PRAISE FOR Alison Weir and Mistress of the Monarchy “Weir’s sound scholarship and storyteller’s gift for rich, telling detail constantly engages and enthrals the reader.” — The Times “Weir combines high drama with high passion while involving us in the domestic life of a most remarkable woman in an equally remarkable book.” — Scotland on Sunday “Weir combines imagination, good judgement and common sense…. Her smooth narrative belies her skill in weaving together incidental facts and cautious surmise.” — Independent on Sunday “Bowled over by this tale of true love, Weir recaptures its glow in a �uid, artfully assembled narrative.” — Nanaimo Daily News “Alison Weir has perfected the art of bringing history to life. There is a breadth of vision to [her] research and writing that provides a sense of time and place as well as consequence.” — Chicago Tribune “Alison Weir writes compellingly. Her art is such that the reader is swept along by the story, scarcely noticing how very complicated that story is.” — Literary Review (UK) “Alison Weir is one of the best historians of the British monarchy at work today…. Weir is so much the master of the period, so intuitive and unsentimental an interpreter of royal minds, and so upfront about her assumptions.” — Boston Globe “Weir wears her learning lightly and has a pleasant habit of anticipating all the questions of a curious reader.” — Publishers Weekly “Alison Weir has become an authority on Britain’s royal families…. The result is a series of vivid cameos as brilliantly conceived as they are scholarly.” — Birmingham Post “Weir is an expert on Tudor history, and her work is both scholarly and readable — an enviable talent to possess.” — The Bookseller “Alison Weir has a wonderful way of bringing … history alive.” — Manchester Evening News Also by Alison Weir Non-�ction BRITAIN’S ROYAL FAMILIES: THE COMPLETE GENEALOGY THE SIX WIVES OF HENRY VIII THE PRINCES IN THE TOWER LANCASTER AND YORK: THE WARS OF THE ROSES CHILDREN OF ENGLAND: THE HEIRS OF KING HENRY VIII 1547-1558 ELIZABETH THE QUEEN ELEANOR OF AQUITAINE HENRY VIII: KING AND COURT MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS AND THE MURDER OF LORD DARNLEY ISABELLA: SHE-WOLF OF FRANCE, QUEEN OF ENGLAND Fiction INNOCENT TRAITOR This book is dedicated to Bruce and Sandy, Peter and Karen and John and Joanna to mark their marriages. Contents Acknowledgements Author’s Notes Introduction Prologue: Spring 1378 1 ‘Panetto’s Daughter’ 2 ‘The Magni�cent Lord’ 3 ‘The Trap of Wedding’ 4 ‘Mistress of the Duke’ 5 ‘Blinded by Desire’ 6 ‘His Unspeakable Concubine’ 7 ‘Turning Away the Wrath of God’ 8 ‘The Lady of Kettlethorpe’ 9 ‘My Dearest Lady Katherine’ 10 ‘The King’s Mother’ Photo Section Appendix: Anya Seton’s Katherine Genealogical Tables Select Bibliography Notes and References Acknowledgements I should like to express my warmest gratitude to various people who have helped with this book. To Anthony Goodman, our �nest late-mediaeval historian, for his assistance with references and original documents; I am also indebted to him for his two booklets, Katherine Swynford and Honourable Lady or She-Devil?, and his magni�cent collection of essays on John of Gaunt, which have all proved profoundly useful. To Dr Nicholas Bennett, Librarian of Lincoln Cathedral Library, and his wife Carol for their kindness in welcoming me to the library, making available various sources, and arranging a visit to the Priory, where Katherine Swynford lived towards the end of her life. To Roger Joy, founder of the Katherine Swynford Society and a walking authority on Katherine, for generously sharing his knowledge with me, and for sending me his unpublished articles. To Patricia McLeod and the sta� of Sutton Library for their e�orts in tracking down numerous books and articles. To Abigail Bennett of the University of York, for translating into English numerous texts in mediaeval Latin. To Andrew Barr and his team at The National Trust East Midlands Regional O�ce. To the sta� at Lincoln Central Library for their assistance in locating books. I am indebted also to the many people who have published information about Katherine on the internet, foremost amongst whom is Judy Perry, who has been researching her subject for over twenty-�ve years. My gratitude to my editors for commissioning this book is acknowledged separately, in the Introduction, but I should also like to express it here on account of their un�agging enthusiasm, their sensitive insights and their illuminating input. I wish also to thank my