Mistress of the Monarchy (65 page)

87
It was worn by Henry V at Agincourt in 1415, and is now one of the most precious gems in the Imperial State Crown.

88
Froissart; Russell;
Foedera
; Exchequer Records: E.403; Chancery Records: C.53

89
He would appear to have reached the age of twenty-one by 8 July 1389 (Pearsall).

90
Williams; Krauss:
Three Chaucer Studies
; Delany; Howard

91
John of Gaunt’s Register
; Williams; Gardner

92
Perry; Loftus and Chettle

93
Manly; Kelly

94
Kelly; Perry; Christopherson

95
Crow and Olsen. It is sometimes claimed that Geoffrey Chaucer never even bore arms; they were not generally granted to merchants until the mid-fifteenth century, and the arms sometimes attributed to his father, John Chaucer, are probably spurious. But a seal used by Thomas Chaucer at Ewelme in 1409, which bears the legend ‘[G]HOFRAI CHAVCIER’, has a shield displaying a bend entire, an unbroken diagonal stripe across a field. These are not the arms customarily used by Thomas Chaucer, whose shield sported a bend countercharged in red and silver, with the disposition of colours in each half of the field, and at each end of the bend itself, reversed on the other. It is this latter shield that appears on later portraits of Geoffrey, including those at Harvard University and in the National Portrait Gallery, and on his sixteenth-century tomb in Westminster Abbey. There can be little doubt, therefore, that these were his arms, that the chargings on the seal are an early version of them, somewhat worn and obliterated, and that Thomas, who used the same arms, was Geoffrey’s son. This is borne out by Thomas once signing himself
‘son of Geoffrey Chaucer’, and him being described as such by the fifteenth-century Oxford theologian Thomas Gascoigne, who was personally acquainted with him.

There are too several instances in this period of men choosing to display their mother’s arms rather than their father’s, if the mother was of higher rank. The arms of Maud Burghersh were more prestigious than any Chaucer could have borne, for she came from a prominent baronial family. And of course Geoffrey Chaucer must have been only one among many male relatives whose arms do not appear on the tomb. As Martin Ruud says, Thomas Chaucer was a snob, not a bastard.

It has also been pointed out that there is no record of Thomas Chaucer ever claiming the property in Hainault he inherited from his mother, as Thomas Swynford did in 1411; this too has been seen as evidence of bastardy. But it is worth mentioning that we similarly lack any record of Walter de Roët or his sisters inheriting those lands, or of the date of death of Paon de Roët, who left them to his children. We only know of the existence of such an inheritance through Thomas Swynford’s claim, and that is only because it was contested. A reasonable conclusion must be that the records relating to this inheritance, which cannot have been very substantial, have simply been lost, so perhaps Thomas Chaucer did get his share. See, for example, Thomas’s seal in Cotton MS. Julius, BL. Cvii, f.153; Exchequer records: E.164; Leese; Howard; Ruud.

96
John of Gaunt’s Register
; Leese; Pearsall

1
Cartulaire des Comtes de Hainaut

2
Register of Thomas Appleby
; Palmer: ‘Historical Context …’

3
John of Gaunt’s Register

4
Sloane MS. 82, f. 5; Harleian MSS.; Lane

5
Goodman:
John of Gaunt; Register of Thomas Appleby
. I am indebted to Professor Goodman for sending me the latter reference.

6
Froissart:
Le Joli Buisson de Jonece

7
Register of Thomas Appleby
. There is other evidence that Blanche died in 1368. Dr J.J.N. Palmer cites a letter John of Gaunt wrote in France on 17 August 1369, in which the Duke asks that his cousin, Blanche Mowbray, Lady Poynings, be invited to attend the obit to mark the first anniversary of the Duchess’s death; there is also a letter of December 1368 from Louis de Male, Count of Flanders, to Queen Philippa, rejecting a proposal that John of Gaunt marry his daughter Margaret, so Blanche was dead by then, which is why there is no record of her being issued with the customary new robes at Christmas 1368, nor with mourning garments
for Queen Philippa the following year. Palmer: ‘Historical Context …’;
John of Gaunt’s Register
; Brewer. Stow also gives Blanche’s date of death as 1368.

8
Walsingham:
Gesta Abbatum
…; Silva-Vigier. Later, John of Gaunt would donate two pieces of expensive gold cloth to the Abbey ‘for the soul of Blanche his wife, whose body lay here one night’.

