rallumer-les-etoiles: Royal Couples: Katherine Swynford, Duchess of Lancaster, and John of Gaunt, Du

rallumer-les-etoiles:Royal Couples: Katherine Swynford, Duchess of Lancaster, and John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, and Duke of Aquitaine. *I suddenly saw a man in blackReclining, seated with his backAgainst an oak, a giant tree.‘Oh Lord,’ I thought,‘who can that be?’ It was the year 1368 and Geoffrey Chaucer had just completed his The Boke of the Duchesse. Lady Blanche, Duchess of Lancaster, the ‘Lady White’ of Chaucer’s poem, had died. The most beloved lady in the kingdom had given birth to her seventh child, Isabella, and had closed her eyes forever. The little demoiselle lived but a day, and then reached her mother to their final resting place. The most powerful subject under Edward III’s reign was now a widower, a man devastated by the loss of such an angelic and most beloved wife.When time came and it was the moment for the Duke to choose a new bride, who better than the exiled Infanta of Castile? Such a marriage would have given him a claim to the Crown of Castile. The exiled state of his new bride would have also given him a new purpose: Constance of Castile was a damsel in distress with a kingdom to reconquer and John of Gaunt a knight is search of a valuable quest. The wedding took place in 1371 and two years later a daughter was born, Catherine. The couple had a son a year later, John, who died after less than a year on this earth.Some said ‘Monseigneur de Lancaster’ was very generous with his lady wife, giving her a handsome allowance and even rich gifts, from jewels, wonderful cloths of gold and furs, to furnitures. Others said it was actually his guilty conscience to prompt him towards such generosity. Because less than a year after marrying Constance, even before his first child from his new bride was born, John of Gaunt had a mistress.Nothing too strange about having a mistress, of course. But not this mistress. Not when it will be this very mistress the one who changed the course of history forever.Katherine Swynford was a young widow, sister to Philippa, lady-in-waiting to the Lady Blanche first and to the Infanta later, and wife of that Geoffrey Chaucer who wrote The Boke of the Duchesse. She was a well-known and well-loved member in the royal household since the time Lady Blache was duchess: therefore, the scandal that followed reached massive proportions.Witch. Whore. The Unspeakable Concubine. That Infamous Adultress.Such epithets were on the lips of everyone, from the most esteemed members of the court, to the lowliest beggars in the kingdom.But such is the nature of love that conventions, morality, rightness, righteousness, bigotry and malice are nothing but unworthy whispers in the ears of those who know better. And when the second wife of Duke of Lancaster took her leave from this life in 1394, Katherine and John married. All their children, born before their marriage, were legitimised by the Pope and King Richard II but they were barred from inheriting the throne.Every monarch after Richard II descends from John of Gaunt.The Beaufort family ended up on the throne when Margaret Beaufort’s son to Edmund Tudor, Henry, became King ending the famous War of the Roses. -- source link
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