Katherine Swynford, Duchess of Lancaster, was the third wife of John of
Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, a son of King Edward III. She had been the Duke's
lover for many years before their marriage. The couple's children, born
before the marriage, were later legitimated during the reign of the
Duke's nephew, Richard II, although with the provision that neither they nor
their descendants could ever claim the throne of England.
Their descendants were members of the Beaufort family, which played a major
role in the Wars of the Roses. Henry VII, who became King of England in 1485,
derived his claim to the throne from his mother Margaret Beaufort, who was a
great-granddaughter of Gaunt and Katherine Swynford. His legal claim to
the throne, however, was through a matrilineal and previously illegitimate
line and Henry's first action was to declare himself king "by right of
conquest" retroactively from 21 August 1485, the day before his army defeated
King Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth.
Family Katherine was the daughter of Paon de
Roet, a herald, and later knight, who was "probably christened as Gilles". She
had two sisters, Philippa and Isabel de Roet, and a brother, Walter. Isabel
later became Canoness of the convent of St. Waudru's, Mons, c. 1366. Katherine
is generally held to have been his youngest child. However, Alison Weir
argues that Philippa was the junior and that both were children of a second
marriage. Katherine's sister Philippa, a lady of Queen Philippa's household,
married the poet Geoffrey Chaucer. Life
She was probably born in Hainaut in 1349 or 1350. Katherine's birth date may have
been 25 November, as that is the feast day of her patron, St. Catherine of
Alexandria. The family returned to England in 1351, and it is likely that
Katherine stayed there during her father's continued travels.
In about 1366, at St Clement Danes Church, Westminster, Katherine, aged
sixteen or seventeen, contracted an advantageous marriage with "Hugh" Ottes
Swynford, a Knight from the manor of Kettlethorpe in Lincolnshire, the son of
Thomas Swynford by his marriage to Nicole Druel. She had the following
children by him: Blanche, Thomas, and possibly Margaret Swynford, later
recorded as a nun of the prestigious Barking Abbey nominated by command of
King Richard II. Katherine became attached to the
household of John of Gaunt as governess to his daughters Philippa of Lancaster
and Elizabeth of Lancaster. The ailing duchess Blanche had Katherine's daughter
Blanche placed within her own daughters' chambers and afforded the same luxuries
as her daughters; additionally, John of Gaunt stood as godfather to the child.
Some time after Blanche's death in 1368 and the birth of their first son in
1373, Katherine and John of Gaunt entered into a love affair that would
produce four children for the couple, born out of wedlock but legitimized upon
their parents' eventual marriage; the adulterous relationship endured until
1381 when it was truncated out of political necessity and ruined
Katherine's reputation. On 13 January 1396, two years after the death of the
Duke's second wife, Infanta Constance of Castile, Katherine and John of Gaunt
married in Lincoln Cathedral. Records of their marriage kept in the Tower and
elsewhere list: 'John of Ghaunt, Duke of Lancaster, married Katharine daughter of
Guyon King of Armes in the time of K. Edward the 3, and Geffrey Chaucer her
sister'. On John of Gaunt's death, Katherine
became known as dowager Duchess of Lancaster. She outlived him by four
years, dying on 10 May 1403, in her early fifties, an age that most of the
women in the 15th century did not reach. Tomb
Katherine's tomb and that of her daughter, Joan Beaufort, are under a
carved-stone canopy in the sanctuary of Lincoln Cathedral. Joan's is the smaller
of the two tombs; both were decorated with brass plates — full-length
representations of them on the tops, and small shields bearing coats of arms
around the sides and on the top — but those were damaged or destroyed in 1644
during the English Civil War. A hurried drawing by William Dugdale records their
appearance. Children and descendants
Katherine's children by Hugh Swynford were:
Margaret Swynford, became a nun at the prestigious Barking Abbey in 1377 with
help from her future stepfather John of Gaunt, where she lived the religious
life with her cousin Elizabeth Chaucer, daughter of the famous Geoffrey Chaucer
and Katherine's sister Philippa de Roet. Sir Thomas Swynford, born in Lincoln
while his father Sir Hugh Swynford was away on a campaign with the Duke of
Lancaster in Castile fighting for Peter of Castile.
