Notes
Note N1569
Index
Dispute with King Richard II[edit]
Thomas of Woodstock was the leader of the Lords Appellant, a group of powerful nobles whose ambition to wrest power from Thomas's nephew, King Richard II of England, culminated in a successful rebellion in 1388, which significantly weakened the king's power. Richard II managed to dispose of the Lords Appellant in 1397, and Thomas was imprisoned in Calais to await trial for treason.
During that time he was murdered, probably by a group of men led by Thomas de Mowbray, 1st Duke of Norfolk, and Nicholas Colfox, presumably on behalf of Richard II. This caused an outcry among the nobility of England that is considered by many to have added to Richard's unpopularity.
Notes
Note N1570
Index
==========
https://itsaboutlincoln.wordpress.com/2013/05/30/john-of-gaunts-mistre ss/
[2015-06-08]
John of Gaunt’s Mistress
Katherine de Rouet was born in about 1350 in Hainult, now in Belgium, the daughter of a Flemish Herald, Sir Payne de Rouet. She was educated at a convent in Romsey, Hampshire and later joined her sister Philippa, who became the wife of Geoffrey Chaucer. at the court of King Edward III.
Katherine married Sir Hugh Swynford of Kettlethorpe and Coleby, Lincolnshire, about 1366. Sir Hugh died in 1371 in Gironde, Bordeaux.
John of Gaunt, the 3rd son of King Edward III was born in Ghent in 1340. He married his first wife, Blanche of Lancaster, his third cousin, in 1359. Blance died of bubonic plague in 1369 at Bolingbroke castle.
He married Infanta Constanza of Castile in 1371 at Roquefort near Bordeaux, assuming the title “King of Spain” in 1372. In 1387 he tried, with the aid of King Joao I of Portugal, to conqueror Castile to make good his claim, but was unsuccessful.
During John of Gaunt’s marriage to Constance he fathered four children by his childrens’ governess, Katherine Swynford. John built a large house for Katherine and their children opposite St Mary’s Guildhall.
Constanza died in 1394.
John of Gaunt married Katherine Swynford in Lincoln Cathedral in 1396. John of Gaunt had many titles and with his marriage to Katherine he gained the title Earl of Lincoln. Following the marriage John and Katherine’s four children were legitimised, taking the surname of Beaufort, but were prevented from inheriting the throne. The children were:
John Beaufort, 1st Earl of Somerset (1373-1410)
Henry Beaufort, Cardinal (c. 1374-1447)
Thomas Beaufort, 1st Duke of Exeter (1377-1426)
Joan Beaufort, Countess of Westmorland. (1379-1440)
Henry Beaufort was bishop of Lincoln from 1398 to 1405 and was created Cardinal in 1426.
Although John of Gaunt didn’t inherit the English throne all sovereigns of England and Great Britain from Henry IV are his descendants.
John of Gaunt died in 1399, his estates were declared forfeit by King Richard II as John’s son and heir, Henry Bolingbroke, had been exiled. Henry returned to England to depose Richard and reigned as King Henry IV until 1413.
Katherine died on 10th May 1403 and is buried in Lincoln Cathedral.
==========
Notes
Note N1571
Index
Her tomb and that of her daughter Joan Beaufort, are under 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, small shields at breasts.
Notes
Note N1572
Index
Buried in Lincoln Cathedral
England, Scotland, Ireland: Musgrave's Obituaries Prior To 1800, Parts 3 & 4
Notes
Note N1573
Index
Katherine Swynford
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Katherine Swynford, Duchess of Lancaster (also spelled Synford), née (de) Roet (also spelled (de) Rouet, (de) Roët, or (de) Roelt) (probably 25 November 1350 - 10 May 1403), was the daughter of Sir Payne (or Paen/Pain/Paon) (de) Roet (also spelled (de) Rouet, (de) Roët or (de) Roelt), originally a Flemish herald from County of Hainaut, later knighted.
Katherine became the third wife of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, and their descendants were 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 Lady Margaret Beaufort, who was a great-granddaughter of Gaunt and Katherine Swynford.
