Katherine Swynford Part 6

Katherine's arrival in the Countess's household may have been timed to coincide with the birth of Mary's baby. Katherine had had long experience of looking after infants, and she was good with children and young people. Her a.s.sociation with Mary de Bohun was to endure until death severed it, suggesting that Mary regarded her as a friend and mentor. There is evidence too to show that Henry of Derby thought highly of Katherine his regard and affection for her would become clearly evident in the years to come. It has been a.s.serted by several writers49 that Katherine became at this time a permanent fixture in Mary's chamber, and that this provided a cover for her continuing intimacy with the Duke, but there is no evidence for this, and it would be three years before a household was set up for the young Earl and Countess of Derby. The lack of any further references to Katherine being in attendance on Mary in the ensuing months and years suggests that she was with her for only a short time in 1382, hardly evidence of a permanent position.

If John of Gaunt visited his son's wife when Katherine was at Rochford Hall in 1382 (and there is no evidence that he did), he could have done so without incurring any scandal, for the Countess of Hereford, their mutual friend, was there to act as chaperone. We can only imagine how difficult John and Katherine found the first meetings after their parting, how long it was before they grew used to the fact that there could be no more between them than friends.h.i.+p, and how long before the pain ceased to be raw. Given that they probably resumed their affair some years on, we might surmise that their feelings for each other were never fully stifled, and that desire remained lively and had constantly to be suppressed.

On 6 May 1382, back in London, the Duke paid for gifts for his daughters, Mary de Bohun and Philippa Chaucer, who received another hanap.50 With Katherine busily dividing her time between Kettlethorpe, Lincoln and the Derby household and the affair between her and the Duke officially ended Philippa Chaucer may have felt more comfortable about resuming her duties in the d.u.c.h.ess's household, although she remained based in Lincolns.h.i.+re, probably residing with her sister, until at least 1383, and most likely till 1386. John's favour was still extended also to Geoffrey Chaucer, who thanks no doubt to his influence was appointed Controller of the Petty Customs of London on 8 May 1382.

That July, John and Henry of Derby visited Lincoln51 to witness the public recanting of a Lollard heretic, the hermit William Swinderby whom John himself had once maintained before Bishop Buckingham in the Chapter House of the cathedral.52 This was another example of John's new orthodoxy, but he did successfully intervene to save Swinderby from 'the bitterness of death' at the stake.53 With Katherine's house hard by supposing she was in Lincoln at that time it is hard to believe that John pa.s.sed up the opportunity to visit her and their children there. By the end of July, he had moved on to Leicester.54 Richard II was to figure large in Katherine's life. While John of Gaunt was in Lincoln, the young King, now fifteen, began exercising a degree of personal authority over the government. Despite his youth, and a slight stammer, he was already able to influence government policy and personally exercise patronage. Unfortunately, he chose to extend it to a favoured clique of unworthy but flattering courtiers, amongst whom the arrogant and incompetent Robert de Vere (son of the Earl of Oxford) was the foremost.55 The early 1380s would witness the gradual emergence of this court faction, its struggle with the conservative John of Gaunt and the great n.o.bles for supremacy, and the deterioration of John's relations with Richard II. The same period also saw public enmity and resentment s.h.i.+fted from John of Gaunt, who was now beginning to be seen as a force for good in politics, to the profligate de Vere and his satellites.

Drip-fed vitriol by his favourites, the precocious and temperamental adolescent King came not only to resent his uncle's dominance, wealth and power, but also to chafe increasingly at being in tutelage to him. John had an inbred veneration for kings.h.i.+p, and was inclined to lecture his nephew on his duties and obligations, and to censure him for his profligate abuse of patronage.56 Naturally, this led to tension between them, with the teenaged Richard attempting to throw off the restraints with which the wiser and vastly more experienced Duke tried to control him, and John attempting to instil in his truculent and changeable nephew the principles of good government. Ignoring the ties of kins.h.i.+p and precedence, the King actively encouraged his favourites in their opposition to his uncle. They feared him, wrote a now-admiring Walsingham of the reformed John of Gaunt, 'because of his great power, his admirable judgement and his brilliant mind'. It was fortunate for Richard that his uncle had an unshakeable loyalty to the Crown.

