had succumbed to sickness, however, and when the invasion was mounted, they were far outnumbered by their Portuguese allies. The campaign of April–June 1387 was an ignominious failure. The Castilians refused to offer battle and the Galician-Anglo-Portuguese troops, apart from time-wasting sieges of fortified towns, were reduced to foraging for food in the arid Spanish landscape. They were harried mainly by French mercenaries of the Castilian king. Many hundreds of English, including close friends and retainers of John of Gaunt, died of disease or exhaustion. Many deserted or abandoned the army to ride north under French safe conducts. Shortly after the army returned to Portugal, John of Gaunt concluded a secret treaty with John of Trastámara under which he and his wife renounced all claim to the Castilian throne in return for a large annual payment and the marriage of their daughter Catherine to John of Trastámara's son, Henry.

Duke of Aquitaine Edit

John left Portugal for Aquitaine, and he remained in that province until he returned to England in November 1389. This effectively kept him off the scene while England endured the major political crisis of the conflict between Richard II and the Lords Appellant, who were led by John of Gaunt's younger brother Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester. Only four months after his return to England, in March 1390, Richard II formally invested Gaunt with the Duchy of Aquitaine, thus providing him with the overseas territory he had long desired. However, he did not immediately return to the province, but remained in England and mainly ruled through seneschals as an absentee duke. His administration of the province was a disappointment, and his appointment as duke was much resented by the Gascons, since Aquitaine had previously always been held directly by the king of England or his heir; it was not felt to be a fief that a king could bestow on a subordinate.[citation needed]

From 1394 through 1395, he was forced to spend nearly a year in Gascony to shore up his position in the face of threats of secession by the Gascon nobles. He was one of England's principal negotiators in the diplomatic exchanges with France that led to the Truce of Leulinghem in 1396, and he initially agreed to join the French-led Crusade that ended in the disastrous Battle of Nicopolis, but withdrew due to ill-health and the political problems in Gascony and England.[25]

For the remainder of his life, John of Gaunt occupied the role of valued counsellor of the king and loyal supporter of the Crown. He did not even protest, it seems, when his younger brother Thomas was murdered at Richard's behest. It may be that he felt he had to maintain this posture of loyalty to protect his son Henry Bolingbroke (the future Henry IV), who had also been one of the Lords Appellant, from Richard's wrath; but, in 1398, Richard had Bolingbroke exiled, and on John of Gaunt's death the next year he disinherited Bolingbroke completely, seizing John's vast estates for the Crown.[citation needed]

Relationship with Geoffrey Chaucer Edit

John of Gaunt was a patron and close friend of the poet Geoffrey Chaucer, best known for his work The Canterbury Tales. Near the end of their lives, Lancaster and Chaucer became brothers-in-law. Chaucer married Philippa (Pan) de Roet in 1366, and Lancaster took his mistress of nearly 30 years, Katherine Swynford (de Roet), who was Philippa Chaucer's sister, as his third wife in 1396. Although Philippa died c. 1387, the men were bound as brothers and Lancaster's children by Katherine—John, Henry, Thomas and Joan Beaufort—were Chaucer's nephews and niece.

Chaucer's The Book of the Duchess, also known as the Deeth of Blaunche the Duchesse,[26] was written in commemoration of Blanche of Lancaster, John of Gaunt's first wife. The poem refers to John and Blanche in allegory as the narrator relates the tale of "A long castel with walles white/Be Seynt Johan, on a ryche hil" (1318–1319) who is mourning grievously after the death of his love, "And goode faire White she het/That was my lady name ryght" (948–949). The phrase "long castel" is a reference to Lancaster (also called "Loncastel" and "Longcastell"), "walles white" is thought to likely be an oblique reference to Blanche, "Seynt Johan" was John of Gaunt's name-saint, and "ryche hil" is a reference to Richmond; these thinly veiled references reveal the identity of the grieving black knight of the poem as John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster and Earl of Richmond. "White" is the English translation of the French word "blanche", implying that the white lady was Blanche of Lancaster.[27]

Believed to have been written in the 1390s, Chaucer's short poem Fortune, is also inferred to directly reference Lancaster.[28][29] "Chaucer as narrator" openly defies Fortune, proclaiming he has learned who his enemies are through her tyranny and deceit, and declares "my suffisaunce" (15) and that "over himself hath the maystrye" (14). Fortune, in turn, does not understand Chaucer's harsh words to her for she believes she has been kind to him, claims that he does not know what she has in store for him in the future, but most importantly, "And eek thou hast thy beste frend alyve" (32, 40, 48). Chaucer retorts that "My frend maystow nat reven, blind goddesse" (50) and orders her to take away those who merely pretend to be his friends. Fortune turns her attention to three princes whom she implores to relieve Chaucer of his pain and "Preyeth his beste frend of his noblesse/That to som beter estat he may atteyne" (78–79). The three princes are believed to represent the dukes of Lancaster, York, and Gloucester, and a portion of line 76, "as three of you or tweyne," to refer to the ordinance of 1390 which specified that no royal gift could be authorised without the consent of at least two of the three dukes.[30] Most conspicuous in this short poem is the number of references to Chaucer's "beste frend". Fortune states three times in her response to the plaintiff, "And also, you still have your best friend alive" (32, 40, 48); she also references his "beste frend" in the envoy when appealing to his "noblesse" to help Chaucer to a higher estate. A fifth reference is made by "Chaucer as narrator" who rails at Fortune that she shall not take his friend from him. While the envoy playfully hints to Lancaster that Chaucer would certainly appreciate a boost to his status or income, the poem Fortune distinctively shows his deep appreciation and affection for John of Gaunt.

Death Edit

 
The tomb of Gaunt and Blanche of Lancaster in St. Paul's Cathedral, as represented in an etching of 1658 by Wenceslaus Hollar. The etching includes a number of inaccuracies, for example in not showing the couple with joined hands.

John of Gaunt died of natural causes on 3 February 1399 at Leicester Castle, with his third wife Katherine by his side.

He was buried beside his first wife, Blanche of Lancaster, in the choir of St Paul's Cathedral, adjacent to the high altar. Their magnificent tomb had been designed and executed between 1374 and 1380 by Henry Yevele with the assistance of Thomas Wrek, at a total cost of £592. The two alabaster effigies were notable for having their right hands joined. An adjacent chantry chapel was added between 1399 and 1403.[31][32] The monument was severely damaged, and perhaps destroyed, during the period of the Interregnum (1649–1660); and anything that survived was lost (with the rest of the cathedral) in the Great Fire of London of 1666.[31] A wall memorial in the crypt of the present cathedral lists Gaunt's as among the important lost monuments.

Family Edit

Marriages Edit

 
John with his first wife, Blanche of Lancaster, in a 15th-century family tree of his great-grandson, Henry VI

Children Edit

 
1640 drawing of tombs of Katherine Swynford and daughter Joan Beaufort, Countess of Westmorland, in Lincoln Cathedral
 
Queen Mary I of England and her husband, Philip II of Spain: both were descended from John of Gaunt

Titles and arms Edit

Titles and styles Edit

Arms Edit

 
Coat of arms of John of Gaunt asserting his kingship over Castile and León, showing the royal arms of Castile and León impaling his paternal arms (the royal arms of England), with his heraldic difference. Later in his life the two sides were reversed.