Family
The children of Paganus Ruet (argued by modern-day genealogist Lindsay Brook and followed by author Weir[2] as "probably christened as Gilles") included Katherine, her sister Philippa, a son, Walter, and the eldest sister, Isabel (also called Elizabeth) de Roet (Canoness of the convent of St. Waudru's, Mons, c. 1366). Katherine is generally held to have been his youngest child. Weir[2] argues, based upon her review of limited fragmentary evidence, that Philippa was the junior and that both were children of a second marriage.
Paon de Ruet is found early, in a legal document, in the form Paganus de Rodio - referring to Rodium, the mediaeval Latin form corresponding to the Roeulx, or Le Rœulx, the name of a town of 3000 inhabitants, 8 miles north-east of Mons, on the highway leading from Mons to Nivelle. Paon de Ruet may have been impelled to seek his fortune in England by the recital of the exploits of Fastre de Ruet, who accompanied John of Beaumont in 1326, when, with three hundred followers, he went to assist the English against the Scots. Fastre was the younger brother of the last lord of Roeulx descended from the Counts of Hainaut. He and his brother Eustace fell into pecuniary straits, and were obliged to alienate their landed possessions. Fastre died in 1331, and was buried in the abbey church of Roeulx, while his brother Eustace survived till 1336. Paon was, like Fastre, a younger brother - possibly of a collateral line.
As the king was in the North, a number of the Flemings returned home without proceeding further than London, but Paon de Ruet was one of those who remained in England in the retinue of Philippa of Hainaut, accompanying the young queen in her departure from Valenciennes to join her youthful husband Edward III in England at the close of 1327. His name does not appear in the list of knights who accompanied the queen from Hainaut, however, described by Froissart to be among additional knights referred to as 'pluissier jone esquier'. Speght (1598)[3] prefixed to his history a genealogical tree which began: 'Paganus de Rouet Hannoniensis, aliter dictus Guien Rex Armorum' describing de Ruet as Guienne King of Arms. Upon the coronation of Henry the Fifth (1413), Sir William Bruges held the same title in the fifth year of the King's reign (Edmondson 1. 104) and the same monarch was accompanied to France before Agincourt by a herald bearing that name (Wylie, Reign of Henry the Fifth 1. 493).
In 1347, Ruet was sent to the siege of Calais, and was one of two knights deputed by Queen Philippa to conduct out of town the citizens whom she had saved.
[Froissart, 5.215 : "Et au matin elle fist donner a casqun sys nobles [say, $150], et Ies fist conduire hors de l'oost par messire Sanse d'Aubrecicourt et messire Paon de Ruet, si avent que il vorrent, et que il fu avis as deus chevaliers que il estoient hors dou peril, et au departir il les commanderent a Dieu, et retournerent li chevalier en l'oost."] He had returned to the lands of Hainaut, probably by 1349, and Katherine was born the following year.
Life
Katherine's birth date in 1350 is assumed to be 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.
Katherine married in St Clement Danes Church, Strand, London in abt. 1366 to "Hugh" Ottes Swynford, a knight from the manor of Kettlethorpe in Lincolnshire, son of Thomas Swynford and Nicole Druel. Katherine was known to have borne the following children by him: Thomas (21 September 1368 - 1432), Blanche (born 1 May 1367), and possibly Margaret Swynford (born c. 1369), who was a nun nominated at the prestigious Barking Abbey by command of 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 (her namesake) placed within her own daughters' chambers and afforded the same luxuries as her daughters; additionally, John of Gaunt stood as godfather to the child. Katherine's sister, Philippa, attached to Queen Philippa's household, married the poet Geoffrey Chaucer, whose poem The Book of the Duchess commemorated Blanche's death by plague in 1369. Speght (1598)[3] said of Philippa's marriage: 'He [Chaucer] matched in marriage with a Knight's daughter of Henault, called Paon de Ruet, king of Armes, as by this draught appeareth, taken out of the office of the Heraldes.' M Speght's authority Stow (1592)[4] recorded: 'He [Chaucer] had to wife the daughter of Paine Roete alias Gwine [ed. 1631, Guian] king at armes, by whom he had issue Tho. Chaucer.'