9
Dugdale:
History of St Paul’s Cathedral

10
Stow:
London
; Webster

11
She was the niece of Henry, Duke of Lancaster, being the daughter of his sister Eleanor, who married Richard FitzAlan, Earl of Arundel.

12
John of Gaunt’s Register

13
Ibid.

14
Brewer; Pearsall; Perry; Galway

15
Brewer

16
Stone, introduction to Chaucer,
Love Visions

17
Pearsall

18
Goodman:
John of Gaunt
; Silva-Vigier; Palmer: ‘Historical Context …’

19
Brewer

20
Froissart

21
Exchequer Records: E.403

22
On 28 November 1368, Philippa had been listed as one of thirteen
damoi-selles
of the Queen who were to be given new robes for Christmas; as a member of the King’s household, Geoffrey Chaucer also received such robes. Pearsall

23
Froissart

24
Froissart:
Le Joli Buisson de Jonece

25
Brewer; Pearsall; Perry; Galway; Exchequer Records: E.101

26
Testamenta Eboracensia

27
John of Gaunt’s Register
; Duchy of Lancaster Records: DL.28. Over the years, there are numerous references to the annual obits in
John of Gaunt’s Register
and the Receiver-General’s accounts for the Duchy of Lancaster, further proof of John’s enduring devotion to Blanche’s memory.

28
Bruce

29
Cole

30
Froissart

31
John of Gaunt’s Register
; Exchequer Records: E.101

32
Froissart

33
John of Gaunt’s Register

34
Froissart

34
The palace was damaged by fires in 1597 and 1704, and was completely demolished in 1800.

36
Froissart; Gardner

37
Froissart

38
Ibid.

39
Armitage-Smith

40
Additional MS. 12531, fol. 10, detached leaf

41
Froissart also says that the marriage took place at St André-de-Cubzac, just north of Bordeaux, while Sandford, writing in the late seventeenth century, claims they were married in the Abbey of St Andrew in Bordeaux.

42
John of Gaunt’s Register

43
Testamenta Eboracensis

44
Goodman:
John of Gaunt

45
John of Gaunt’s Register

46
Ibid.; Froissart

47
John of Gaunt’s Register
; Exeter Cathedral Archives

48
John of Gaunt’s Register
; Goodman:
John of Gaunt

49
Froissart

50
John of Gaunt’s Register

51
Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem; Calendar of Close Rolls
; Richardson

52
It has been erroneously claimed that he was buried in Spratton Church, Northamptonshire, but the fine effigy of a knight that lies there in fact graces the tomb of another retainer of John of Gaunt, Hugh’s kinsman Sir John Swynford, Lord of Spratton, who died in 1372. Displayed on this effigy is the earliest-known representation of a collar with the famous Lancastrian SS links. Goodman:
John of Gaunt
; Gardner;
Victoria County History: Northamptonshire

53
Norris

54
Brewer;
John of Gaunt’s Register

55
Brewer

56
Walsingham

57
See Holmes:
The Good Parliament
, for example.

58
Gardner

59
Emerson

60
Anonimalle Chronicle

61
John of Gaunt’s Register

62
Ibid. Philippa and Elizabeth were given gold filets set with balas rubies to wear on their heads, and their robes were lavishly embroidered with pearls and trimmed with furs.

63
Ibid.

64
Ibid.

65
Ibid.

66
Calendar of Patent Rolls; Complete Peerage

67
Goodman:
Wars of the Roses

68
Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers

69
The Monk of Evesham corroborates the theory that the affair began only after John had married Constance.

70
Walsingham; Percy MS; Armitage-Smith. The late-fifteenth/early-sixteenth-century Percy MS. 78 at Alnwick Castle claims that John of Gaunt begot John Beaufort ‘in the days of the Lady Blanche, his first wife’.

71
Lord Berners, in his sixteenth-century translation of Froissart, says that Katherine ‘was concubine to the Duke in his other wives’ days’.