As a son of the sovereign, John bore the royal arms of the kingdom (Quarterly, France Ancient and England), differenced by a label of three points ermine.[40]

As claimant to the throne of Castile and León from 1372, he impaled the arms of that kingdom (Gules, a castle or, quartering Argent, a lion rampant purpure) with his own. The arms of Castile and León appeared on the dexter side of the shield (the left-hand side as viewed), and the differenced English royal arms on the sinister; but in 1388, when he surrendered his claim, he reversed this marshalling, placing his own arms on the dexter, and those of Castile and León on the sinister.[41] He thus continued to signal his alliance with the Castilian royal house, while abandoning any claim to the throne. There is, however, evidence that he may occasionally have used this second marshalling at earlier dates.[42]

In addition to his royal arms, Gaunt bore an alternative coat of Sable, three ostrich feathers ermine. This was the counterpart to his brother, the Black Prince's, "shield for peace" (on which the ostrich feathers were white), and may have been used in jousting. The ostrich feather arms appeared in stained glass above Gaunt's chantry chapel in St Paul's Cathedral.[43]

Legacy Edit

John of Gaunt is a character in William Shakespeare's play Richard II. Shortly before he dies, he makes a speech that includes the lines (in Act 2, scene i, around line 40) "This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle, This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars ... This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England". He is also referred to by Falstaff in Henry IV Part I (in Act 2, scene ii).

Hungerford in Berkshire has ancient links to the Duchy, the manor becoming part of John of Gaunt's estate in 1362 before James I passed ownership to two local men in 1612 (which subsequently became Town & Manor of Hungerford Charity). The links are visible today in the Town & Manor-owned John O'Gaunt Inn on Bridge Street,[44] and John O'Gaunt School on Priory Road.[45]

The John of Gaunt School on Wingfield Road in Trowbridge, Wiltshire,[46] is built upon land that he once owned.

Family Ancestry Edit

References Edit

  1. ^ Harris 2010, p. 16.
  2. ^ Death of John of Gaunt, Richard Cavendish explains the life and death of Henry IV's father, on February 3rd, 1399
  3. ^ John of Gaunt: Son of One King, Father of Another, Kathryn Warner, Amberley Publishing, 2022
  4. ^ Sumption, J. (19 March 2009). The Hundred Years War 3: Divided Houses. London: Faber & Faber. p. 274. ISBN 978-0-571-13897-5.
  5. ^ "John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster". Britannica.com. 21 March 1999.
  6. ^ Given-Wilson, Chris, ed. (2005). "Richard II: September 1397". British History Online. Parliament Rolls of Medieval England. Ass. ed. by Paul Brand, J. R. S. Phillips, Mark Ormrod, Geoffrey Martin, Anne Curry, & Rosemary Horrox. Retrieved 8 June 2013.
  7. ^ Sumption 2009, p. 3.
  8. ^ Five Ways to Compute the Relative Value of a UK Pound Amount, 1270 to Present, www.measuringworth.com
  9. ^ Sumption 2009, pp. 38–69.
  10. ^ Sumption 2009, p. 82.
  11. ^ Sumption 2009, pp. 69–108.
  12. ^ Sumption 2009, pp. 187–202.
  13. ^ Sumption 2009, pp. 325–327.
  14. ^ Sumption 2009, pp. 212–213.
  15. ^ "British History in depth: Black Death: Political and Social Changes". BBC. 17 February 2011. Retrieved 28 April 2020. However, John of Gaunt literally stood by him in court, causing the trial to break up in confusion.
  16. ^ "Edward III | king of England".
  17. ^ Weir, Alison (2008). Katherine Swynford: the story of John of Gaunt and his scandalous duchess. London.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  18. ^ Sumption 2009, p. 271.
  19. ^ Sumption 2009, p. 274.
  20. ^ Sumption 2009, pp. 213, 283–284.
  21. ^ Sherborne, James (1 July 1994). Anthony Tuck (ed.). War, Politics and Culture in 14th Century England. London: Hambledon Press. p. 32. ISBN 978-1-85285-086-9. The former title for "Clerk of the King's Ships" had been "Keeper and Governor of the King's Ships and Warden of the Sea and Maritime Parts". Crull had served Edward III in this capacity from 6 October 1359 to 22 September 1378. Rodger, N. (1997). The Safeguard of the Sea: A Naval History of Britain, 660–1649. London: HarperCollins. p. 99. ISBN 978-0-00-255128-1.
  22. ^ Sumption 2009, pp. 425–426.
  23. ^ Plea Rolls of the Court of Common Pleas; National Archives; CP 40/541; year 1396. Several entries, as Duke of Aquitaine & Lancaster; and as King of Castile and Duke of Lancaster
  24. ^ Sumption 2009, pp. 122–123.
  25. ^ Sumption 2009, p. 829.
  26. ^ Chaucer, Geoffrey (1984). "The Legend of Good Women". In Benson, L. D.; Robinson, F. N. (eds.). The Riverside Chaucer. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. p. 600. ISBN 0-395-29031-7.
  27. ^ Wilcockson, Colin (1987). "Explanatory Notes on 'The Book of the Duchess'". In Benson, L. D.; Robinson, F. N. (eds.). The Riverside Chaucer. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. pp. 966–976. ISBN 0-395-29031-7.
  28. ^ Gross, Zaila (1987). "Introduction to the Short Poems". In Benson, L. D.; Robinson, F. N. (eds.). The Riverside Chaucer. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. p. 635. ISBN 0-395-29031-7.
  29. ^ Williams, G. G. (1965). A New View of Chaucer. Durham: Duke University Press. p. 55.
  30. ^ Gross 1987, p. 635.
  31. ^ a b Harris, Oliver D. (2010). "'Une tresriche sepulture': the tomb and chantry of John of Gaunt and Blanche of Lancaster in Old St Paul's Cathedral, London". Church Monuments. 25: 7–35.
  32. ^ Sinclair, William (1909). Memorials of St Paul's Cathedral. London: Chapman & Hall. p. 95.
  33. ^ Dame Blanche Morieux in Armitage-Smith 1904, pp. 460–461
  34. ^ Weir, A. (2007). Katherine Swynford: The Story of John of Gaunt and his Scandalous Duchess. London: Jonathan Cape. p. 43. ISBN 978-0-224-06321-0.
  35. ^ Billson, C. (1920). Mediaeval Leicester . Leicester.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  36. ^ Leese, Thelma Anna (1996). Blood royal: issue of the kings and queens of medieval England, 1066–1399. Heritage Books. p. 219.
  37. ^ Leese 1996, p. 222.
  38. ^ McNeill, Ronald John (1911). "Richmond, Earls and Dukes of". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 23 (11th ed.). p. 306.
  39. ^ Sumption 2009, p. 718.
  40. ^ Velde, Francois R. "Marks of cadency in the British royal family". www.heraldica.org.
  41. ^ Armitage-Smith, Sydney (1904). John of Gaunt. Westminster: Archibald Constable & Co. pp. 456–57.
  42. ^ Fox, Paul A. (2009). "Fourteenth-century ordinaries of Arms. Part 2: William Jenyns' Ordinary". Coat of Arms. 3rd ser. 5: 55–64. (pp. 59, 61, pl. 2)
  43. ^ Harris 2010, pp. 22–3.
  44. ^ "John O'Gaunt Inn, Hungerford".
  45. ^ "John O'Gaunt School, Hungerford".
  46. ^ "John O'Gaunt School, Trowbridge".
  47. ^ a b c d e f g h i Armitage-Smith, Sydney (1905). John of Gaunt: King of Castile and Leon, Duke of Aquitaine and Lancaster, Earl of Derby, Lincoln, and Leicester, Seneschal of England. Charles Scribner's Sons. p. 21. Retrieved 8 October 2018.
  48. ^ a b c d e f g h i von Redlich, Marcellus Donald R. Pedigrees of Some of the Emperor Charlemagne's Descendants. Vol. I. p. 64.
  49. ^ a b c d Weir, Alison (1999). Britain's Royal Families: The Complete Genealogy. London: The Bodley Head. pp. 75, 92.
  50. ^ a b c d Anselme de Sainte-Marie, Père (1726). Histoire généalogique et chronologique de la maison royale de France [Genealogical and chronological history of the royal house of France] (in French). Vol. 1 (3rd ed.). Paris: La compagnie des libraires. pp. 87–88.}
  51. ^ a b Anselme 1726, pp. 381–382

