Today's post will be about a character that, though part of nobility, was no king nor emperor, even less a grand duke, like some of the male royals we have spoken before. He was, however, just as important as those who held the said titles. To the British History in particular, John of Gaunt left his mark in it not only as the wealthiest son of the remarkable king Edward III, but as well as the key character of the event that followed his death, the Wars of the Roses. He was not only the father of Henry Bolinbroke, who'd usurp Richard II's crown to become King Henry IV, but as well as the ancestor to the next generation of kings that played a great part in the conflict that torned the Plantagenet Dynasty in between the Houses of York and Lancaster, as well as the one whose blood would unite them afterwards through the dynasty of the Tudors. In order to propose a discussion about John's deeds during his lifetime and how he was seen in it and after his death, he is thus the topic of our blog.
John Plantagenet was the fourth son of King Edward III of England and his consort, Queen Philippa of Hainault, whom we have recently discussed. He was born on 6th March, 1340, at a city of Flandres, known as Ghent (adapted to English as Gaunt), hence why he is known as John of Gaunt. By the time of his birth, "King Edward III and his wife were in Flanders to formally receive homage from the Count of Flanders and to have Ghent, Ypres and Bruges proclaim Edward III King of France."
What we know regarding his childhood is that John "grew up in the household of his elder brother Edward, Prince of Wales [the Black Prince] where he received his knightly training." He was, during this period of his life, accepted into the Order of the Garter after the Earl of Kent Thomas Holland's death. His first experience in battlefield occurred at the age of ten, alongside Prince Edward, at the naval Battle of Winchelsea. Nine years later, John would be granted his own troops to lead during a campaign in Normandy.
When he was also nineteen, John married his first wife, Blanche of Lancaster, sole heiress of her father, Henry Duke of Lancaster. She was 14 and it seemed to have been a loving relationship. Until her death, around the age of 23, she would give John eight children, of whom only three would reach adulthood: Philippa, future Queen of Portugal, Henry Bolinbroke, future Henry IV of England, and Elizabeth, Duchess of Exeter. This match brought excellent results for both sides, since King Edward expected to arrange great marriages for his children and, upon the death of Blanche's sister, the heritance would enrich John, and she, in turn, would be marrying into royalty. As a result, John became Earl of Lancaster, later created Duke, so that way he
"was the rightful lord and master of over one third of the lands of England, and employed a number of troops large enough to compose a small private army. But even his lack of formal office and his powerful status as a nobleman did not stop the public outcry about many of his policy decisions."What we know next, however, concerns his ambitions after Blanche's death, when we are presented explicitaly towards his ambitions. To many, it surprises how a powerful and wealthy duke as John drives his powerful desires outside England and France, directing it instead to Castile and Portugal. The enterprise which he was first part of was when he joined forces with Prince Edward to aid Peter the Cruel of Castile in his struggle for power, whilst the French supported Peter's enemies. This quest would prove fruitless as Peter eventually would turn his back to his English allies only to end up murdered by his half illegitimate brother Enrique de Trastamara. As we can see below:
"[...] the ambition of the Duke -who had taken an active part in the war carred on by his brother, Black Prince, for the restoration of Peter, King of Castile & Leon- induced him to direct his views towards Constance, the elder of the two daughters of that monarch, then lately slain by his illegitimate brother, Henry of Transtamara, his successor under the title of Henry II."As a result of these foreign policies, poorly covering the War of the 100 years that continued to go on, and partly a consequence of the disaster that this campaign turned out to be, John married the oldest daughter of the late King of Castile, Constance. On her behalf, he claimed the kingdoms of Castile and Leon, in the hopes of becoming king himself. This would prove pointless and it was later agreed, upon the birth of Catherine, John and Constance's only daughter, that she would marry John and thus become Queen herself.
"In 1372, the Duke married this princess [Constance] and thus assumed the regal style of those kingdoms. These titular honours were ascribed to him in the writs of summons to Parliament from that year until 1386, when, by an arrangement with King John I of Castile & Leon, the son and successor of Henry, Catherine, the only daughter of the Duke of Lancaster by Constance, was betrothed to Henry, Prince of Asturias, his heir-apparent, and the crown settled upon the issue of that alliance."