Sometime after Blanche's 1369 death, but before the Duke's second marriage, Katherine and John of Gaunt consummated a romantic affair which would entail four children being born out of wedlock to the couple, and would endure as a lifelong relationship. Two years after the death of the Duke's second wife, Infanta Constance of Castile, Katherine and John of Gaunt married on 13 January 1396 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'. John and Katherine's four children had been given the surname "Beaufort" and were legitimized as adults by their parents' marriage with approval by King Richard and the Pope. Although legitimized, the Beauforts were barred from inheriting the throne by a clause in the legitimation act inserted by their half-brother, Henry IV, although modern scholarship has disputed the authority of a monarch to alter an existing parliamentary statute. This was later revoked by the monarch Edward VI, placing Katherine's descendants back within the legitimate line of inheritance; in fact, the Tudor dynasty, including Edward, were direct descendants of John and Katherine's eldest child, John Beaufort.
After John of Gaunt's death, Katherine became dowager Duchess of Lancaster. She outlived him by four years, dying on 10 May 1403. Her 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 Dugdale records their appearance.
Also defaced in 1644, and removed of any precious or semi-precious metals, was the tomb of her father Paon de Ruet / Roet in St. Paul's, near Sir John Beauchamp's tomb (commonly called Duke Humphrey's). It was recorded that "Once a fair marble stone inlaid all over with brass, nothing but the heads of a few brazen nails are at this day visible, previously engraven with the representation and coat of arms of the party defunct, thus much of a mangled funeral inscription was of late times perspicuous to be read". It, along with the tombs of many others, including John of Gaunt and Blanche of Lancaster's, were completely destroyed in the Great Fire of London. The former inscription regarding Paganus Roet (styled as 'Guinne', 'Guyenne', or 'Gwinne' the king at arms or master of arms, often shortened simply to the frank reference to 'armes' as 'Guiles' or 'Giles') was as follows: " Hic Jacet Paganus Roet Miles Guyenne Rex Armorum Pater Catherine Ducisse Lancastrie." By 1658, viewed without its brass plaquard and effigies, it was described by Dugdale as: "In australi ala, navi Ecclesue opposita (prope tumulum D. Johannis de Bellocampo), sub lapide marmoreo, jacet Paganus Roet, Rex Armorum tempore Regis Edwardi tertii".
[edit] Children and descendants
By Hugh Swynford:
Margaret Swynford (born c. 1363), 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.[2]
?Dorothy Swynford (born c. 1366). It was suggested in 1846 by Thomas Stapleton that there was a third daughter named Dorothy who married Thomas Thimelby of Poolham near Horncastle, Lincolnshire, who was Sheriff of Lincolnshire in 1380 and died in 1390. There is no current evidence to support this claim.[2]
Sir Thomas Swynford (1367-1432), born in Lincoln while his father Sir Hugh Swynford was away on a campaign with John of Gaunt in Castile fighting for Peter of Castile.[2]
Blanche Swynford (after 1375), named for the Duchess of Lancaster, and also a godchild of John of Gaunt.[2]
By John of Gaunt:
John Beaufort, 1st Earl of Somerset (1373-1410)
Henry Beaufort, Cardinal (1375-1447)
Thomas Beaufort, Duke of Exeter (1377-1426)
Joan Beaufort, Countess of Westmorland (1379-1440)
The descendants of Katherine Swynford and John of Gaunt are significant in British history. Their son, John Beaufort, Earl of Somerset, was great-grandfather of Henry VII, who established the Tudor dynasty and based his claim to the throne on his mother's lineage to John of Gaunt's father, Edward III. John Beaufort also had a daughter named Joan Beaufort, who married King James I of Scotland and thus was an ancestress of the House of Stuart.[5] John and Katherine's daughter, Joan Beaufort, was grandmother of the English kings Edward IV and Richard III, whom Henry VII defeated at the Battle of Bosworth; 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.[6] John of Gaunt's son - Katherine's stepson - became Henry IV after deposing Richard II (who was imprisoned and died in Pontefract Castle, where Katherine's son, Thomas Swynford, was constable and is said to have starved Richard to death for his stepbrother). 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 (or Catalina), was great-grandmother of Catherine of Aragon as well.