Further reading Edit

  • Carr, Helen (2021). The Red Prince: the life of John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster. London: Oneworld. ISBN 9780861540822.
  • Cantor, Norman F. (2004). The Last Knight: the Twilight of the Middle Ages and the Birth of the Modern Era. New York: Free Press. ISBN 0743226887.
  • Goodman, Anthony (1992). John of Gaunt: the Exercise of Princely Power in Fourteenth-Century Europe. Harlow: Longman. ISBN 0582098130.
  • Green, V. H. H. (1955). The Later Plantagenets: a Survey of English History 1307–1485. London: Edward Arnold.
  • Nicolle, David (2011). The Great Chevauchée: John of Gaunt's Raid on France 1373. Raid. Vol. 20. Oxford: Osprey. ISBN 978-1-84908-247-1.
  • Walker, Simon (1990). The Lancastrian Affinity, 1361–1399. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN 0198201745.
  • Walker, Simon (2008) [2004]. "John [John of Gaunt], duke of Aquitaine and duke of Lancaster, styled king of Castile and León (1340–1399)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/14843. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)

External links Edit

John of Gaunt
Born: 6 March 1340 Died: 3 February 1399
Peerage of England
New creation Duke of Lancaster
2nd creation
1362–1399
Succeeded by
Preceded by Earl of Leicester
Earl of Lancaster
Earl of Derby

1361–1399
Preceded by Earl of Richmond
29 September 1342 – 25 June 1372
Succeeded by
French nobility
Preceded by Duke of Aquitaine
1390–1399
Succeeded by
Political offices
Preceded by Lord High Steward
1362–1399
Succeeded by
Titles in pretence
Preceded byas unopposed king — DISPUTED —
King of Castile
1372–1388
Succeeded byas unopposed king