inspirational and ever-supportive agent, Julian Alexander, and all the people at Random House who have helped to create this book. Lastly, I wish to thank my family and friends, who have all cheerfully put up with me while the book was being written. And to Rankin, my husband — thanks for all the wonderful meals, and just for being there. Author’s Notes Ihave used the form ‘Katherine’ (rather than ‘Catherine’) throughout, as Katherine’s name is usually spelt with a K in contemporary sources. The correct mediaeval form of her name is ‘Katherine de Swynford’, but I have chosen to refer to her as ‘Katherine Swynford’, as she is traditionally and popularly known. It is worth noting that in John of Gaunt’s Register, Katherine’s name is given as either ‘Katherine’ or ‘Kateryn(e)’. The language of the court and the aristocracy at this time was Norman French, and these spellings indicate that John — and others — probably pronounced her name in the French way as ‘Katrine’. The modern equivalent of fourteenth-century monetary values has been given in brackets throughout the book. For currency conversion, I have used an invaluable internet website, MeasuringWorth.com, produced by Lawrence H. O�cer, Professor of Economics at the University of Illinois, Chicago, and Samuel H. Williams, Professor of Economics, Emeritus, of Miami University. Introduction This is a love story, one of the greatest and most remarkable love stories of mediaeval England. It is the extraordinary tale of an exceptional woman, Katherine Swynford, who became �rst the mistress, and later the wife, of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, one of the outstanding princes of the high Middle Ages. Katherine Swynford’s story �rst captured my imagination four decades ago, when I read Anya Seton’s famous novel about her, Katherine. This epic novel made a tremendous impact on me as an adolescent, and still has the power to move me today. And I am not alone, because it has hardly been out of print since its �rst publication in 1954, and came ninety-�fth in the top hundred favourite books voted for by the public in BBC TV’s The Big Read in 2003. (Interested readers will �nd more about this novel in the Appendix.) It would not be an exaggeration to say that I have wanted to write this book for forty years. But even when I became a published author in the late eighties, no publisher would have contemplated commissioning a biography of this relatively obscure woman. And that remained the situation for many years, until the recent explosion of interest in all things historical, which inspired me to seize the chance to make my long-standing, secret dream come true. I am truly indebted to my editors, Will Sulkin, Anthony Whittome and Susanna Porter, for their support and enthusiasm for this project, and to Elisabeth Dyssegaard, who suggested that I write about Katherine as well as John of Gaunt, the subject I originally proposed. Katherine Swynford deserves a biography for many reasons. First and foremost, she was romantically linked to John of Gaunt, one of the most charismatic �gures of the fourteenth century, and their passionate and ultimately poignant love a�air is both astonishing and moving. Katherine was clearly beautiful and desirable, not to say enigmatic and intriguing, and some of her contemporaries regarded her as dangerous also. Her existence was played out against a vivid backdrop of court life at the height of the age of chivalry, and she knew most of the great �gures of the epoch. The renowned poet, Geo�rey Chaucer, author of The Canterbury Tales, was her brother-in-law. She lived through the Hundred Years War, the Black Death and the Peasants’ Revolt, knew passion, loss, adversity and heartbreak, and survived them all triumphantly. Her story gives us unique insights into the life of a mediaeval woman. Yet Katherine was unusual in that she did not conform to many of the conventional norms expected of women in that age, and in several respects her story has relevance for us today. Feminist scholars are now beginning to see her from a new perspective, as a woman who was an important personage in her own right, a woman who — in a male-dominated age — had remarkable opportunities, made her own choices, �outed convention and took control of her own destiny. Katherine was intelligent, poised and talented, and fortunate enough to move in circles where these qualities were valued and encouraged in women. Among the choices she faced were ones that would be familiar to women today, although her modern counterparts