Consequently,
"For sixteen years the pursuit of his kingdom was the chief object of John's ambition. No doubt he hoped to achieve his end, when he commanded the great army which invaded France in 1373. But the French would not give battle, and though John marched from Calais right through Champagne, Burgundy and Auvergne, it was with disastrous results; only a shattered remnant of the host reached Bordeaux."So,
"[...] The disastrous Spanish enterprise led directly to renewed war between France and England. In August 1369 John had command of an army which invaded northern France without success. In the following year he went again to Aquitaine, and was present with the Black Prince at the sack of Limoges. Edward's health was broken down, and he soon after went home, leaving John as his lieutenant."Despite playing a distant part from English policies, this would change considerably upon the death of his brother, the Prince of Wales, in 1376. It is when "the duke of Lancaster acquired a marked ascendency in the councils of the infirm monarch, his father." On that sad occasion, King Edward, no more the young and strong man he once was, begins to ail. So John becomes the regent. It is said, however, that "his administration of public affairs is [...] to have been stained by several acts of violence."
Upon King Edward III's death in 1377, he is succeded by his grandson, Prince Richard, who becomes Richard II. In truth, John continued to be the power behind the throne. As we can see in the following paragraphs:
"From 1374 until 1377, John was effectively the head of the English government due to the illness of his father and elder brother, who were unable to exercise authority. On June 8, 1376, at the age of 45, John's eldest brother and heir to the throne, Edward, Prince of Wales (the Black Prince) died at the age of 45. The heir to the throne became Edward's only surviving child, nine-year-old Richard. A year later King Edward III died and was succeded by his ten-year-old grandson as King Richard II. At King Richard II's coronation, John acted as High Steward, carried the Sword of Mercy, and carved at the coronation banquet."Hence, John "continued to govern the kingdom during the minority of his nephew, Richard II, by whom, in 1389, he was created Duke of Aquitaine." Here we will see that his rise of power preoccupies his enemies, and that some of his policies, as the clash with the Church upon 'supporting' the "heretic" Wycliffe, were growingly impopular. As we can better understand following the paragraph below:
"The duke's politics were opposed by the chief ecclesiastics, and in resisting them he had made use of Wycliffe. With Wycliffe's religious opinions he had no sympathy. Nevertheless when the bishops arraigned the reformer for heresy John would not abandon him. The conflict over the trial led to a violent quarrel with the Londoners, and a riot in the city during which John was in danger of his life from the angry citizens. The situation was altered by the death of Edward III [...]. Though his enemies had accused him of aiming at the throne, John was without any taint of disloyalty. In his nephew's interests he accepted a compromise, disclaimed before parliament the truth of the malicious rumours against him, and was reconciled formally with his opponent."Nevertheless, John was the main target during the Peasant's Revolt. It was an event important to understand what would happen half a century later. Though in this particular riot, we have the lower class in riots against heavy taxation, the complaints as to the 'man behind the throne', as if Richard II was John's puppet reflects the dissatisfaction people would have when Henry VI was surrounded by his favourites decades later, although on this case John was not Richard's regent. As we see below:
"[...]The main target of the angry revolt was not the young king. 'It became clear... that it was John of Gaunt whom the common people chiefly blamed, despite his lack of formal office, for the military failings and financial exactions of government' which inspired the revolt. One of the most detailed accounts of the Peasants' Revolt comes from Walsingham's chronicle, in which he is again bitterly critical of Gaunt. Although Walsingham's opinion seems biased and particularly spiteful, 'there is no reason to suppose that this part of his chronicle is not a fairly accurate reflection of the views of many of his contemporaries. The violent attacks on John of Gaunt in 1377, when the Londoners paraded his arms reversed, an during the Peasants' Revolt in 1381, when his palace of the Savoy was sacked, show that feeling against him ran high."Where the suspicious of the authority behind the throne lies, as we have said before, Sean Rocke¹ claims that:
"The people wanted to know to whom they were loyal, and whose authority was supreme: the King, or his powerful and unloved uncle behind the throne. This request epitomizes the 14th century preoccupation with issues of succession and legitimacy. However, these issues were not only characteristic of the 14th century. These very ssues would continue to influence politics and public opinion through the Wars of the Roses into the Tudor dynasty with its obsessions over legitimacy."Whether he was genuinely guilty or not of those complaints, we understand by his actions that he was, not only a man of his days, but one whose ambitions rather led to foreign expeditions than to deal directly with domestic affairs. He was loyal to his family and fought for and next to it, which might be considerable to analyze if compared to others in his position that, blood or not, would not think twice before seizing the crown, as it was the case of Henry IV to Richard II and, ironically, to Edward IV to Henry VI years later.