Richard II grew up to be a true sybarite and aesthete, 'extravagantly splendid in his entertainments and dress, and too much devoted to luxury'.57 He loved good food he was the first English king to employ French chefs and the first to have a cookery book (The Form of Cury) dedicated to him and his hospitality was legendary. Tall (his skeleton, found in 1871, measured six foot), fair and handsome in a rather feminine way,58 he adorned himself in fine, elegant clothing, furs and jewels, on which he was to lavish a fortune, and is said to have invented the handkerchief. Artistically inclined, he was to commission two portraits of himself, the first surviving painted portraits of an English king: the most famous is the Wilton Diptych (now in the National Gallery, London), in which the young King, sumptuously gowned in cloth of gold, and with his patron saints standing protectively behind him, kneels before the Virgin and Child; on the reverse is a white hart, Richard's personal emblem; the other portrait is a full-length of the King enthroned in majesty against a gold background, which now hangs in Westminster Abbey. That these are true portraits and not just iconic representations of a king is proved by their facial similarities, which bear close comparison with the effigy on Richard's tomb.

The Monk of Evesham accuses Richard II of 'remaining sometimes till midnight and sometimes till morning in drinking and other excesses that are not to be named'. This could mean anything, but it may be that the writer did not wish to be too explicit. Walsingham charged Richard with being h.o.m.os.e.xual, but the King seems to have been attracted to both s.e.xes: his devotion to his Queen, Anne of Bohemia, is dramatically well-attested, and even Walsingham admitted that the royal favourite, Robert de Vere, was a notorious womaniser, a 'Knight of Venus, more valiant in the bedchamber than on the field'; de Vere's torrid affair with Agnes Launcekron, one of the Queen's ladies, caused great scandal. But Richard's marriage produced no children, and he certainly was in thrall to, and influenced by, de Vere, who had proved himself a.s.siduous in sycophantically cultivating his royal master. Their relations.h.i.+p, according to Walsingham, was 'not without signs' that 'obscene familiarity' was taking place, to which the disapproving chronicler attributed de Vere's rapid and undeserved promotion. It may be significant that in 1392, after de Vere had died abroad and was brought home for burial, Richard had his coffin opened so that he could look upon his face one last time and stroke his hands.59 Another contemporary chronicler, Adam of Usk, tells us that a charge of sodomy was later brought against Richard by his enemies, although this might have been mere politically desirable character a.s.sa.s.sination. It is possible that the effete Richard did indeed have latent h.o.m.os.e.xual tendencies, and that the charismatic and highly s.e.xed de Vere was aware of this, exploited the King's devotion to the full, and was perhaps bis.e.xual himself.

Richard's court which Katherine would one day frequent was to become one of the most celebrated in English history, for its chivalry, its art and culture, its literature, its strict protocol and elaborate ceremony, and its unprecedented splendour. In every respect it reflected the majesty of its monarch, a connoisseur and showman who set a new standard of luxury in his palaces, from the bathrooms with multicoloured floor tiles to the many beautiful objets d'art he acquired. It was Richard who employed Henry Yevele to modernise Westminster Hall by adding the magnificent hammerbeam roof that survives today. With his all-encompa.s.sing interests and discerning patronage, Richard II foreshadowed the mult.i.talented princes of the Renaissance, for whom magnificence and courtesy were sacred maxims.

Froissart a.s.serts that no English king before Richard had spent so much money on his court and household, and naturally there was much criticism of his extravagance. But female influence may account in part for that, for there is some evidence to indicate that there were far more women at court than in previous reigns the closeness of the King's and Queen's households, the emphasis on love and chivalry, the number of women admitted to the fraternity of the Garter, and the proportion of ladies featuring in courtly scenes and Katherine Swynford would come in time to be a part of that female community.