[edit] In literature
Katherine Swynford is the subject of Anya Seton's novel Katherine (published in 1954) and of Alison Weir's biography Katherine Swynford: The Story of John of Gaunt and his Scandalous Duchess (ISBN 0-224-06321-9). 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 fourteenth-century England and an example of a woman's ability to manipulate contemporary social mores for her own interests.
==========
Wikipedia entry 2015-05-16 (obviously updated from the previous)
Katherine Swynford, Duchess of Lancaster (also spelled Katharine or Catherine[2]) 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 by his marriage to Elizabeth of York, eldest daughter of Edward IV, and heir to the throne in the absence of her brothers, Edward V and Richard, Duke of York, known throughout history as the Princes in the Tower.
Family[edit]
Katherine was the daughter of Paon de Roet, a herald, and later knight, who was "probably christened as Gilles".[3] She had two sisters, Philippa and Isabel (also called Elizabeth) 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.[3] Katherine's sister Philippa, a lady of Queen Philippa's household, married the poet Geoffrey Chaucer.
Life[edit]
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.[citation needed] 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 (born 1 May 1367), Thomas (21 September 1368 - 1432), and possibly Margaret Swynford (born about 1369), 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 (her namesake) 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 1369 but before the Duke's second marriage, 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; this relationship endured lifelong but 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[edit]
Katherine Swynford's tomb in 1809
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[edit]
Katherine's children by Hugh Swynford were:
Margaret Swynford (born c. 1369), 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.[3]
Sir Thomas Swynford (1367-1432), 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.[3][4]
Blanche Swynford, named after the Duchess of Lancaster and a godchild of John of Gaunt. (If, as suggested, she was born after 1375, this date is too late for her to have been fathered by Hugh Swynford, who died in 1371/2).[3]
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.[3]
Katherine's children by John of Gaunt were:
Coat of arms of Katherine Swynford as Duchess of Lancaster, after her marriage to John of Gaunt : three gold Catherine wheels ("roet" means "little wheel" in Old French) on a red field. The wheel emblem shows Katherine's devotion to her patron saint, Catherine of Alexandria, also known as Saint Catherine of the Wheel.,[3] although there was once extant a copy of her seal's impression, ca. 1377, showing her arms of three Catherine wheels of gold on a field Gules, a molet in fess point empaling the arms of Swynford (Birch's Catalogue of Seals
John Beaufort, 1st Earl of Somerset (1373-1410)
Henry, Cardinal Beaufort (1375-1447)
Thomas Beaufort, Duke of Exeter (1377-1426)
Joan Beaufort, Countess of Westmorland (1379-1440)
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 (including himself) 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.[5] John and Katherine's daughter, Joan Beaufort, was grandmother of the English kings Edward IV and Richard III, whom Henry VII defeated at the Battle of Bosworth; 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.[6] John of Gaunt's son - Katherine's stepson Henry of Bolingbroke - became Henry IV after deposing Richard II (who was imprisoned and died in Pontefract Castle, where Katherine's son, Thomas Swynford, was constable and is said to have starved Richard to death for his step-brother). 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 (or Catalina), was great-grandmother of Catherine of Aragon as well.
In literature[edit]
Katherine Swynford is the subject of Anya Seton's novel Katherine (published in 1954) and of Alison Weir's 2008 biography Katherine Swynford: The Story of John of Gaunt and his Scandalous Duchess (ISBN 0-224-06321-9). 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 and further reading[edit]
1. 1640 drawing of the tombs of Katherine Swynford and her daughter Joan Beaufort in Lincoln Cathedral before the tombs were despoiled in 1644 by the Roundheads
2. Churchill, Winston S. 'The Houses of York and Lancaster', The Birth of Britain, p 435. New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1956. Print.
3. to: a b c d e f g Weir, Alison (2007). Katherine Swynford: The story of John of Gaunt and his Scandalous Duchess. London: Jonathan Cape. ISBN 0-224-06321-9.
