Great Loves in History: Katherine Swynford & John of Gaunt

Blythe Gifford

In honor of this month’s theme, Great Loves in History, I am revisiting the story of Katherine Swynford and John of Gaunt, son of King Edward III of England. These two are hands down, my favorite lovers of all time.

Immortalized in Anya Seton’s KATHERINE, their story is an amazing true tale of long time lovers who came to their happy ending late in life.
John, Duke of Lancaster, was, Alison Wier writes “the greatest English nobleman of his time”---chivalrous, rich, politically astute, a great warrior, tall, lean, and handsome. What’s more, it’s reported that 300 years later, a codpiece reportedly made for him was on display in the Tower of London and “better worth a lewd lady’s admiration than any piece of antiquity in the Tower.” (Alas, Wier goes on to expose this as the 18th century equivalent of an urban legend.)

Katherine Swynford, on the other hand, was daughter of a knight (Paon de Roet) and would have sunk into obscurity had it not been for the patron
age of Edward’s queen, Phillipa. She obtained this because her father was from the queen’s home country of Hainault and served her in England for many years.

We have little official evidence of Katherine. No letters and few documents remain, not even her will. What does emerge from the record, however, is almost universally flattering. She was beautiful, educated, pious, and comfortable at the highest levels of court.

In addition, she served as mother or surrogate mother to a blended family of more than ten children. They included three to four of her own (by her first husband), three to four of John’s children (by his first and second wives), as well as the four they had together. And she seems to have successfully created an atmosphere that allowed these pseudo-siblings to become fast friends for life.

Any modern day mother must stand in awe of her for this accomplishment alone.
As a sidenote, Katherine’s sister was married to Geoffrey Chaucer, the pre-eminent writer of the 14th century. This has sparked a game of “find Katherine” among some scholars, for he must have known his sister in law well. The picture here, excerpted from the frontpiece of Caucer’s TROILUS, has been identified as Katherine. (Thanks to Judy Perry for correcting my previous crop of this piece.) At the time the two began their affair, Katherine had already served as governess to John’s children with his first, and much beloved wife, Blanche. (Blanche was a paragon herself. Rich, beautiful, educated, it seems she and John also had a love match.)

Katherine, 22, was a widow with at least three children. John, a widower ten years older than she, had just married Constance of Spain, a political marriage and never a truly happy one.

Initially, the lovers were discreet. John may not have loved his new wife, but she was the key to his goal of assuming the throne of Castile. During their affair, Katherine bore him four children, the Beauforts, but largely stayed away from court (and the attention of the chroniclers) for many years. (From these children, eventually, descended kings of England and Scotland, but that is a story for another post.)

Among the touching evidence that has come down to us from John’s household records are regular gifts to “our very dear and well-beloved Dame Katherine de Swynford.” Among these are oak trees “suitable for building.” This sounds less than romantic to modern ears, but they were cut from forests he owned and used for improvements to her home, Kettlethorpe, where their children were raised.

Of course, all was not bliss. They were regularly apart as John was at court or fighting on the continent. Yet finally, around 1377 or 1378, he seems to have relinquished some of the pretense and Katherine was more and more seen at his side. This did not go unnoticed, and Katherine is called his “unspeakable concubine” by the chroniclers. But despite this, they also note, an unusual and telling entry, that she loved the Duke and their children. (This is a far cry from their description of his father’s mistress, Alice Perrers.)

John’s father had now died, and John was uncle to the new king, Richard II. It was a time of unrest, and when the peasants revolted in 1381, John’s London palace, the Savoy, was looted and then burned to the ground. Katherine, knowing her life and her family’s were in danger, went into hiding, probably at one of John’s northern castles.

Although the revolt finally subsided, it seems to have shaken John. Not only was his property destroyed, members of his household had been murdered. A pious man, he concluded that God was punishing him for his liaison with Katherine. (Political realities may also have been a consideration, for he had become a highly unpopular man.)

He publically broke off the nine year old affair, but also issued a “quit claim” that made it clear that any gifts and property he had given Katherine would remain hers. This document was issued on Valentine’s Day.

And so, the lovers parted.

Despite this, John continued to provide patronage to their children and even to Chaucer’s son, Katherine’s nephew. Meanwhile, the political times were difficult. New favorites came and went and King Richard alternately depended on his uncle and turned on him.

But in 1394, Constance died. John, contrary to all advice and to the horror of several of the highest born ladies of the court, petitioned the Pope for dispensation to marry Katherine and to legitimize their children.

So at 46 and 56, they became husband and wife and, Katherine informed the Pope, they celebrated their wedding with “carnal copulation.”

