The New Murrey and Blue blog

We all know that Philippa of Lancaster—John of Gaunt’s eldest daughter by his much-loved first wife, Blanche of Lancaster—was the ancestress of a line of Portuguese monarchs (do we not?). But do we all know that Gaunt’s second wife, Costanza/Constance of Castile, gave Gaunt’s a claim to the throne of Castile?

Costanza was the daughter and heir of the murdered Pedro the Cruel/Just (he was called both) whom Costanza adored. She and Gaunt had a daughter, Catalina/Catherine of Lancaster,  through whom Gaunt claimed the crown of Castile, and in 1386 Costanza and Catalina travelled with Gaunt on his military campaign to take Pedro’s lost crown in right of his wife. He’d been calling himself Monseigneur d’Espagne ever since he married Costanza, so he clearly considered himself to be just that.

But Juan I, the king already sitting on Castile’s throne, wasn’t about to simply hand over the crown. He was the son of Henrique of Trastamara, the illegitimate half-brother who’d murdered Pedro. As, as you can imagine, there was a certain personal bitterness involved in all this, as well as Juan’s natural determination not to give up what his father had usurped in the first place.

And as if that were not bad enough, Juan I was now claiming the crown of Portugal as well! Joao I, king of Portugal, was Gaunt’s son-in-law, and—naturally—he and Gaunt formed an alliance to teach Juan I of Castile a lesson.

I won’t explain more, because this article tells all. But I will say that I have always imagined Catalina to have been in the visual mould of her father or mother. Instead I came to this description of her: “[she was] tall and fat, of an extremely fair complexion and with a tendency to blush. She was blonde, walked like a man rather than like a lady, and she’d inherited the strong features of her Plantagenet forebears.”

John of Gaunt was nothing if not sophisticated and polished (except when he lost his Plantagenet temper), and his wife Costanza had always, without fail, conducted herself regally. It’s hard to imagine them producing a daughter who “walked like a man rather than like a lady”. Methinks Gaunt’s mistress, Katherine de Roët, who was also Catalina’s governess, should have paid more attention to her charge’s deportment than to Gaunt’s little foibles.