And whilst we have an unfavourable view of John from the point of view of his rival, which could have also reflected a general view regarding his character as the quote above explained, there was also a more disposition opinion of John of Geoffrey Chaucer. In his eyes,
"Gaunt was no power-hungry villain wanting in the wings; indeed, 'there were better sides to his nature. Chaucer praised him as 'tretable/Right wonder skilful and reasonable', a genuine, courtly, chivalrous man who reflected the ideals of the Order of the Garter, another facet of the 14th century world that Gaunt reflects."It can be suspected that such praise of the duke of Lancaster moves to the extreme opposite of that written by Walsingham, but to limit a character as this Plantagenet prince as good or evil is to forget that human beings in general had their flaws and qualities. Perfection does not exist, however tempting it is to look back and find glamurous the past. Nevertheless, impopular or not, towards the end of his years, John was created Duke of Aquitaine by King Richard II when he returned of his foreign excursions, avoiding being implicated in conspiracies against his nephew's throne.
In his final years, John married for the third time to his long time mistress, Katheryn Swynford née de Roet, whose sister was married to the poet Geoffrey Chaucer. It seems that, although Katheryn was raised at court and later served Blanche of Lancaster by being the governess of Philippa and Elizabeth, the signs of a romantic liaison between them supposedly began some time later before John's marriage to Constance of Castile. When John and Katheryn married, their children, having the surname Beaufort due to their birth at a French castle of this name, were legitimized by Richard II and Pope himself, although Henry IV would exclude them from inheriting the throne.
What then can be said of John's character? He was, as said before, a product of his days. A courtly man, fond of poetry and arts, a knight who valued honour and dignity, which we can see by the loyalty to which he attached himself to the crown. When Richard II ascended to the throne, many preferred John to have been king instead of having another boy king on the throne (the last being King Henry III, who inherited the throne at age of nine), but he declined. He did not pursuit it, rather trying to settle, though unsuccessfully, himself as king of Castile. An ambition that was placed on two of his daughters that were crowned in Castile and Portugal, whose descendants are living until these days. After all,
"through his actions, 'the duke had shown himself an unyielding defender of the prerogative: he had stood by the crown in the difficult earlier years' and it would have been a major character change for him to be the villain portrayed by Walsingham and whose arrest and execution the peasant rebels demanded in 1381."When searching for this post, we came across with positive views of him. Why does he inspire charisma to certain extent? Could he have prevented the illfated events that would lead to a tragedy which marked the next century in bloodshed? For this latter question, we have no answer. It is difficult to make predictions when every action led to that moment, as it was meant to be. As for the former, in terms of being the
"source of the Lancastrian and Tudor family lines, Gaunt was a literal father figure for the kingdom in later years, and Shakespeare's characterization of him as such shows that two hundred years later, his indirect influence was at least as strong as the influence he held as the counselor to the king. John of Gaunt led an unusual life, retaining almost unprecedented power and wealth, amassing a long list of titles, and vacillating between the positions of respected counselor and dangerous scapegoat for much of his political career. Some contemporary records give an image of a man greedy for a kingdom that he never attained, but this image is contradicted by Chaucer's insights, along with the evidence of Gaunt's consistent loyalty to the crown."John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster and Aquitaine, died on 3 February 1399 at Leicester Castle, in England, aged 58. He was buried alongside his first wife, Blanche of Lancaster, at Old St Paul's Cathedral in London. Through his first wife, John was the grandfather of Henry VI; through his third wife, he was the grandfather of Cecily Neville, mother of Kings Edward IV and Richard III; aside of being the great-grandfather of Margaret Beaufort, mother of King Henry VII. In Portugal, he is the ancestor of the House of Orléans-Braganza, and is a common ancestor for most of the European houses of the present monarchy.
Bibliography:
-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_of_Gaunt
-http://www.englishmonarchs.co.uk/plantagenet_34.html
-https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-of-Gaunt-duke-of-Lancaster
-http://www.historytoday.com/richard-cavendish/death-john-gaunt
-https://historytheinterestingbits.com/2015/09/20/the-complicated-love-life-of-john-of-gaunt-2/
-http://www.unofficialroyalty.com/john-of-gaunt-1st-duke-of-lancaster/
-http://www.luminarium.org/encyclopedia/gaunt.htm
-https://www.harlaxton.ac.uk/academics/downloads/honors/RockeSean-Gaunt.pdf¹
-http://www.britannia.com/bios/royals/jgdklanc.html
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