There was a dark side to Richard, though. He emerged from his experiences during the Peasants' Revolt with an unshakeable conviction in his own heroism and superiority, and an aversion to taking advice. He was emotional, insecure, suspicious, devious and untrustworthy. His violent outbursts of temper were legendary, and he could be ruthless and vindictive when provoked. To Katherine Swynford and her children whom he clearly liked he would, however, prove a good friend.60 Widespread conjecture that John of Gaunt's invasion of Castile was imminent was well founded, for in October 1382, a French invasion of England seemed likely, prompting calls for an Anglo-Portuguese military expedition to crush France's ally, Juan I of Castile. This was to be a veritable crusade, supported by the Church, with the Pope himself promising pardons for the sins of all those who a.s.sisted and accompanied the Duke. That November, John began making preparations for the campaign he hoped would at last win him a crown,61 but by March of 1383, a short-sighted Parliament had made it clear that it would not vote the necessary funds to support what many believed were the Duke's personal ambitions. Instead, Bishop Despenser of Norwich was to lead a force to France.62 By 1383, John of Gaunt had granted Thomas Swynford the very handsome annuity of 40 (16,288) further evidence of his continuing patronage of Katherine's family. And the Duke was to be more generous still in March, despite his major political preoccupations, he yet found time to grant Thomas a second annuity of 100 marks (13,573) on his marriage to Jane Crophill of Nottingham.63 Jane may have been related to the Crophills who were members of the Trinity Guild of St Mary in that city, to which John of Gaunt, the d.u.c.h.ess Constance and Katherine Swynford also belonged;64 this important and wealthy guild had its chapel and altar in the north transept of St Mary's Church in High Pavement the present chuch dates from c.1376, and the eighteenth-century s.h.i.+re Hall now occupies the site of the House of the Trinity Guild, or Trinity House, as it later became known. Katherine's members.h.i.+p of this guild, like her properties in Boston and Grantham (see below), is perhaps indicative of the extent of her financial interests, or possibly of the willingness of corporate bodies to please John of Gaunt by showing favour to her. Apparently no one questioned the incongruity and dubious moral value of extending members.h.i.+p of the Guild to his wife and his former mistress.

The parentage of Thomas's bride is unknown, but there are clues. The name Crophill occurs several times in the fourteenth century in Nottinghams.h.i.+re, Lincolns.h.i.+re and Leicesters.h.i.+re. The family probably originated at Cropwell Bishop and Cropwell Butler, villages a mile apart, to the east of Nottingham, which in Domesday Book were both known as Crophill or Croph.e.l.l. In the fourteenth century, three Crophills became mayors of Nottingham, and they were kinsmen of the royal House.65 Given her links with Nottingham, Katherine Swynford must have known the family, and it was probably she who arranged her son's marriage. Considering the Crophills' royal connections, and their status too, Katherine had done well for her son.

Jane must have been very young at the time of her marriage, or perhaps she failed to conceive for a long time or suffered a series of miscarriages and stillbirths, because the couple's only known son, named Thomas after his father, was not born until about 1406. There was probably a daughter, too, the Katherine Swynford who married Sir William Drury of Rougham, Suffolk, before 1428. The estimated date of their nuptials, and the fact that this Katherine died in 1478, suggests that she too was born late in the marriage, and that the elder Katherine Swynford never knew these grandchildren.

After his wedding, Thomas appears to have remained with Henry of Derby; he would be knighted before February 1386.

In April 1383, John of Gaunt acquiesced in the Council's decision to resolve the differences between England and Castile by peaceful means, and again he put his plans on hold, deferring his invasion until the following spring. Still suspicious of his motives, the Council secretly instructed the English envoys in Bayonne to prolong matters as long as possible, in order to delay the Duke's departure. As it happened, Juan I refused to abandon his alliance with France, so negotiations broke down.