Until King Richard’s marriage to his second wife, Katherine, Duchess of Lancaster, 
was the highest ranking woman in England. She and John had less than five years together before John’s death and he was not well for most of that time. (John may not have been quite as faithful as his reputation. There’s some suggestion that his last illness was actually venereal disease.)

She survived five years after his death and lived to see John’s son, Henry IV, refer to her, his stepmother, as “the King’s Mother.” Her tomb in the Lincoln Cathedral is sketched to the right.

Much of this material is drawn from Mistress of the Monarchy, by Alison Weir, and The HISTORY OF A MEDIEVAL MISTRESS by Jeanne Lucraft. Those who read INNOCENCE UNVEILED may recognize that I used the birth of “John of Ghent,” subsequently John of Gaunt, as a key incident in the book. While I longed to give Katherine a cameo in The HARLOT’S DAUGHTER, which is set in Richard II’s court, I could not derive a way to do so that would serve the story as well as the author’s interest.


Blythe Gifford has written five, 14th century medieval romances for Harlequin Historicals featuring characters born on the wrong side of the royal blanket, most recently HIS BORDER BRIDE. The Chicago Tribune called her work "the perfect balance between history and romance." A new trilogy, set on the Scottish Borders during the turbulent era of the Border Reivers, will debut in November.

The Illegitimate Children of James V

Blythe Gifford

A post on the children of James V, King of Scots, (right) could well be expected to focus on his only surviving child, a daughter who became Mary, Queen of Scots, a queen whose name is known by those who know nothing else of Scotland’s history.

His two legitimate sons, James Stewart and Robert Stewart, were born about a year apart and died about a month apart, just after Robert was born, about mid-year in 1541 and just about a year before King James himself died, leaving Mary Queen at the age of six days.

King James no doubt had never expected succession to come down to an infant girl, for although he had only three legitimate heirs, he fathered at least nine children out of wedlock, three of those before he was twenty. Seven of those children were sons.

It is these illegitimate children I write about today.

As with so many Scottish kings, James was crowned while still an infant, at the age of one, just after the death of his father, James IV, in 1513. The tale is told that young James V was encouraged in his debauchery by one of his regents, but to be fair, illegitimate children had long been a royal prerogative, in England and Scotland. Young James came by it honestly. His own father had seven children out of wedlock by four different mistresses.

But James, who became king in his own right at age 16, was able to best his father. And although the identities of some of the mothers of his children are lost to history, some of his mistresses were the daughters of Scottish nobles. Their children were treated accordingly. This meant that several of them played prominent roles in Scottish history and proved problematic to their half sister, Queen Mary.

Five of the illegitimate sons of King James V were named “Priors” as children. This meant they held the five richest livings in the Scottish Church—Holyrood, Kelso, Melrose, Coldingham, and St Andrews. (This did not happen, of course, without the approval of the Pope. James apparently wrote asking his permission for three of his illegitimate sons to receive ecclesiastical positions before 1532, when the boys were still babes.)

I’ve listed the children below. Don’t worry if you get confused. Three are named James, their father’s name; two are named Robert.

James Stewart, Abbot of Kelso and Melrose. Perhaps born as early as 1529, when his father was 17, James was the son of Elizabeth Shaw “of Sauchie.” He died before age 30.

John Stewart, Lord Darnley. Born 1531/32, before James V was 20, he was reported to be the son of Elizabeth, daughter of Sir John Carmichael, a woman two years younger than he. John lived to be barely 32, but long enough to be active in the Scottish Reformation, to marry, and to have children.

James Stewart, Earl of Moray and Mar. James (shown here) was also born somewhere between 1531 and 1533, but his mother was Margaret, daughter of the 4th Lord Erskine who was his father’s favorite mistress. (There were even rumors King James thought to marry Margaret Erskine.) He went on to become the most powerful of James’ illegitimate children. A stanch Protestant, he remained close to his half-sister Queen Mary until she married Henry Stuart, a Catholic. (According to some counts, the earl “changed sides” five times during her reign.)
After her death, however, he was Regent for young James VI, his nephew, who later became James I, uniting England and Scotland under one king. The Earl was shot in 1570, before the age of 50, by a supporter of Queen Mary, the first recorded assassination by a firearm.

Robert, Earl of Orkney. Born in 1533, Robert’s mother, Euphemia, was daughter of Lord Elphinstone, and also granted livings from the church, both before and after the Reformation. King James VI re-created the title Earl of Orkney for him in 1581, when he was approaching fifty.