4. Plea rolls of the Court of Common Pleas: National Archives; CP 40/629; http://aalt.law.uh.edu/H5/CP40no629/bCP40no629dorses/IMG_1228.htm ; first entry, Thomas Swynford, knight, appearing with his wife, Margaret
5. "About Katherine Swynford In Brief" . Katherine Swynford Society. Retrieved 2010-05-24.
6. James, Susan. 'Catherine Parr: Henry VIII's Last Love.' 2009. pg 15.
Lucraft, Jeannette (2006). 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 (U.S. title).
Judy Perry, "Katherine Roet's Swynfords: a re-examination of interfamily relationships and descent", Foundations (Foundation for Medieval Genealogy), 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 (Foundation for Medieval Genealogy), Vol. 3, No. 4
Sargeant, Carol (2009). Love, Honour and Royal Blood Book One: Katharine Swynford. Dog Ear Publishing. ISBN 978-1-60844-162-4.
==========
1373 - Beaufort Castle,Champagne,Dordogne,Aquitaine,France - (he became 1st Earl of Somerset)
Abt. 1374 - Beaufort Castle,Champagne,Dordogne,Aquitaine,France - (he became Bishop-Cardinal-Chancellor)
1375 - Beaufort Castle,Champagne,Dordogne,Aquitaine,France - (she became Countess Joan of Westmoreland 'Queen of Scotland'
Jan 1376 - Beaufort Castle,Champagne,Dordogne,Aquitaine,France - (he became Duke of Exeter)
03 Feb 1399 - Leicester Castle,Leicestershire,England,UK - On 3rd Feb 1399,John Gaunt,Duke of Lancaster,died in Leicester Castle,with Katherine by his side,conforming to his will,dated the same day,his body was interred before the high altar of Old St.Paul's Cathedral,near remains of Blanche,his first consort.
Katherine Swynford
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Katherine Swynford, Duchess of Lancaster (also spelled Synford), née (de) Roet (also spelled (de) Rouet, (de) Roët, or (de) Roelt) (probably 25 November 1350 - 10 May 1403), was the daughter of Sir Payne (or Paen/Pain/Paon) (de) Roet (also spelled (de) Rouet, (de) Roët or (de) Roelt), originally a Flemish herald from County of Hainaut, later knighted.
Katherine became the third wife of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, and their descendants were 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 Lady Margaret Beaufort, who was a great-granddaughter of Gaunt and Katherine Swynford.
Family
The children of Paganus Ruet (argued by modern-day genealogist Lindsay Brook and followed by author Weir[2] as "probably christened as Gilles") included Katherine, her sister Philippa, a son, Walter, and the eldest sister, Isabel (also called Elizabeth) de Roet (Canoness of the convent of St. Waudru's, Mons, c. 1366). Katherine is generally held to have been his youngest child. Weir[2] argues, based upon her review of limited fragmentary evidence, that Philippa was the junior and that both were children of a second marriage.
Paon de Ruet is found early, in a legal document, in the form Paganus de Rodio - referring to Rodium, the mediaeval Latin form corresponding to the Roeulx, or Le Rœulx, the name of a town of 3000 inhabitants, 8 miles north-east of Mons, on the highway leading from Mons to Nivelle. Paon de Ruet may have been impelled to seek his fortune in England by the recital of the exploits of Fastre de Ruet, who accompanied John of Beaumont in 1326, when, with three hundred followers, he went to assist the English against the Scots. Fastre was the younger brother of the last lord of Roeulx descended from the Counts of Hainault. He and his brother Eustace fell into pecuniary straits, and were obliged to alienate their landed possessions. Fastre died in 1331, and was buried in the abbey church of Roeulx, while his brother Eustace survived till 1336. Paon was, like Fastre, a younger brother - possibly of a collateral line.