72
Original Letters; English Historical Documents, Vol. IV

73
Froissart

74
John of Gaunt’s Register

75
Lopes

76
Froissart

77
John of Gaunt’s Register

78
See, for example, Roger Joy.

79
Calendar of Close Rolls

80
John of Gaunt’s Register

81
Ibid.

82
Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem; Calendar of Patent Rolls

83
Ibid.

84
Calendar of Patent Rolls

85
John of Gaunt’s Register

86
Duchy of Lancaster Records: DL.29

87
John of Gaunt’s Register

88
Ibid.

89
Exchequer Records: E.403

90
John of Gaunt’s Register

91
John of Gaunt’s Register
; Goodman:
John of Gaunt

92
Knighton

93
Packe. According to Froissart, Constance’s sister Isabella was ‘young and beautiful’, but there the similarity to Constance ended, for Isabella was a lively, flighty girl, worldly rather than devout, with loose morals. In years to come, her name would become a byword for scandal at court, for her extramarital affairs were notorious. Nevertheless, the legitimacy of the three children she bore her husband was never called into question. Armitage-Smith; Goodman:
John of Gaunt
; Howard; Silva-Vigier

94
John of Gaunt’s Register

95
Both Armitage-Smith and Lucraft place his birth date in 1373.

96
Froissart

97
Ibid.

98
Walsingham:
Ypodigma Neustriae
. Since 1689, Beaufort has been called Monmorency-sur-Aube.

99
Duchy of Lancaster Records: DL.27; Froissart

100
Goodman:
Katherine Swynford
; Jones and Underwood

101
By Sandford, for example.

102
Armitage-Smith; Jones and Underwood. Professor Goodman has an interesting theory that the Beauforts were in fact surnamed in honour of Roger de Beaufort, brother of the last Avignon Pope, Gregory XI (Pierre Roger de Beaufort). Roger came from a prominent Provençal family and had been a prisoner of John of Gaunt, held in honourable custody at Kenilworth
Castle, since 1370. In 1377, he stood godfather there to the son of his custodian, Sir John Deyncourt. Beaufort was a chivalrous knight, and he and his brother the Pope were highly regarded by the Duke, which has prompted Professor Goodman to suggest that John may have wished to compliment Beaufort by naming his children by Katherine after him, and that this may also have been an attempt to hide their paternity. Of course, Beaufort could have been complicit in this matter, but it was hardly complimentary of John to name his bastards after the Pope’s brother, and — even more insultingly — thereby imply that Beaufort had fathered them. Goodman:
Katherine Swynford

1
Howard

2
Knighton

3
Troilus and Criseyde

4
Anonimalle Chronicle

5
Thynne

6
See Chapter 8.

7
For late mediaeval attitudes to sex and morality, see, for example, Given-Wilson and Curteis; Goodman:
Honourable Lady
; Gardner; Silva-Vigier.

8
John of Gaunt’s Register

9
Ibid.

10
Ibid.; Brewer

11
John of Gaunt’s Register

12
Letters of Mediaeval Women

13
John of Gaunt’s Register
. Lady Wake had been born Alice FitzAlan, daughter of the Earl of Arundel, and she was a niece of Henry, Duke of Lancaster, a cousin to the Duchess Blanche, and married to Thomas Holland, eldest son of the Princess Joan. Thus she was eminently suited, through her connections alone, to look after the Lancastrian children.

14
Ibid.

15
Ibid.; Bruce

16
John of Gaunt’s Register

17
Ibid; Goodman:
John of Gaunt
. Tutbury Castle is now an extensive ruin, having been largely slighted by Cromwell’s troops in the Civil War. Three towers remain, as does John of Gaunt’s gateway, but most of the other buildings are fifteenth-century or later.

18
Chute

19
Goodman:
Honourable Lady
. For the governess’s role, see Goodman:
Honourable Lady, John of Gaunt
; Lucraft: ‘Missing from History’; Chute; Lewis:
Cult of St Katherine
; Tilbury.

20
John of Gaunt’s Register

21
Ibid.

22
Ibid.

23
Ibid.

24
Ibid.

25
Ibid.

26
Pearsall

27
John of Gaunt’s Register; Rotuli Parliamentorum

28
For the
chevauchée
of 1373, see, for example, Goodman:
John of Gaunt
; Froissart; Armitage-Smith; Delachenal; Holmes; Sherborne.