John spent much of April at Kenilworth.66 Constance was with him to begin with, but left for Tutbury before he departed for the St George's festivities at Windsor: she evidently still preferred to hold herself aloof from the English court, and to remain in seclusion with her ladies. But the Duke had maintained great state while she was with him at Kenilworth, and his daily expenditure decreased significantly after she left. Clearly he was still treating her with great respect and deference, deliberately emphasising her status as the Queen of Castile.

John's diplomatic powers were again called into play when he was sent north that summer to negotiate a renewal of the truce with the Scots. On 1 August, as he rode back south, his natural daughter, Blanche Morieux, was successfully pet.i.tioning the King for the pardon of a murderer.67 This is the last mention of her in the historical record, and sadly we must conclude that she died not long afterwards.

That August, Bishop Despenser's crusade ended in ignominious failure and an appalling loss of life for which the Bishop would be impeached and stripped of his temporalities. The Council now belatedly recognised that John of Gaunt was the only man with the resources and prestige to deal with the French, and accordingly he was appointed King's Lieutenant in France and asked to prepare for a foray across the Channel to negotiate a truce with the enemy and salvage something of England's honour.

Katherine Swynford, meanwhile, had herself been pet.i.tioning the King, for on 20 October 1383, Richard granted a royal licence empowering her to enclose and empark three hundred acres of land and woods within the manor of Kettlethorpe.68 Again, the influence direct or indirect of John of Gaunt may be perceived, for the Duke was the man of the moment, deferred to by the majority, and the King, although increasingly jealous and resentful of him, could hardly gainsay such a request. Nevertheless, the patronage Richard extended to Katherine and her kinsfolk suggests he continued to think highly of her. The enclosing of a deer park usually meant the dispossession of tenant farmers, and often led to ill feeling. To Katherine, however, it meant a further improvement to the manor and her son's inheritance. As with her failure to drain her stretch of the Fossd.y.k.e, self-interest came before the consideration of others. It was an att.i.tude typical of many mediaeval landowners.

The Duke moved a crucial step closer to his Spanish goal in November 1383, when, following the death of the pro-Castilian King Ferdinand, which plunged Portugal into dynastic war, the Anglophile Joo I, brother of the late monarch, was elected by a rebel faction to its contested throne. Joo needing English help to enforce his sovereignty against the claims of Juan I of Castile (who was married to Ferdinand's daughter, a lady of doubtful legitimacy), was only too willing to offer his support for John of Gaunt's claim to Castile.

John returned from a mission to Scotland at the end of April 1384, and arrived at Salisbury for what turned out to be a tumultuous session of Parliament, for Richard FitzAlan, Earl of Arundel, launched a fierce and entirely justified attack on the King and his favourites, provoking Richard publicly to insult him. John of Gaunt tried to pacify both of them, putting Arundel's concerns in more measured terms to the King, yet angering both Richard and the court party never before had Richard's hostility to his uncle been so evident. It was at this juncture that a plot was hatched against the Duke, obviously with the intention of eliminating him entirely from the political scene.

The plot came to light when, in de Vere's chamber, a Carmelite friar called John Latimer was said to have privately warned the King that John of Gaunt had organised a widespread conspiracy and was planning to have him a.s.sa.s.sinated. With suspicious alacrity, Richard accepted this at face value. He confronted his uncle, lost his temper, accused him of plotting treason, and was ready to have him summarily executed without any investigation of the matter, but the Duke, with dignified conviction, protested his innocence and accused the King himself of working against his own life. Richard responded with an astonis.h.i.+ng about-turn, ordering that the friar be put to death summarily, but the lords in Parliament persuaded him to have the man questioned before proceeding further. It never happened: a band of knights led by the King's half-brother, the hot-headed Sir John Holland, seized Latimer as he was being hauled off to prison, and had him tortured to death. Someone, clearly, didn't want the wretch betraying the origins of the plot.69 Parliament erupted in fury, so the King hastened to dissolve it. He then had to deal with his youngest uncle, Thomas of Woodstock, who, brandis.h.i.+ng his sword, furiously threatened to kill anyone, Richard included, who dared to accuse his brother Lancaster of treason.70 Deprived of the only witness, the case against John collapsed.

