John of Gaunt
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According to Anthony Goodman’s John of Gaunt: The Exercise of Princely Power in Fourteenth-Century Europe… “At his [Gaunt’s] manor of Daventry (Northants) there was the John O’ Gaunt Motel…” I had no idea Gaunt was so ahead of his time! (And yes, I’ve taken the quote out of context.)
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The above painting does not illustrate the Cheshire event of 1388. According to Jonathan Hughes in his The Rise of Alchemy in Fourteenth Century England, on a day in August 1388, during Vespers, when Richard II was recovering his authority as king, two stars were observed hovering at Haulton, (Halton, Runcorn) Cheshire. They were in…
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Um, where’s Lionel of Clarence in this scheme of things….?
“Lambert Simnel”, “Perkin”, “Princes”, “Tudors”, Bosworth, Edmund of Langley, Edward III, Edward of Warwick, Edward the Black Prince, Elizabeth of York, genealogy, Henry IV, Henry VII, Innocent VIII, John of Gaunt, Lady Margaret Beaufort, Lancastrians, Lionel of Antwerp, Mortimers, Norman conquest, propaganda, Richard II, Richard III, Richard of Shrewsbury, Wales, Wars of the Roses, William I, YorkistsWell, well, this author appears to have expunged Lionel of Clarence and his line from the annals of history, in order to make the Lancastrian claim to the throne senior to that of York. When, thanks to Lionel, it ended up the other way around. Lionel was the 2nd son of Edward III, Lancaster the…
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Today marks the anniversary of the death in 1402 of Edmund of Langley, 1st Duke of York, an undervalued and almost forgotten prince. Edmund deserves his place in history. Without him the House of York itself would never have existed, and its later members, who everyone finds so interesting, would never have been born.…
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How and why the House of York laid claim to the throne….
Adam of Usk, Anne of Bohemia, Ashburnham House, Blanche of Lancaster, British Library, British Museum, Chandos Herald, Charters, Chris Given-Wilson, Cotton Library, Edmund Crouchback, Edmund Mortimer, Edmund of Langley, Edward I, Edward II, Edward III, Edward the Black Prince, English Historical Review, entail mail, Eulogium, France, Good Parliament, Havering atte Bower, Henry III, Henry IV, Henry V, Isabella de Valois, Isabella of Angouleme, Joan of Kent, John of Gaunt, Lionel of Antwerp, male line, Michael Bennett, Penny Lawne, Phillipa of Ulster, Richard Duke of York, Richard II, Roger Mortimer, Romford, Salic Law, Scotichronicon, Sheen, Simon Sudbury, Sir Richard Stury, succession, Thomas of Lancaster, Thomas of woodstock, Thomas Walsingham, Wars of the Roses, willsHere is an article from English Historical Review, 1st June 1998, telling of how and why Richard, 3rd Duke of York, laid claim to the throne of England. The root cause was an entail to the will of Edward III, who was admittedly in his dotage at the time. The entail, which excluded a female…
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The 10 greatest medieval royal romances? Some, maybe….
Anne Boleyn, Anne Neville, Anne of Bohemia, Blanche of Lancaster, Catherine de Roet, Catherine de Valois, Cecily Duchess of York, Charles Brandon, Edmund Duke of Somerset, Edward I, Edward II, Edward III, Eleanor of Castile, George Duke of Clarence, Henry VIII, Hugh le Despenser, Isobel Neville, John of Gaunt, Mary “Tudor”, Owain Tudor, Phillippa of Hainault, Piers Gaveston, Richard Duke of York, Richard II, Richard IIIWell, my opinion only, of course, but where are John of Gaunt and Katherine Swynford/de Roët? I don’t believe his first wife, Blanche, was his greatest love. That honour went to Katherine, for love of whom he went to extraordinary lengths, enduring scandal and opprobrium, but eventually making her his third duchess. And managing to…
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According to Alison Weir, Henry VII was a little twitchy about his descent from John of Gaunt’s notorious mistress (and eventual wife) Katherine de Roët/Swynford. Between them, Gaunt and Katherine produced an illegitimate line of children, the Beauforts, which wasn’t/was/wasn’t legitimate/in line of succession, according to different monarchs. Henry VII was a Beaufort, so you…
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Henry VII’s iffy Beaufort claim….
“Beauforts”, “Tudors”, Blanche of Lancaster, Castile, Catherine de Roet, Constanza of Castile, Edmund of Langley, excepta dignitate regali, Henry IV, Henry VII, illegitimacy, Joan “Beaufort”, John of Gaunt, Lancastrians, Lionel of Antwerp, proclamations, Ralph Earl of Westmorland, Richard II, Richard III, Sir Hugh SwynfordThere is always a howl of outrage if fingers are pointed at Katherine de Roet/Swynford and John of Gaunt, and the legitimacy of their Beaufort children is called into question. The matter is guaranteed to end up with someone’s digit jabbing toward Richard III. Why? Because in his proclamation against Henry Tudor, Richard derided the…
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Today in 1367, Henry IV was born:
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As we said five years ago, it is unclear whether John, Marquess of Somerset and Dorset, really was the son of John of Gaunt or of Sir Hugh Swynford. Furthermore, the common law answer to that question may be different to the genetic answer, as we revealed that Swynford could well have died after the…