john, gaunt, this, article, needs, additional, citations, verification, please, help, improve, this, article, adding, citations, reliable, sources, unsourced, material, challenged, removed, find, sources, news, newspapers, books, scholar, jstor, december, 2022. This article needs additional citations for verification Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources Unsourced material may be challenged and removed Find sources John of Gaunt news newspapers books scholar JSTOR December 2022 Learn how and when to remove this template message This article is about the historical figure For places and organisations named after him see John O Gaunt John of Gaunt Duke of Lancaster 6 March 1340 3 February 1399 was an English royal prince military leader and statesman He was the third surviving son of King Edward III of England and the father of King Henry IV Due to Gaunt s royal origin advantageous marriages and some generous land grants he was one of the richest men of his era and was an influential figure during the reigns of both his father and his nephew Richard II 2 3 As Duke of Lancaster he is the founder of the royal House of Lancaster whose members would ascend the throne after his death His birthplace Ghent in Flanders then known in English as Gaunt was the origin of his name When he became unpopular later in life a scurrilous rumour circulated along with lampoons claiming that he was actually the son of a Ghent butcher This rumour which infuriated him may have been inspired by the fact that Edward III had not been present at his birth 4 John of GauntDuke of LancasterA portrait commissioned in c 1593 by Sir Edward Hoby for Queenborough Castle Kent probably modelled on Gaunt s tomb effigy in Old St Paul s Cathedral 1 His tabard shows the royal arms of Castile and Leon impaling his differenced Plantagenet arms while on the shield Castile and Leon is shown as an inescutcheon of pretence representing his claim to that kingdom by right of marriage to Constance of Castile Duke of Aquitaine as John II Reign2 March 1390 3 February 1399PredecessorRichard IIKing of Castile claimant Claimed29 January 1372 8 July 1388Born6 March 1340Saint Bavo s Abbey Ghent FlandersDied3 February 1399 aged 58 Leicester Castle Leicestershire Kingdom of EnglandBurial15 March 1399St Paul s Cathedral LondonSpousesBlanche of Lancaster m 1359 died 1368 wbr Constance of Castile m 1371 died 1394 wbr Katherine Swynford m 1396 wbr Issuemore Philippa Queen of Portugal Elizabeth Duchess of Exeter Henry IV of England John Beaufort 1st Earl of Somerset Catherine Queen of Castile Henry Beaufort Thomas Beaufort Duke of Exeter Joan Beaufort Countess of WestmorlandHousePlantagenet by birth Lancaster founder FatherEdward III of EnglandMotherPhilippa of HainaultMilitary careerAllegianceKingdom of EnglandService1367 1388ConflictsHundred Years War Siege of Limoges 1370 John of Gaunt s chevauchee of 1373 Siege of Saint Malo 1378 Castilian Civil War Battle of Najera 1367 Illustration of descent of John of Gaunt and of his first wife Blanche of Lancaster from King Henry IIIJohn s early career was spent in France and Spain fighting in the Hundred Years War He made an abortive attempt to enforce a claim to the Crown of Castile that came through his second wife Constance of Castile and for a time styled himself as King of Castile When Edward the Black Prince Gaunt s elder brother and heir apparent to the ageing Edward III became incapacitated due to poor health Gaunt assumed control of many government functions and rose to become one of the most powerful political figures in England He was faced with military difficulties abroad and political divisions at home and disagreements as to how to deal with these crises led to tensions among Gaunt the English Parliament and the ruling class making him an extremely unpopular figure for a time John exercised great influence over the English throne during the minority of King Richard II Edward the Black Prince s son and the ensuing periods of political strife He mediated between the king and a group of rebellious nobles which included Gaunt s own son and heir apparent Henry Bolingbroke 5 Following Gaunt s death in 1399 his estates and titles were declared forfeit to the Crown and his son Henry now disinherited was branded a traitor and exiled 6 Henry returned from exile shortly after to reclaim his inheritance and deposed Richard He reigned as King Henry IV of England 1399 1413 the first of the descendants of John of Gaunt to hold the English throne All English monarchs from Henry IV onward are descended from John of Gaunt His direct male line the House of Lancaster would rule England from 1399 until the time of the Wars of the Roses Gaunt is also generally believed to have fathered five children outside marriage one early in life by a lady in waiting to his mother citation needed the others surnamed Beaufort by Katherine Swynford his long term mistress and third wife They were later legitimised by royal and papal decrees but this did not affect Henry IV s bar to their having a place in the line of succession Through his daughter Joan Beaufort Countess of Westmorland he was an ancestor of the Yorkist kings Edward IV Edward V and Richard III Through his great granddaughter Lady Margaret Beaufort he was also an ancestor of Henry VII who married Edward IV s daughter Elizabeth of York and all subsequent monarchs are descendants of their marriage Two of John s daughters married into continental royal houses those of Portugal and Castile Through them many royal families of Europe can trace lineage to him Contents 1 Early life 2 Military commander 2 1 War in France 3 Succession to the throne 4 Marriages and family 5 Regent 5 1 Head of government 6 King of Castile 7 Duke of Aquitaine 8 Relationship with Geoffrey Chaucer 9 Death 10 Family 10 1 Marriages 10 2 Children 11 Titles and arms 11 1 Titles and styles 11 2 Arms 12 Legacy 13 Family Ancestry 14 References 15 Further reading 16 External linksEarly life EditThis section needs additional citations for verification Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources in this section Unsourced material may be challenged and removed Find sources John of Gaunt news newspapers books scholar JSTOR March 2020 Learn how and when to remove this template message nbsp Marriage of John of Gaunt to Blanche of Lancaster at Reading Abbey in 1359 painting by Horace Wright 1914 John was the third surviving son of King Edward III of England His first wife Blanche of Lancaster was also his third cousin both were great great grandchildren of King Henry III They married in 1359 at Reading Abbey as a part of the efforts of Edward III to arrange matches for his sons with wealthy heiresses Upon the death of his father in law the Duke of Lancaster in 1361 John received half his lands the title Earl of Lancaster and distinction as the greatest landowner in Northern England as heir of the Palatinate of Lancaster He also became the 14th Baron of Halton and 11th Lord of Bowland John inherited the rest of the Lancaster property when Blanche s sister Maud Countess of Leicester married to William V Count of Hainaut died without issue on 10 April 1362 nbsp Kenilworth Castle a massive fortress extensively modernised and given a new Great Hall by John of Gaunt after 1350John received the title Duke of Lancaster from his father on 13 November 1362 By then well established he owned at least thirty castles and estates across England and France and maintained a household comparable in scale and organisation to that of a monarch He owned land in almost every county in England a patrimony that produced a net income of between 8 000 and 10 000 a year 7 equivalent in 2023 to c 170 213 million in income value or 3 5 4 4 billion in relation to gdp 8 Military commander EditBecause of his rank John of Gaunt was one of England s principal military commanders in the 1370s and 1380s though his enterprises were never rewarded with the kind of dazzling success that had made his elder brother Edward the Black Prince such a charismatic war leader War in France Edit On the resumption of war with France in 1369 John was sent to Calais with Humphrey de Bohun Earl of Hereford and a small English army with which he raided into northern France On 23 August he was confronted by a much larger French army under Philip the Bold Duke of Burgundy Exercising his first command John dared not attack such a superior force and the two armies faced each other across a marsh for several weeks until the English were reinforced by the Thomas de Beauchamp Earl of Warwick at which the French withdrew without offering battle John and Warwick then decided to strike Harfleur the base of the French fleet on the Seine Further reinforced by German mercenaries they marched on Harfleur but were delayed by French guerilla operations while the town prepared for a siege John invested the town for four days in October but he was losing so many men to dysentery and bubonic plague that he decided to abandon the siege and return to Calais During this retreat the army had to fight its way across the Somme at the ford of Blanchetaque against a French army led by Hugh de Chatillon who was captured and sold to Edward III By the middle of November the survivors of the sickly army returned to Calais where the Earl of Warwick died of the plague Though it seemed an inglorious conclusion to the campaign John had forced the French king Charles V to abandon his plans to invade England that autumn 9 In the summer of 1370 John was sent with a small army to Aquitaine to reinforce his ailing elder brother the Black Prince and his younger brother Edmund of Langley Duke of York Earl of Cambridge With them he participated in the Siege of Limoges September 1370 He took charge of the siege operations and at one point engaged in hand to hand fighting in the undermining tunnels 10 After this event the Black Prince gave John the lieutenancy of Aquitaine and sailed for England leaving John in