As the king was in the North, a number of the Flemings returned home without proceeding further than London, but Paon de Ruet was one of those who remained in England in the retinue of Philippa of Hainaut, accompanying the young queen in her departure from Valenciennes to join her youthful husband Edward III in England at the close of 1327. His name does not appear in the list of knights who accompanied the queen from Hainault, however, described by Froissart to be among additional knights referred to as 'pluissier jone esquier'. Speght (1598)[3] prefixed to his history a genealogical tree which began: 'Paganus de Rouet Hannoniensis, aliter dictus Guien Rex Armorum' describing de Ruet as Guienne King of Arms. Upon the coronation of Henry the Fifth (1413), Sir William Bruges held the same title in the fifth year of the King's reign (Edmondson 1. 104) and the same monarch was accompanied to France before Agincourt by a herald bearing that name (Wylie, Reign of Henry the Fifth 1. 493).
In 1347, Ruet was sent to the siege of Calais, and was one of two knights deputed by Queen Philippa to conduct out of town the citizens whom she had saved.
[Froissart, 5.215 : "Et au matin elle fist donner a casqun sys nobles [say, $150], et Ies fist conduire hors de l'oost par messire Sanse d'Aubrecicourt et messire Paon de Ruet, si avent que il vorrent, et que il fu avis as deus chevaliers que il estoient hors dou peril, et au departir il les commanderent a Dieu, et retournerent li chevalier en l'oost."] He had returned to the lands of Hainault, probably by 1349, and Katherine was born the following year.
Life
Katherine's birth date in 1350 is assumed to be 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.
Katherine married in St Clement Danes Church, Strand, London in abt. 1366 to "Hugh" Ottes Swynford, a knight from the manor of Kettlethorpe in Lincolnshire, son of Thomas Swynford and Nicole Druel. Katherine was known to have borne the following children by him: Thomas (21 September 1368 - 1432), Blanche (born 1 May 1367), and possibly Margaret Swynford (born c. 1369), who was a nun nominated at the prestigious Barking Abbey by command of 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 (her namesake) placed within her own daughters' chambers and afforded the same luxuries as her daughters; additionally, John of Gaunt stood as godfather to the child. Katherine's sister, Philippa, attached to Queen Philippa's household, married the poet Geoffrey Chaucer, whose poem The Book of the Duchess commemorated Blanche's death by plague in 1369. Speght (1598)[3] said of Philippa's marriage: 'He [Chaucer] matched in marriage with a Knight's daughter of Henault, called Paon de Ruet, king of Armes, as by this draught appeareth, taken out of the office of the Heraldes.' M Speght's authority Stow (1592)[4] recorded: 'He [Chaucer] had to wife the daughter of Paine Roete alias Gwine [ed. 1631, Guian] king at armes, by whom he had issue Tho. Chaucer.'
Sometime after Blanche's 1369 death, but before the Duke's second marriage, Katherine and John of Gaunt consummated a romantic affair which would entail four children being born out of wedlock to the couple, and would endure as a lifelong relationship. Two years after the death of the Duke's second wife, Infanta Constance of Castile, Katherine and John of Gaunt married on 13 January 1396 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'. John and Katherine's four children had been given the surname "Beaufort" and were legitimized as adults by their parents' marriage with approval by King Richard and the Pope. Although legitimized, the Beauforts were barred from inheriting the throne by a clause in the legitimation act inserted by their half-brother, Henry IV, although modern scholarship has disputed the authority of a monarch to alter an existing parliamentary statute. This was later revoked by the monarch Edward VI, placing Katherine's descendants back within the legitimate line of inheritance; in fact, the Tudor dynasty, including Edward, were direct descendants of John and Katherine's eldest child, John Beaufort.
After John of Gaunt's death, Katherine became dowager Duchess of Lancaster. She outlived him by four years, dying on 10 May 1403. Her 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 Dugdale records their appearance.
Also defaced in 1644, and removed of any precious or semi-precious metals, was the tomb of her father Paon de Ruet / Roet in St. Paul's, near Sir John Beauchamp's tomb (commonly called Duke Humphrey's). It was recorded that "Once a fair marble stone inlaid all over with brass, nothing but the heads of a few brazen nails are at this day visible, previously engraven with the representation and coat of arms of the party defunct, thus much of a mangled funeral inscription was of late times perspicuous to be read". It, along with the tombs of many others, including John of Gaunt and Blanche of Lancaster's, were completely destroyed in the Great Fire of London. The former inscription regarding Paganus Roet (styled as 'Guinne', 'Guyenne', or 'Gwinne' the king at arms or master of arms, often shortened simply to the frank reference to 'armes' as 'Guiles' or 'Giles') was as follows: " Hic Jacet Paganus Roet Miles Guyenne Rex Armorum Pater Catherine Ducisse Lancastrie." By 1658, viewed without its brass plaquard and effigies, it was described by Dugdale as: "In australi ala, navi Ecclesue opposita (prope tumulum D. Johannis de Bellocampo), sub lapide marmoreo, jacet Paganus Roet, Rex Armorum tempore Regis Edwardi tertii".