It looks very much as if the King and his favourites, especially Robert de Vere, were behind this attempt to overthrow John of Gaunt. Vere bitterly resented the Duke's influence, and had been playing on the King's jealousy of his uncle's dominance, urging him to shake it off and rule autonomously. At bottom, of course, Richard needed his uncle. Good relations were soon restored, at least on the surface and for the time being, and in June, John was again made King's Lieutenant in France and sent there to negotiate a renewal of the truce.

Katherine Swynford like most people would soon have learned what had happened at Salisbury, and the knowledge that her erstwhile lover and generous patron, the father of her children, had come so close to an ign.o.ble death must have distressed her greatly. But this was not the only unpleasant event to affect Katherine in 1384. On 17 August, at Reading, a commission of oyer and terminer was issued following a complaint by her against no less a person than Robert de Saltby, the Mayor of Lincoln, and other named men of that city, including its bailiffs, John Prentyss and John s.h.i.+pman, for breaking into her close there, taking her goods and a.s.saulting her servants. On 20 September, this time at Westminster, a similar commission was issued in respect of an attack on her close in Grantham by the same men and others.71 Given the status of the attackers, this was no common a.s.sault by petty-minded people on a notorious woman of whose morals they disapproved: it was far more serious than that. And considering that Katherine had been living apart from John of Gaunt for more than three years now, it is highly unlikely to have been an expression of public outrage at her private life. No, these crimes were more likely to have been born out of angry resentment at Katherine's siding with the clergy in the ongoing conflict between the Bail and the cathedral close over the close's demand to be placed beyond the jurisdiction of the town authorities, a dispute that had simmered in Lincoln for some years, and would not be resolved until John of Gaunt ruled in 1390 and 1392 that the close was to enjoy immunity from the jurisdiction and demands of the Mayor and citizens for which the jubilant canons gave him a gold image of his patron saint, John the Baptist, from the cathedral treasury.72 Katherine's strong links with the close would have placed her firmly on that side of the divide. The citizens were also resentful of the Duke's perceived encroachment, as constable of the castle, upon their liberties.73 And Katherine's failure to clear her stretch of the Fossd.y.k.e would have ruffled no few feathers amongst the burghers of the town; that same year of 1384, John of Gaunt presided over a commission that failed to address the problem effectively. Moreover, the Duke was known to be Katherine's patron still: it may have been that the canons had rented the Chancery to Katherine in a bid to win his support, and there were perhaps fears in the Bail that she influenced him unfairly in favour of the close and in respect of the Fossd.y.k.e. So these attacks, cunningly timed while he was abroad, were probably intended as a warning to Katherine not to involve herself or try to prejudice her powerful protector in the city's quarrels. Even so, they were an outrageous attack on her property, and a highly provocative intrusion in the cathedral close that did not help the cause of the citizens in the long run.

We do not know if Katherine was in Lincoln when the Chancery was raided; the presence of her servants might suggest that she was, but she may have left a skeleton staff there in her absence. There or not, the a.s.saults must have shaken her to the core, for if the Mayor himself was involved, what support could she look for in Lincoln outside the precincts of the close? It cannot have been pleasant knowing herself so hated. There is no record, however, of what happened to the perpetrators, nor of any further a.s.saults on her property.