charge Though he attempted to defend the duchy against French encroachment for nearly a year lack of resources and money meant he could do little but husband what small territory the English still controlled and he resigned the command in September 1371 and returned to England 11 Just before leaving Aquitaine he married the Infanta Constance of Castile in September 1371 at Roquefort near Bordeaux Guyenne The following year he took part with his father Edward III in an abortive attempt to invade France with a large army which was frustrated by three months of unfavourable winds Probably John s most notable feat of arms occurred in August December 1373 when he attempted to relieve Aquitaine by the landward route leading an army of some 9 000 mounted men from Calais on a great chevauchee from north eastern to south western France on a 900 kilometre raid This four month ride through enemy territory evading French armies on the way was a bold stroke that impressed contemporaries but achieved virtually nothing Beset on all sides by French ambushes and plagued by disease and starvation John of Gaunt and his raiders battled their way through Champagne east of Paris into Burgundy across the Massif Central and finally down into Dordogne Unable to attack any strongly fortified forts and cities the raiders plundered the countryside which weakened the French infrastructure but the military value of the damage was only temporary Marching in winter across the Limousin plateau with stragglers being picked off by the French huge numbers of the army and even larger numbers of horses died of cold disease or starvation The army reached English occupied Bordeaux on 24 December 1373 severely weakened in numbers with the loss of at least one third of their force in action and another third to disease Upon arrival in Bordeaux many more succumbed to the bubonic plague that was raging in the city Sick demoralised and mutinous the army was in no shape to defend Aquitaine and soldiers began to desert John had no funds with which to pay them and despite his entreaties none were sent from England so in April 1374 he abandoned the enterprise and sailed for home 12 John s final campaign in France took place in 1378 He planned a great expedition of mounted men in a large armada of ships to land at Brest and take control of Brittany Not enough ships could be found to transport the horses and the expedition was tasked with the more limited objective of capturing St Malo The English destroyed the shipping in St Malo harbour and began to assault the town by land on 14 August but John was soon hampered by the size of his army which was unable to forage because French armies under Olivier de Clisson and Bertrand du Guesclin occupied the surrounding countryside harrying the edges of his force In September the siege was simply abandoned and the army returned ingloriously to England John of Gaunt received most of the blame for the debacle 13 Partly as a result of these failures and those of other English commanders at this period John was one of the first important figures in England to conclude that the war with France was unwinnable because of France s greater resources of wealth and manpower He began to advocate peace negotiations indeed as early as 1373 during his great raid through France he made contact with Guillaume Roger brother and political adviser of Pope Gregory XI to let the pope know he would be interested in a diplomatic conference under papal auspices This approach led indirectly to the Anglo French Congress of Bruges in 1374 77 which resulted in the short lived Truce of Bruges between the two sides 14 John was himself a delegate to the various conferences that eventually resulted in the Truce of Leulinghem in 1389 The fact that he became identified with the attempts to make peace added to his unpopularity at a period when the majority of Englishmen believed victory would be in their grasp if only the French could be defeated decisively as they had been in the 1350s Another motive was John s conviction that it was only by making peace with France would it be possible to release sufficient manpower to enforce his claim to the throne of Castile Succession to the throne EditAfter the death in 1376 of his older brother Edward of Woodstock also known as the Black Prince John of Gaunt contrived to protect the religious reformer John Wycliffe 15 possibly to counteract the growing secular power of the church However John s ascendancy to political power coincided with widespread resentment of his influence At a time when English forces encountered setbacks in the Hundred Years War against France and Edward III s rule was becoming unpopular due to high taxation and his affair with Alice Perrers political opinion closely associated the Duke of Lancaster with the failing government of the 1370s Furthermore while King Edward and the Prince of Wales were popular heroes due to their successes on the battlefield John of Gaunt had not won equivalent military renown that could have bolstered his reputation Although he fought in the Battle of Najera 1367 for example his later military projects proved unsuccessful When Edward III died in 1377 and John s ten year old nephew succeeded as Richard II of England John s influence strengthened However mistrust remained and some who suspected him of wanting to seize the throne himself John took pains to ensure that he never became associated with the opposition to Richard s kingship 16 As de facto ruler during Richard s minority he made unwise decisions on taxation that led to the Peasants Revolt in 1381 when the rebels destroyed his home in London the Savoy Palace Unlike some of Richard s unpopular advisors John was away from London at the time of the uprising and thus avoided the direct wrath of the rebels In 1386 John left England to seek the throne of Castile claimed in jure uxoris by right of his second wife Constance of Castile whom he had married in 1371 However crisis ensued almost immediately in his absence and in 1387 King Richard s misrule brought England to the brink of civil war John had to give up on his ambitions in Spain and hurry back to England in 1389 Only John s intervention in the political crisis succeeded in persuading the Lords Appellant and King Richard to compromise to usher in a period of relative stability During the 1390s John s reputation of devotion to the well being of the kingdom was largely restored Marriages and family EditJohn was married three times His first wife Blanche of Lancaster was also his third cousin both were great great grandchildren of King Henry III They married in 1359 at Reading Abbey They had seven children only three survived to adulthood After Blanche s death in 1368 shortly after the birth of her last child John married in 1371 Infanta Constance of Castile daughter of King Peter of Castile giving him a claim to the Crown of Castile They had one daughter Constance died in 1394 During his second marriage some time around 1373 the approximate birth year of their eldest son John Beaufort John of Gaunt entered into an extra marital love affair with Katherine Swynford the daughter of an ordinary knight which would produce four children for the couple All of them were born out of wedlock but were legitimised upon their parents eventual marriage The adulterous relationship endured until 1381 when it was ended out of political necessity 17 On 13 January 1396 two years after the death of Constance of Castile Katherine and John of Gaunt married in Lincoln Cathedral Their children were given the surname Beaufort after a former French possession of the duke The Beaufort children three sons and a daughter were legitimised by royal and papal decrees after John and Katherine married A later proviso that they were specifically barred from inheriting the throne the phrase excepta regali dignitate except royal status was inserted with dubious authority by their half brother Henry IV Regent EditHead of government Edit On his return from France in 1374 John took a more decisive and persistent role in the direction of English foreign policy From then until 1377 he was effectively the head of the English government due to the illness of his father and elder brother who were unable to exercise authority His vast estates made him the richest man in England and his great wealth ostentatious display of it autocratic manner and attitudes enormous London mansion the Savoy Palace on the Strand and association with the failed peace process at Bruges combined to make him the most visible target of social resentments His time at the head of government was marked by the so called Good Parliament of 1376 and the Bad Parliament of 1377 The first called to grant massive war taxation to the Crown turned into a parliamentary revolution with the Commons supported to some extent by the Lords venting their grievances at decades of crippling taxation misgovernment and suspected endemic corruption among the ruling classes John was left isolated even the Black Prince supported the need for reform and the Commons refused to grant money for the war unless most of the great officers of state were dismissed and the king s mistress Alice Perrers another focus of popular resentment was barred from any further association with him But even after the government acceded to virtually all their demands the Commons then refused to authorise any funds for the war losing the sympathy of the Lords as a result The death of the Black Prince on 8 June 1376 and the onset of Edward III s last illness at the closing of Parliament on 10 July left John with all the reins of power He immediately had the ailing king grant pardons to all the officials impeached by the Parliament Alice Perrers too was reinstated at the heart of the king s household John impeached William of Wykeham and other leaders of the reform movement and secured their conviction on old or trumped up charges The parliament of 1377 was John s counter coup crucially the Lords