[edit] Children and descendants
By Hugh Swynford:
Margaret Swynford (born c. 1363), 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.[2]
?Dorothy Swynford (born c. 1366). It was suggested in 1846 by Thomas Stapleton that there was a third daughter named Dorothy who married Thomas Thimelby of Poolham near Horncastle, Lincolnshire, who was Sheriff of Lincolnshire in 1380 and died in 1390. There is no current evidence to support this claim.[2]
Sir Thomas Swynford (1367-1432), born in Lincoln while his father Sir Hugh Swynford was away on a campaign with John of Gaunt in Castile fighting for Peter of Castile.[2]
Blanche Swynford (after 1375), named for the Duchess of Lancaster, and also a godchild of John of Gaunt.[2]
By John of Gaunt:
John Beaufort, 1st Earl of Somerset (1373-1410)
Henry Beaufort, Cardinal (1375-1447)
Thomas Beaufort, Duke of Exeter (1377-1426)
Joan Beaufort, Countess of Westmorland (1379-1440)
The descendants of Katherine Swynford and John of Gaunt are significant in British history. Their son, John Beaufort, Earl of Somerset, was great-grandfather of Henry VII, who established the Tudor dynasty and based his claim to the throne on his mother's lineage to John of Gaunt's father, Edward III. John Beaufort also had a daughter named Joan Beaufort, who married King James I of Scotland and thus was an ancestress of the House of Stuart.[5] John and Katherine's daughter, Joan Beaufort, was grandmother of the English kings Edward IV and Richard III, whom Henry VII defeated at the Battle of Bosworth; 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.[6] John of Gaunt's son - Katherine's stepson - became Henry IV after deposing Richard II (who was imprisoned and died in Pontefract Castle, where Katherine's son, Thomas Swynford, was constable and is said to have starved Richard to death for his stepbrother). 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 (or Catalina), was great-grandmother of Catherine of Aragon as well.
[edit] In literature
Katherine Swynford is the subject of Anya Seton's novel Katherine (published in 1954) and of Alison Weir's biography Katherine Swynford: The Story of John of Gaunt and his Scandalous Duchess (ISBN 0-224-06321-9). 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 fourteenth-century England and an example of a woman's ability to manipulate contemporary social mores for her own interests.
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Wikipedia entry 2015-05-16 (obviously updated from the previous)
Katherine Swynford, Duchess of Lancaster (also spelled Katharine or Catherine[2]) 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 by his marriage to Elizabeth of York, eldest daughter of Edward IV, and heir to the throne in the absence of her brothers, Edward V and Richard, Duke of York, known throughout history as the Princes in the Tower.
Family[edit]
Katherine was the daughter of Paon de Roet, a herald, and later knight, who was "probably christened as Gilles".[3] She had two sisters, Philippa and Isabel (also called Elizabeth) 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.[3] Katherine's sister Philippa, a lady of Queen Philippa's household, married the poet Geoffrey Chaucer.