Blanche Swynford, named after the Duchess of Lancaster and a godchild of
John of Gaunt.. In 1846 Thomas Stapleton suggested that
there was a further daughter named Dorothy Swynford, born c. 1366, who
married Thomas Thimelby of Poolham near Horncastle, Lincolnshire, Sheriff of
Lincolnshire in 1380, but there is no current evidence to support this claim.
Katherine's children by John of Gaunt were:
John Beaufort, 1st Earl of Somerset Henry, Cardinal Beaufort
Thomas Beaufort, Duke of Exeter Joan Beaufort, Countess of Westmorland
The descendants of Katherine Swynford and John of Gaunt are significant in
English and Scottish history. Their four children had been given the surname
"Beaufort" and with the approval of King Richard II and the Pope were legitimated
as adults by their parents' marriage in 1396. Despite this, the Beauforts were
barred from inheriting the throne of England by a clause in the legitimation
act inserted by their half-brother, Henry IV, although modern scholarship
disputes the authority of a monarch to alter an existing parliamentary statute
on his own authority, without the further approval of Parliament. This
provision was later revoked by Edward IV, placing Katherine's descendants back
within the legitimate line of inheritance; the Tudor dynasty was
directly descended from John and Katherine's eldest child, John Beaufort,
great-grandfather of Henry VII, who based his claim to the throne on his
mother's descent from John of Gaunt, a son of Edward III. John Beaufort also
had a daughter named Joan Beaufort, who married James I of Scotland and thus was
an ancestress of the House of Stuart. John and Katherine's daughter, Joan
Beaufort, was grandmother of the English kings Edward IV and Richard III, the
latter of whom Henry Tudor defeated at the Battle of Bosworth Field; Henry's
claim was strengthened by marrying Elizabeth of York, eldest daughter of
Edward IV. It was also through Joan Beaufort, Countess of Westmoreland that
the sixth queen of Henry VIII, Catherine Parr, descended. John of Gaunt's son —
Katherine's stepson Henry of Bolingbroke — became Henry IV after deposing Richard
II. John of Gaunt's daughter by his first marriage to Blanche of Lancaster,
Philippa of Lancaster, was great-great-grandmother to Catherine of
Aragon, first wife of Henry VIII and mother of Mary I of England. John of
Gaunt's child by his second wife Constance, Catherine, was
great-grandmother of Catherine of Aragon as well.
In literature Katherine Swynford is the subject of
numerous novels, notably: Anya Seton's novel Katherine
Alison Weir's 2008 biography Katherine Swynford: The Story of John of Gaunt and
his Scandalous Duchess. Swynford is also the subject of
Jeannette Lucraft's historical biography Katherine Swynford: The History of a
Medieval Mistress. This book seeks to establish Swynford as a powerful figure
in the politics of 14th-century England and an example of a woman's ability to
manipulate contemporary social mores for her own interests.
References Sources
Lucraft, Jeannette. Katherine Swynford: The History of a Medieval Mistress.
Sutton Publishing Ltd. ISBN 0-7509-3261-9.
Alison Weir, Mistress of the Monarchy: The Life of Katherine Swynford, Duchess
of Lancaster. Judy Perry, "Katherine Roet's Swynfords:
a re-examination of interfamily relationships and descent", Foundations,
Vol. 1, No. 1 & 2 2003–2004. David H Kelley, Don C Stone & David C
Dearborn, "Among the Royal Servants: Welby, Browne, Quarles and Related
Families", Foundations, Vol. 3, No. 4 Sargeant, Carol. Love, Honour and Royal
Blood Book One: Katharine Swynford. Dog Ear Publishing. ISBN 978-1-60844-162-4.
Chisholm, Hugh, ed.. "Swynford, Catherine". Encyclopædia Britannica 26.
Cambridge University Press. Kingsford, Charles Lethbridge.
"Swynford, Catherine". In Lee, Sidney. Dictionary of National Biography 55.
London: Smith, Elder & Co. Walker, Simon. "Katherine , duchess of
Lancaster". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University
Press. doi:10.109326858.