no longer supported the Commons and John was able to have most of the acts of 1376 annulled He also succeeded in forcing the Commons to agree to the imposition of the first poll tax in English history a viciously regressive measure that bore hardest on the poorest members of society 18 There was organised opposition to his measures and rioting in London John of Gaunt s arms were reversed or defaced wherever they were displayed and protestors pasted up lampoons on his supposedly dubious birth At one point he was forced to take refuge across the Thames while his Savoy Palace only just escaped looting 19 It was rumoured and believed by many people in England and France that he intended to seize the throne for himself and supplant the rightful heir his nephew Richard the son of the Black Prince but there seems to have been no truth in this and on the death of Edward III and the accession of the child Richard II John sought no position of regency for himself and withdrew to his estates 20 John s personal unpopularity persisted however and the failure of his expedition to Saint Malo in 1378 did nothing for his reputation By this time too some of his possessions were taken from him by the Crown For example his ship the Dieulagarde was seized and bundled with other royal ships to be sold to pay off the debts of Sir Robert de Crull who during the latter part of King Edward III s reign had been the Clerk of the King s Ships and had advanced monies to pay for the king s ships 21 During the Peasants Revolt of 1381 John of Gaunt was far from the centre of events on the March of Scotland but he was among those named by the rebels as a traitor to be beheaded as soon as he could be found The Savoy Palace was systematically destroyed by the mob and burned to the ground Nominally friendly lords and even his own fortresses closed their gates to him and John was forced to flee into Scotland with a handful of retainers and throw himself on the charity of King Robert II of Scotland until the crisis was over 22 King of Castile EditThis section needs additional citations for verification Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources in this section Unsourced material may be challenged and removed Find sources John of Gaunt news newspapers books scholar JSTOR December 2022 Learn how and when to remove this template message Upon his marriage to Constance of Castile in 1371 John assumed officially from 29 January 1372 the title of King of Castile and Leon in right of his wife and insisted his fellow English nobles henceforth address him as my lord of Spain 23 He impaled his arms with those of the Spanish kingdom From 1372 John gathered around himself a small court of refugee Castilian knights and ladies and set up a Castilian chancery that prepared documents in his name according to the style of Peter of Castile dated by the Castilian era and signed by himself with the Spanish formula Yo El Rey I the King 24 He hatched several schemes to make good his claim with an army but for many years these were still born due to lack of finance or the conflicting claims of war in France or with Scotland It was only in 1386 after Portugal under its new King John I had entered into a full alliance with England that he was actually able to land with an army in Spain and mount a campaign for the throne of Castile that ultimately failed John sailed from England on 9 July 1386 with a huge Anglo Portuguese fleet carrying an army of about 5 000 men plus an extensive royal household and his wife and daughters Pausing on the journey to use his army to drive off the French forces who were then besieging Brest he landed at Corunna in northern Spain on 29 July nbsp John of Gaunt dines with John I of Portugal to discuss a joint Anglo Portuguese invasion of Castile from Jean de Wavrin s Chronique d Angleterre The Castilian king John of Trastamara had expected John would land in Portugal and had concentrated his forces on the Portuguese border He was wrong footed by John s decision to invade Galicia the most distant and disaffected of Castile s kingdoms From August to October John of Gaunt set up a rudimentary court and chancery at Ourense and received the submission of the Galician nobility and most of the towns of Galicia though they made their homage to him conditional on his being recognised as king by the rest of Castile While John of Gaunt had gambled on an early decisive battle the Castilians were in no hurry to join battle and he began to experience difficulties keeping his army together and paying it In November he met King John I of Portugal at Ponte do Mouro on the south side of the Minho river and concluded an agreement with him to make a joint Anglo Portuguese invasion of central Castile early in 1387 The treaty was sealed by the marriage of John s eldest daughter Philippa to the Portuguese king A large part of John s army had succumbed to sickness however and when the invasion was mounted they were far outnumbered by their Portuguese allies The campaign of April June 1387 was an ignominious failure The Castilians refused to offer battle and the Galician Anglo Portuguese troops apart from time wasting sieges of fortified towns were reduced to foraging for food in the arid Spanish landscape They were harried mainly by French mercenaries of the Castilian king Many hundreds of English including close friends and retainers of John of Gaunt died of disease or exhaustion Many deserted or abandoned the army to ride north under French safe conducts Shortly after the army returned to Portugal John of Gaunt concluded a secret treaty with John of Trastamara under which he and his wife renounced all claim to the Castilian throne in return for a large annual payment and the marriage of their daughter Catherine to John of Trastamara s son Henry Duke of Aquitaine EditJohn left Portugal for Aquitaine and he remained in that province until he returned to England in November 1389 This effectively kept him off the scene while England endured the major political crisis of the conflict between Richard II and the Lords Appellant who were led by John of Gaunt s younger brother Thomas of Woodstock Duke of Gloucester Only four months after his return to England in March 1390 Richard II formally invested Gaunt with the Duchy of Aquitaine thus providing him with the overseas territory he had long desired However he did not immediately return to the province but remained in England and mainly ruled through seneschals as an absentee duke His administration of the province was a disappointment and his appointment as duke was much resented by the Gascons since Aquitaine had previously always been held directly by the king of England or his heir it was not felt to be a fief that a king could bestow on a subordinate citation needed From 1394 through 1395 he was forced to spend nearly a year in Gascony to shore up his position in the face of threats of secession by the Gascon nobles He was one of England s principal negotiators in the diplomatic exchanges with France that led to the Truce of Leulinghem in 1396 and he initially agreed to join the French led Crusade that ended in the disastrous Battle of Nicopolis but withdrew due to ill health and the political problems in Gascony and England 25 For the remainder of his life John of Gaunt occupied the role of valued counsellor of the king and loyal supporter of the Crown He did not even protest it seems when his younger brother Thomas was murdered at Richard s behest It may be that he felt he had to maintain this posture of loyalty to protect his son Henry Bolingbroke the future Henry IV who had also been one of the Lords Appellant from Richard s wrath but in 1398 Richard had Bolingbroke exiled and on John of Gaunt s death the next year he disinherited Bolingbroke completely seizing John s vast estates for the Crown citation needed Relationship with Geoffrey Chaucer EditJohn of Gaunt was a patron and close friend of the poet Geoffrey Chaucer best known for his work The Canterbury Tales Near the end of their lives Lancaster and Chaucer became brothers in law Chaucer married Philippa Pan de Roet in 1366 and Lancaster took his mistress of nearly 30 years Katherine Swynford de Roet who was Philippa Chaucer s sister as his third wife in 1396 Although Philippa died c 1387 the men were bound as brothers and Lancaster s children by Katherine John Henry Thomas and Joan Beaufort were Chaucer s nephews and niece Chaucer s The Book of the Duchess also known as the Deeth of Blaunche the Duchesse 26 was written in commemoration of Blanche of Lancaster John of Gaunt s first wife The poem refers to John and Blanche in allegory as the narrator relates the tale of A long castel with walles white Be Seynt Johan on a ryche hil 1318 1319 who is mourning grievously after the death of his love And goode faire White she het That was my lady name ryght 948 949 The phrase long castel is a reference to Lancaster also called Loncastel and Longcastell walles white is thought to likely be an oblique reference to Blanche Seynt Johan was John of Gaunt s name saint and ryche hil is a reference to Richmond these thinly veiled references reveal the identity of the grieving black knight of the poem as John of Gaunt Duke of Lancaster and Earl of Richmond White is the English translation of the French word blanche implying that the white lady was Blanche of Lancaster 27 Believed to have been written in the 1390s Chaucer s short poem Fortune is also inferred to directly reference Lancaster 28 29 Chaucer as narrator openly defies Fortune proclaiming he has learned who his enemies are through her tyranny and deceit and declares my suffisaunce 15 and that over himself hath the maystrye 14 Fortune in turn does not understand Chaucer s harsh words to her for she believes she has been kind to him claims that he does not know what she has in store for him in the future but most importantly And eek thou hast thy beste frend alyve 32 40 48 Chaucer retorts that My frend maystow nat