Adam Stewart. Also the son of an earl’s daughter and a prior of the church. He is reported to have married and died in 1606.

Jean Stewart. This daughter married (and subsequently divorced for desertion) Archibald Campell, the 5th earl of Argyll.
T
hree other children recorded are: James Stewart (another one), Robert Stewart, also a Prior, and Margaret Stewart. Two of these are of “unknown” mothers.

Had King James had half the number of healthy legitimate heirs, history might have been very different.

Blythe Gifford has written five, 14th century medieval romances for Harlequin Historicals featuring characters born on the wrong side of the royal blanket, most recently HIS BORDER BRIDE. The Chicago Tribune called her work "the perfect balance between history and romance." She is working on her next book, which will again be set on the Scottish Borders.

Dynasties: The Beauforts

By Blythe Gifford

For most writers of historical romance, the "mother of all dynasties" is the English royal family. Many of us have a vague notion of the medieval segment of the story: the Plantagenets, Lancaster, York, and the War of the Roses, the Tudors, and finally, the Stuarts/Stewarts from Scotland after Queen Elizabeth died childless.

The official family tree is hard to follow, but if you study the genealogy, you will discover that the Lancasters, the Yorks, the Tudors, and the Stewarts all have a direct and clear line of inheritance back to the Beauforts, the children of one of the Middle Ages' most romantic couples: Katherine Swynford and John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster.

Many readers are familiar with Katherine Swynford because of Anya Seton's Katherine, published in 1954 and still in print today. It fictionalizes the love story of Katherine and John, who was a younger son of Edward III. (Now Katherine has finally gotten her due as two biographies have recently been published: Mistress of the Monarchy by Alison Wier, and Katherine Swynford: The History of a Medieval Mistress by Jeanne Lucraft.)

Among the facts we know is that John and Katherine were lovers for many years, she bore him four children, and the two finally married very late in life. After their marriage, their children, called the "Beauforts" after a French castle John claimed but did not hold, were legitimized. (It is a myth that the children were born there. Neither John nor Katherine ever set foot in the castle.)

Katherine was governess to Gaunt's children by his first two wives and most evidence suggests the siblings of the blended families (her children by her first husband, his children by his previous wives, and their bastard children) got on well.

John's son with his first wife, Blanche, Duchess of Lancaster, became Henry IV of England and the founder of the Lancaster faction in the later War of the Roses. John and Katherine's second son, Henry Beaufort, held the post of Chancellor of England under Henry IV for a time, and subsequently served as Chancellor for his son and grandson, Henry V and Henry VI.

John, the eldest Beaufort son, held the title of Marquess and Earl of Somerset. Somerset served Henry IV, his half-brother, on several diplomatic and military missions. (His shield is pictured above.) Along with him, he often took Thomas Swynford, Katherine's son with her first husband.

The other two first generation Beaufort children were Thomas, who became Duke of Exeter, and Jean, whose second husband was Ralph Neville, Earl of Westmoreland. The Yorkist kings descended from the Neville family, who have been known by history as "Kingmakers."

So the legitimized children took their rightful, active places in the power structure of England. But in 1407, new words were inserted into the Parliamentary document that had legitimized the them ten years before. The addition read that the Beauforts had all rights excepta dignitate regali, that is, all except the royal rights of succession.

Depending on which biography you read, these words were added by Henry IV or by his Council, but regardless, because the change was never ratified by Parliament, they were conveniently forgotten, or ignored, in the years to come.

The full story of the Beaufort family is too long to recount here. They were in and out of favor over the years, but when you follow Katherine and John's descendants, the path of royal succession is clear and direct.

-- From John's son by his first wife Blanche, Henry IV, comes the line of Lancaster (Red Rose) kings. Through Blanche, John held the title of the Duke of Lancaster.

-- From Katherine and John's daughter, Jean, you have a direct line to two Yorkist Kings: Edward IV and Richard III, both of whom were Katherine and John's great-grandsons. Their great-great-granddaughter, Elizabeth of York, was the first Tudor queen.

-- From Katherine and John's oldest Beaufort son, John, you have a direct line to the first Tudor King, Henry VII. So the founders of the Tudor line, Henry VII and Elizabeth of York, were both great-great-grandchildren of John and Katherine! In fact, this was clearly recognized at the time and because of consanguinity, the two had to get papal dispensation to marry.

-- Joan, who was John and Katherine's granddaughter, married James I of the Scottish Stewart kings. So when James VI of Scotland became James I of England many years later, it was, again, a direct Beaufort descendant who took the throne.

So today's English royal family name might more accurately be not Windsor, but Beaufort!