Life[edit]
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.[citation needed] 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 (born 1 May 1367), Thomas (21 September 1368 - 1432), and possibly Margaret Swynford (born about 1369), 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 (her namesake) 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 1369 but before the Duke's second marriage, 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; this relationship endured lifelong but 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[edit]
Katherine Swynford's tomb in 1809
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[edit]
Katherine's children by Hugh Swynford were:
Margaret Swynford (born c. 1369), 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.[3]
Sir Thomas Swynford (1367-1432), 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.[3][4]
Blanche Swynford, named after the Duchess of Lancaster and a godchild of John of Gaunt. (If, as suggested, she was born after 1375, this date is too late for her to have been fathered by Hugh Swynford, who died in 1371/2).[3]
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.[3]
Katherine's children by John of Gaunt were:
Coat of arms of Katherine Swynford as Duchess of Lancaster, after her marriage to John of Gaunt : three gold Catherine wheels ("roet" means "little wheel" in Old French) on a red field. The wheel emblem shows Katherine's devotion to her patron saint, Catherine of Alexandria, also known as Saint Catherine of the Wheel.,[3] although there was once extant a copy of her seal's impression, ca. 1377, showing her arms of three Catherine wheels of gold on a field Gules, a molet in fess point empaling the arms of Swynford (Birch's Catalogue of Seals
John Beaufort, 1st Earl of Somerset (1373-1410)
Henry, Cardinal Beaufort (1375-1447)
Thomas Beaufort, Duke of Exeter (1377-1426)
Joan Beaufort, Countess of Westmorland (1379-1440)
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 (including himself) 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.[5] John and Katherine's daughter, Joan Beaufort, was grandmother of the English kings Edward IV and Richard III, whom Henry VII defeated at the Battle of Bosworth; 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.[6] John of Gaunt's son - Katherine's stepson Henry of Bolingbroke - became Henry IV after deposing Richard II (who was imprisoned and died in Pontefract Castle, where Katherine's son, Thomas Swynford, was constable and is said to have starved Richard to death for his step-brother). 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 (or Catalina), was great-grandmother of Catherine of Aragon as well.
In literature[edit]
Katherine Swynford is the subject of Anya Seton's novel Katherine (published in 1954) and of Alison Weir's 2008 biography Katherine Swynford: The Story of John of Gaunt and his Scandalous Duchess (ISBN 0-224-06321-9). 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 and further reading[edit]
1. 1640 drawing of the tombs of Katherine Swynford and her daughter Joan Beaufort in Lincoln Cathedral before the tombs were despoiled in 1644 by the Roundheads
2. Churchill, Winston S. 'The Houses of York and Lancaster', The Birth of Britain, p 435. New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1956. Print.
3. to: a b c d e f g Weir, Alison (2007). Katherine Swynford: The story of John of Gaunt and his Scandalous Duchess. London: Jonathan Cape. ISBN 0-224-06321-9.
4. Plea rolls of the Court of Common Pleas: National Archives; CP 40/629; http://aalt.law.uh.edu/H5/CP40no629/bCP40no629dorses/IMG_1228.htm ; first entry, Thomas Swynford, knight, appearing with his wife, Margaret
5. "About Katherine Swynford In Brief" . Katherine Swynford Society. Retrieved 2010-05-24.
6. James, Susan. 'Catherine Parr: Henry VIII's Last Love.' 2009. pg 15.
Lucraft, Jeannette (2006). 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 (U.S. title).
Judy Perry, "Katherine Roet's Swynfords: a re-examination of interfamily relationships and descent", Foundations (Foundation for Medieval Genealogy), 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 (Foundation for Medieval Genealogy), Vol. 3, No. 4
Sargeant, Carol (2009). Love, Honour and Royal Blood Book One: Katharine Swynford. Dog Ear Publishing. ISBN 978-1-60844-162-4.
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1373 - Beaufort Castle,Champagne,Dordogne,Aquitaine,France - (he became 1st Earl of Somerset)
Abt. 1374 - Beaufort Castle,Champagne,Dordogne,Aquitaine,France - (he became Bishop-Cardinal-Chancellor)
1375 - Beaufort Castle,Champagne,Dordogne,Aquitaine,France - (she became Countess Joan of Westmoreland 'Queen of Scotland'
Jan 1376 - Beaufort Castle,Champagne,Dordogne,Aquitaine,France - (he became Duke of Exeter)
03 Feb 1399 - Leicester Castle,Leicestershire,England,UK - On 3rd Feb 1399,John Gaunt,Duke of Lancaster,died in Leicester Castle,with Katherine by his side,conforming to his will,dated the same day,his body was interred before the high altar of Old St.Paul's Cathedral,near remains of Blanche,his first consort.