reven blind goddesse 50 and orders her to take away those who merely pretend to be his friends Fortune turns her attention to three princes whom she implores to relieve Chaucer of his pain and Preyeth his beste frend of his noblesse That to som beter estat he may atteyne 78 79 The three princes are believed to represent the dukes of Lancaster York and Gloucester and a portion of line 76 as three of you or tweyne to refer to the ordinance of 1390 which specified that no royal gift could be authorised without the consent of at least two of the three dukes 30 Most conspicuous in this short poem is the number of references to Chaucer s beste frend Fortune states three times in her response to the plaintiff And also you still have your best friend alive 32 40 48 she also references his beste frend in the envoy when appealing to his noblesse to help Chaucer to a higher estate A fifth reference is made by Chaucer as narrator who rails at Fortune that she shall not take his friend from him While the envoy playfully hints to Lancaster that Chaucer would certainly appreciate a boost to his status or income the poem Fortune distinctively shows his deep appreciation and affection for John of Gaunt Death Edit nbsp The tomb of Gaunt and Blanche of Lancaster in St Paul s Cathedral as represented in an etching of 1658 by Wenceslaus Hollar The etching includes a number of inaccuracies for example in not showing the couple with joined hands John of Gaunt died of natural causes on 3 February 1399 at Leicester Castle with his third wife Katherine by his side He was buried beside his first wife Blanche of Lancaster in the choir of St Paul s Cathedral adjacent to the high altar Their magnificent tomb had been designed and executed between 1374 and 1380 by Henry Yevele with the assistance of Thomas Wrek at a total cost of 592 The two alabaster effigies were notable for having their right hands joined An adjacent chantry chapel was added between 1399 and 1403 31 32 The monument was severely damaged and perhaps destroyed during the period of the Interregnum 1649 1660 and anything that survived was lost with the rest of the cathedral in the Great Fire of London of 1666 31 A wall memorial in the crypt of the present cathedral lists Gaunt s as among the important lost monuments Family EditMarriages Edit nbsp John with his first wife Blanche of Lancaster in a 15th century family tree of his great grandson Henry VIOn 19 May 1359 at Reading Abbey John married his third cousin Blanche of Lancaster younger of the two daughters of Henry of Grosmont Duke of Lancaster Both shared a common descent from King Henry III The wealth she brought to the marriage was the foundation of John s fortune Blanche died on 12 September 1368 at Tutbury Castle while her husband was overseas Their son Henry Bolingbroke became Henry IV of England having deposed King Richard II who had seized the duchy of Lancaster upon John s death while Henry was in exile Their daughter Philippa of Lancaster became Queen of Portugal by marrying King John I of Portugal in 1387 All subsequent kings of Portugal were thus descended from John of Gaunt In 1371 John married Infanta Constance of Castile daughter of King Peter of Castile thus giving him a claim to the Crown of Castile which he would pursue Though John was never able to make good his claim his daughter by Constance Catherine of Lancaster became Queen of Castile by marrying Henry III of Castile Catherine of Aragon is descended from this line Constance died in 1394 During his marriage to Constance John of Gaunt fathered four children by a mistress the widow Katherine Swynford whose sister Philippa Roet was married to Geoffrey Chaucer Prior to her widowhood Katherine had had at least two children with her husband Sir Hugh Swynford from Kettlethorpe in Lincolnshire These were Blanche for whom John of Gaunt stood as godfather and Thomas later Sir Thomas 33 John married Katherine in 1396 and their four children the Beauforts were legitimised by King Richard II and the Church but barred from inheriting the throne From the eldest son John descended a granddaughter Lady Margaret Beaufort whose son later King Henry VII of England would nevertheless claim the throne Children Edit nbsp 1640 drawing of tombs of Katherine Swynford and daughter Joan Beaufort Countess of Westmorland in Lincoln Cathedral nbsp Queen Mary I of England and her husband Philip II of Spain both were descended from John of GauntBy Blanche of Lancaster Philippa 1360 1415 married King John I of Portugal 1357 1433 John 1362 1365 was the first born son of John and Blanche of Lancaster and lived possibly at least until after the birth of his brother Edward of Lancaster in 1365 and died before his second brother another short lived boy called John in 1366 34 He was buried in the Collegiate Church of the Annunciation of Our Lady of The Newarke Leicester the church founded by his grandfather Henry Duke of Lancaster 35 Elizabeth 1364 1426 married 1 in 1380 John Hastings 3rd Earl of Pembroke 1372 1389 annulled 1383 married 2 in 1386 John Holland 1st Duke of Exeter 1350 1400 3 Sir John Cornwall 1st Baron Fanhope and Milbroke died 1443 Edward 1365 died within a year of his birth and was buried in the Collegiate Church of the Annunciation of Our Lady of The Newarke Leicester John 1366 1367 most likely died after the birth of his younger brother Henry the future Henry IV of England he was buried in the Collegiate Church of the Annunciation of Our Lady of The Newarke Leicester Henry IV of England 1367 1413 married 1 Mary de Bohun 1369 1394 2 Joanna of Navarre 1368 1437 Isabel 1368 1368 36 By Constance of Castile Catherine 1373 1418 married King Henry III of Castile 1379 1406 John 1374 1375 37 By Katherine Swynford nee de Roet Roelt mistress and later wife children legitimised 1397 John Beaufort 1st Earl of Somerset 1373 1410 married Margaret Holland His great grandson was Henry VII of England Cardinal Henry Beaufort Bishop of Winchester 1375 1447 Thomas Beaufort Duke of Exeter 1377 1427 married Margaret Neville daughter of Sir Thomas de Neville of Hornby by an unknown wife Joan Beaufort 1379 1440 married first Robert Ferrers 5th Baron Boteler of Wem and second Ralph Neville 1st Earl of Westmorland By mistress Marie de St Hilaire of Hainaut a lady in waiting to John s mother Queen Philippa Blanche 1359 1388 1389 who married Sir Thomas Morieux 1355 1387 in 1381 and had no children Morieux held several important posts including Constable of the Tower the year he was married and Master of Horse to King Richard II two years later citation needed vteEnglish royal families in the Wars of the RosesDukes except Aquitaine and Princes of Wales are noted as are the monarchs reigns Individuals with red dashed borders are Lancastrians and blue dotted borders are Yorkists Some changed sides and are represented with a solid thin purple border Monarchs have a rounded corner border See also Family tree of English monarchs Henry of GrosmontDuke of LancasterEdward IIIKing of Englandr 1327 1377Edward of Woodstock The Black Prince Prince of WalesLionel of AntwerpDuke of ClarenceBlanche of LancasterJohn of GauntDuke of LancasterKatherine SwynfordEdmund of LangleyDuke of YorkThomas of WoodstockDuke of GloucesterRichard IIPrince of Wales King of Englandr 1377 1399Philippa of ClarenceHenry IVDuke of Lancaster King of Englandr 1399 1413John BeaufortThomas BeaufortDuke of ExeterJoan BeaufortRalph NevilleHenry Percy Hotspur Elizabeth MortimerRoger MortimerOwen TudorCatherine of ValoisHenry VDuke of Lancaster Prince of Wales King of Englandr 1413 1422HumphreyDuke of GloucesterEdward of NorwichDuke of YorkRichard of ConisburghAnne de MortimerJohn Beaufort1st Duke of SomersetMargaret of AnjouHenry VIKing of Englandr 1422 1461 r 1470 1471Edmund Beaufort2nd Duke of Somerset 1st St AlbansWilliam NevilleEleanor NevilleHenry Percy 1st St AlbansAnne NevilleDuchess of BuckinghamRichard Neville nbsp WakefieldCecily NevilleRichard of YorkDuke of York Prince of Wales WakefieldHenry Beaufort3rd Duke of Somerset nbsp HexhamRichard Woodville nbsp EdgecoteMargaret BeaufortEdmund Beaufort4th Duke of Somerset nbsp TewkesburyHenry Percy TowtonHumphrey StaffordJohn Neville BarnetRichard Neville Kingmaker BarnetMargaret BeaufortEdmund TudorJasper TudorDuke of BedfordCatherine WoodvilleHenry StaffordDuke of Buckingham nbsp Elizabeth WoodvilleEdward IVDuke of York King of Englandr 1461 1470 r 1471 1483George PlantagenetDuke of Clarence nbsp TowerEdward of WestminsterPrince of Wales TewkesburyAnne NevilleRichard IIIDuke of Gloucester King of Englandr 1483 1485 Bosworth FieldHenry VIIKing of Englandr 1485 1509Elizabeth of YorkEdward VPrince of Wales King of Englandr 1483 nbsp TowerRichard of ShrewsburyDuke of York nbsp TowerTitles and arms EditTitles and styles Edit Earl of Richmond granted as an infant in September 1342 surrendered to the crown in June 1372 38 Earl of Leicester Earl of Lancaster Earl of Derby inherited jure uxoris in November 1362 following the death of his wife s father Henry of Grosmont Duke of Lancaster granted as a new creation on 13 November 1362 following the death of the prior Duke Henry of Grosmont King of Galicia King of Castile King of Leon claimed in January 1372 by his second marriage to the heiress to these thrones unrecognised except for a brief period when he was able to capture Galicia from 1386 to 1387 claim surrendered 1388 Duke of Aquitaine 2 March 1390 3 February 1399 granted for life in March 1390 by his nephew King Richard II of England 39 Arms Edit nbsp Coat of arms of John of Gaunt asserting his kingship over Castile and Leon showing the royal arms of Castile and Leon impaling his paternal arms the royal arms of England with his heraldic difference Later in his life the two sides were reversed As a son of the sovereign John bore the royal arms of the kingdom Quarterly France Ancient and England differenced by a label of three points ermine 40 As claimant to the throne of Castile and Leon from 1372 he impaled