29
Froissart

30
For a reassessment of the campaign, see Palmer;
Les Grandes Chroniques France.

31
Walsingham;
Eulogium
; Russell; Froissart

32
Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers

33
John of Gaunt’s Register
. On 18 June, while he was still at the Savoy, John ordered six cartloads of alabaster from the quarry at Tutbury for two effigies to be placed on the tomb that was being built to the memory of ‘the Lady Blanche, formerly our consort’, in St Paul’s; already he had decided that he wished to spend eternity by the side of his first wife. Another mention of the tomb appears on 4 December that year in the accounts for Blanche’s obit, and in January 1375, the Duke paid Henry Yevele, the foremost master mason of the day, for his work on it, yet to be completed; Yevele was also working at the Savoy at this time. In 1376 —7, Yevele was contracted to supply a tomb chest of Purbeck marble to accommodate the bodies of Blanche and, in time, her husband, and was paid £108 (£29,036) in part-payment for it. The alabaster effigies were later painted, and an iron screen was placed about the chantry. Given the expertise, time and money — in total £486 (£205,139) — that were lavished on the tomb, it must have been magnificent indeed. It was, wrote the chronicler Monk of St-Denis, ‘an incomparable sepulchre’.
John of Gaunt’s Register
; Harvey:
Henry Yevele
; Duchy of Lancaster Records: DL.28

34
Lettenhove, introduction to Froissart

35
Armitage-Smith; Goodman:
John of Gaunt
; Rose;
John of Gaunt’s Register

36
Perroy; Holmes; Goodman:
John of Gaunt

37
John of Gaunt’s Register
; Duchy of Lancaster Records: DL.42

38
Crow and Olsen; Pearsall

39
Coleman

40
John of Gaunt’s Register

41
For this obit, see Lewis: ‘The Anniversary Service’; Webster.

42
John of Gaunt’s Register
; Silva-Vigier

43
Silva-Vigier

44
John of Gaunt’s Register

45
Roger Joy

46
John of Gaunt’s Register

47
Ibid.

48
Ibid.

49
Ibid.; Kirby. She was paid 100 marks (£11, 944) per annum to house him and his attendants.

50
John of Gaunt’s Register

51
Ibid.

52
Ibid.

53
Ibid.

54
Ibid. There is no evidence to support the recent theory identifying Blanche Swynford with John of Gaunt’s bastard daughter Blanche, who married Sir Thomas Morieux in 1381 (see Chapter 6). Froissart states that Marie de St Hilaire was Blanche Morieux’s mother, and as he was in Queen Philippa’s household in the early 1360s, he was in a position to know that, for Marie was one of her
damoiselles
, and his countrywoman. Had Blanche Swynford lived, she would probably have married Robert Deyncourt, but there is no record of that marriage actually taking place.

55
Ibid.

56
Ibid.

57
Foedera
; Armitage-Smith

58
John of Gaunt’s Register

59
Ibid.

60
Ibid.

61
Ibid.

62
Ibid.

63
For Katherine Swynford’s connections with Boston, see principally Thompson; Cook:
Boston.

64
Calendar of Escheat Rolls

65
Ibid.

66
Jones and Underwood

67
In mediaeval times, there was no rule about the use of such marks for younger sons: it was only around 1500 that John Writhe, Garter King of Arms, invented a cadency system to indicate a son’s place in the family, whereby a crescent signified a second son. That rule cannot be applied to fourteenth-century heraldry, but Sandford was clearly following a well-established tradition that Henry was the second male Beaufort.

68
John of Gaunt’s Register

69
Records of the Borough of Leicester

70
Ibid.; Goodman:
Katherine Swynford

71
For Kenilworth, see Ashley; Palmer; Renn; Goodman:
John of Gaunt
; Silva-Vigier; Joy. Kenilworth passed to Henry IV in 1399 and remained in royal hands until 1563, when Elizabeth I granted it to her favourite, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, who built his own palatial lodgings there. In 1575, the castle was the scene of the famous and spectacular revels that were staged when the Queen visited. By the seventeenth century, it had suffered a decline, and in 1649 it was wrecked and partially dismantled by Cromwell’s soldiers. The Mere was drained at this time.

72
John of Gaunt’s Register

73
Ibid.

74
Hill:
Mediaeval Lincoln

75
Calendar of Patent Rolls
; Special Collections: S.C.1

76
Hill:
Mediaeval Lincoln; Calendar of Patent Rolls

77
John of Gaunt’s Register

78
Ibid.

79
Ibid.;
Foedera

80
Froissart

81
Ibid.;
Foedera

82
Walsingham;
Anonimalle Chronicle
; Rose