the arms of that kingdom Gules a castle or quartering Argent a lion rampant purpure with his own The arms of Castile and Leon appeared on the dexter side of the shield the left hand side as viewed and the differenced English royal arms on the sinister but in 1388 when he surrendered his claim he reversed this marshalling placing his own arms on the dexter and those of Castile and Leon on the sinister 41 He thus continued to signal his alliance with the Castilian royal house while abandoning any claim to the throne There is however evidence that he may occasionally have used this second marshalling at earlier dates 42 In addition to his royal arms Gaunt bore an alternative coat of Sable three ostrich feathers ermine This was the counterpart to his brother the Black Prince s shield for peace on which the ostrich feathers were white and may have been used in jousting The ostrich feather arms appeared in stained glass above Gaunt s chantry chapel in St Paul s Cathedral 43 Legacy EditJohn of Gaunt is a character in William Shakespeare s play Richard II Shortly before he dies he makes a speech that includes the lines in Act 2 scene i around line 40 This royal throne of kings this scepter d isle This earth of majesty this seat of Mars This blessed plot this earth this realm this England He is also referred to by Falstaff in Henry IV Part I in Act 2 scene ii Hungerford in Berkshire has ancient links to the Duchy the manor becoming part of John of Gaunt s estate in 1362 before James I passed ownership to two local men in 1612 which subsequently became Town amp Manor of Hungerford Charity The links are visible today in the Town amp Manor owned John O Gaunt Inn on Bridge Street 44 and John O Gaunt School on Priory Road 45 The John of Gaunt School on Wingfield Road in Trowbridge Wiltshire 46 is built upon land that he once owned Family Ancestry EditAncestors of John of Gaunt16 Henry III of England 47 8 Edward I of England 47 17 Eleanor of Provence 47 4 Edward II of England 47 18 Ferdinand III of Castile 47 9 Eleanor of Castile 47 19 Joan Countess of Ponthieu 47 2 Edward III of England20 Philip III of France 50 28 10 Philip IV of France 47 21 Isabella of Aragon 50 29 5 Isabella of France 47 22 Henry I of Navarre 51 11 Joan I of Navarre 48 23 Blanche of Artois 51 1 John of Gaunt24 John I Count of Hainaut 48 12 John II Count of Holland 48 25 Adelaide of Holland 48 6 William I Count of Hainaut 48 26 Henry V Count of Luxembourg 48 13 Philippa of Luxembourg 48 27 Margaret of Bar 48 3 Philippa of Hainault28 Philip III of France 50 20 14 Charles Count of Valois 49 29 Isabella of Aragon 50 21 7 Joan of Valois 48 30 Charles II of Naples 49 15 Margaret Countess of Anjou 49 31 Mary of Hungary 49 References Edit Harris 2010 p 16 Death of John of Gaunt Richard Cavendish explains the life and death of Henry IV s father on February 3rd 1399 John of Gaunt Son of One King Father of Another Kathryn Warner Amberley Publishing 2022 Sumption J 19 March 2009 The Hundred Years War 3 Divided Houses London Faber amp Faber p 274 ISBN 978 0 571 13897 5 John of Gaunt duke of Lancaster Britannica com 21 March 1999 Given Wilson Chris ed 2005 Richard II September 1397 British History Online Parliament Rolls of Medieval England Ass ed by Paul Brand J R S Phillips Mark Ormrod Geoffrey Martin Anne Curry amp Rosemary Horrox Retrieved 8 June 2013 Sumption 2009 p 3 Five Ways to Compute the Relative Value of a UK Pound Amount 1270 to Present www measuringworth com Sumption 2009 pp 38 69 Sumption 2009 p 82 Sumption 2009 pp 69 108 Sumption 2009 pp 187 202 Sumption 2009 pp 325 327 Sumption 2009 pp 212 213 British History in depth Black Death Political and Social Changes BBC 17 February 2011 Retrieved 28 April 2020 However John of Gaunt literally stood by him in court causing the trial to break up in confusion Edward III king of England Weir Alison 2008 Katherine Swynford the story of John of Gaunt and his scandalous duchess London a href Template Cite book html title Template Cite book cite book a CS1 maint location missing publisher link Sumption 2009 p 271 Sumption 2009 p 274 Sumption 2009 pp 213 283 284 Sherborne James 1 July 1994 Anthony Tuck ed War Politics and Culture in 14th Century England London Hambledon Press p 32 ISBN 978 1 85285 086 9 The former title for Clerk of the King s Ships had been Keeper and Governor of the King s Ships and Warden of the Sea and Maritime Parts Crull had served Edward III in this capacity from 6 October 1359 to 22 September 1378 Rodger N 1997 The Safeguard of the Sea A Naval History of Britain 660 1649 London HarperCollins p 99 ISBN 978 0 00 255128 1 Sumption 2009 pp 425 426 Plea Rolls of the Court of Common Pleas National Archives CP 40 541 year 1396 Several entries as Duke of Aquitaine amp Lancaster and as King of Castile and Duke of Lancaster Sumption 2009 pp 122 123 Sumption 2009 p 829 Chaucer Geoffrey 1984 The Legend of Good Women In Benson L D Robinson F N eds The Riverside Chaucer Boston Houghton Mifflin Company p 600 ISBN 0 395 29031 7 Wilcockson Colin 1987 Explanatory Notes on The Book of the Duchess In Benson L D Robinson F N eds The Riverside Chaucer Boston Houghton Mifflin pp 966 976 ISBN 0 395 29031 7 Gross Zaila 1987 Introduction to the Short Poems In Benson L D Robinson F N eds The Riverside Chaucer Boston Houghton Mifflin Company p 635 ISBN 0 395 29031 7 Williams G G 1965 A New View of Chaucer Durham Duke University Press p 55 Gross 1987 p 635 a b Harris Oliver D 2010 Une tresriche sepulture the tomb and chantry of John of Gaunt and Blanche of Lancaster in Old St Paul s Cathedral London Church Monuments 25 7 35 Sinclair William 1909 Memorials of St Paul s Cathedral London Chapman amp Hall p 95 Dame Blanche Morieux in Armitage Smith 1904 pp 460 461 Weir A 2007 Katherine Swynford The Story of John of Gaunt and his Scandalous Duchess London Jonathan Cape p 43 ISBN 978 0 224 06321 0 Billson C 1920 Mediaeval Leicester Leicester a href Template Cite book html title Template Cite book cite book a CS1 maint location missing publisher link Leese Thelma Anna 1996 Blood royal issue of the kings and queens of medieval England 1066 1399 Heritage Books p 219 Leese 1996 p 222 McNeill Ronald John 1911 Richmond Earls and Dukes of Encyclopaedia Britannica Vol 23 11th ed p 306 Sumption 2009 p 718 Velde Francois R Marks of cadency in the British royal family www heraldica org Armitage Smith Sydney 1904 John of Gaunt Westminster Archibald Constable amp Co pp 456 57 Fox Paul A 2009 Fourteenth century ordinaries of Arms Part 2 William Jenyns Ordinary Coat of Arms 3rd ser 5 55 64 pp 59 61 pl 2 Harris 2010 pp 22 3 John O Gaunt Inn Hungerford John O Gaunt School Hungerford John O Gaunt School Trowbridge a b c d e f g h i Armitage Smith Sydney 1905 John of Gaunt King of Castile and Leon Duke of Aquitaine and Lancaster Earl of Derby Lincoln and Leicester Seneschal of England Charles Scribner s Sons p 21 Retrieved 8 October 2018 a b c d e f g h i von Redlich Marcellus Donald R Pedigrees of Some of the Emperor Charlemagne s Descendants Vol I p 64 a b c d Weir Alison 1999 Britain s Royal Families The Complete Genealogy London The Bodley Head pp 75 92 a b c d Anselme de Sainte Marie Pere 1726 Histoire genealogique et chronologique de la maison royale de France Genealogical and chronological history of the royal house of France in French Vol 1 3rd ed Paris La compagnie des libraires pp 87 88 a b Anselme 1726 pp 381 382Further reading EditCarr Helen 2021 The Red Prince the life of John of Gaunt the Duke of Lancaster London Oneworld ISBN 9780861540822 Cantor Norman F 2004 The Last Knight the Twilight of the Middle Ages and the Birth of the Modern Era New York Free Press ISBN 0743226887 Goodman Anthony 1992 John of Gaunt the Exercise of Princely Power in Fourteenth Century Europe Harlow Longman ISBN 0582098130 Green V H H 1955 The Later Plantagenets a Survey of English History 1307 1485 London Edward Arnold Nicolle David 2011 The Great Chevauchee John of Gaunt s Raid on France 1373 Raid Vol 20 Oxford Osprey ISBN 978 1 84908 247 1 Walker Simon 1990 The Lancastrian Affinity 1361 1399 Oxford Clarendon Press ISBN 0198201745 Walker Simon 2008 2004 John John of Gaunt duke of Aquitaine and duke of Lancaster styled king of Castile and Leon 1340 1399 Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online ed Oxford University Press doi 10 1093 ref odnb 14843 Subscription or UK public library membership required External links Edit nbsp Wikimedia Commons has media related to John of Gaunt 1st Duke of Lancaster Beach Chandler B ed 1914 John of Gaunt The New Student s Reference Work Vol 2 Chicago F E Compton and Co Gairdner James 1911 Lancaster House of In Chisholm Hugh ed Encyclopaedia Britannica Vol 16 11th ed Cambridge University Press pp 143 144 Kingsford Charles Lethbridge 1911 Lancaster John of Gaunt duke of In Chisholm Hugh ed Encyclopaedia Britannica Vol 16 11th ed Cambridge University Press pp 146 147 Sir Jean Froissart John of Gaunt in Portugal 1385 The Katherine Swynford Society website Thompson E 1892 John of Gaunt In Lee Sidney ed Dictionary of National Biography Vol 29 London Smith Elder amp Co John of GauntHouse of PlantagenetBorn 6 March 1340 Died 3 February 1399Peerage of EnglandNew creation Duke of Lancaster2nd creation1362 1399 Succeeded byHenry BolingbrokePreceded byHenry of Grosmont Earl of LeicesterEarl of LancasterEarl of Derby1361 1399Preceded byRobert III of Artois Earl of Richmond29 September 1342 25 June 1372 Succeeded byJohn IV of BrittanyFrench nobilityPreceded byRichard II Duke of Aquitaine1390 1399 Succeeded byRichard IIPolitical officesPreceded byHenry of Grosmont Lord High Steward1362 1399 Succeeded byHenry BolingbrokeTitles in pretencePreceded byHenry IIas unopposed king DISPUTED King of Castile1372 1388 Succeeded byJohn Ias unopposed king Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title John of Gaunt amp oldid 1174107640, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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