The second commission relating to these offences contains the only known reference to Katherine having property in Grantham. A close then meant an enclosed piece of land, usually beside a cathedral or other important building, and containing staff housing or offices, such as the Chancery in Lincoln. Thus her close was probably near St Wulfram's, the most important church in the town, and the hub around which it had grown; its soaring 282-foot spire was a landmark for miles around. The house she owned here was almost certainly one of several ancient mansions that once stood in this area, and may have been of equal status to Grantham House in Castlegate, which survives today. Grantham House was originally a stone hall house built around 1380 in what was then a rural area near the church; it still stands in twenty-seven acres of gardens on the banks of the River Witham. Its mediaeval core is now hidden beneath sixteenth- and eighteenth-century additions and alterations. From the late fifteenth to the early seventeenth century, this house was known as Hall Place, after the wealthy family of merchants that lived there; prior to that, it was apparently owned by the Fitzwilliams. Both Margaret Tudor, Queen of Scots, and Cardinal Wolsey stayed here in the sixteenth century. The original Grantham House appears to have been of a similar type to the properties that Katherine Swynford leased in Lincoln, and probably exemplifies the kind of house she had in Grantham.74 These were perilous times. In February 1385, Robert de Vere with the connivance of the King75 made a second attempt to bring down John of Gaunt, hatching yet another court plot to kill him at a tournament. On the 24th, an outraged John, accompanied by an armed escort and wearing a breastplate, confronted Richard II at Sheen, lecturing him 'with some harshness and severity' on the folly of relying on bad counsel. Early the next month the Princess Joan intervened to bring about a public reconciliation, while John's former adversary, William Courtenay, now Archbishop of Canterbury, censured the King for the way in which he had behaved towards the Duke, and condemned his evil advisers at which Richard had to be restrained from running the Archbishop through with his sword and transforming him into a second Thomas a Becket.76 Both John of Gaunt and Courtenay had voiced the increasingly widespread concern about the King's favourites, and Richard's reaction shows how unwilling he was to listen to measured criticism. His resentment of his uncle had now reached boiling point. Yet these days John's priorities were focused not on maintaining political supremacy in England, but on Castile, as the prospect of a crown there became daily more viable. In April, an English force was finally dispatched overseas to the aid of Joo I, who that month after prolonged resistance to the forces of Castile was once more defiantly proclaimed King of Portugal.

John spent the summer accompanying Richard II on a lackl.u.s.tre invasion of Scotland, having first lavishly entertained the King and Queen at Leicester Castle.77 During this campaign, John's brothers, Edmund and Thomas, were created Duke of York and Duke of Gloucester respectively. While they were all up north, tidings came of the death of the Princess Joan on 8 August at Wallingford. Her end was perhaps hastened by the news that her son the King intended to proceed against his half-brother, Sir John Holland, for the murder of the heir of the Earl of Stafford,78 but Walsingham tells us that the Princess, who had spent a life 'devoted to pleasure', was 'so fat from eating that she could scarcely walk'; it may be that her obesity, as well as stress, had predisposed her to a heart attack. Joan was buried beside her first husband, Sir Thomas Holland, in the church of the Grey Friars at Stamford, some five months after her pa.s.sing, in the presence of the King; Chaucer was a mourner, having received black cloth for the occasion from the royal Wardrobe,79 while John of Gaunt must have sincerely mourned the loss of this dear sister-in-law who had been such a stalwart friend to him.

At the end of August 1385, as he returned to his estates in the Midlands, John received the most exciting and encouraging news: King Joo, his army boosted by English troops, had won a magnificent victory over his enemies at Aljubarrotta on 14 August, and was now the unchallenged sovereign of Portugal. The Duke was jubilant,80 for the way was at last clear for Joo offer him the support he needed for his Castilian venture. Late in November 1385, John appealed to Parliament to vote the necessary funds for an invasion of Castile by means of 'the way of Portugal', and Parliament in which his son Henry was sitting for the first time at last responded favourably.

There is evidence that John of Gaunt was in contact with Katherine Swynford at this time, the first on record since he had sent her wine in 1382. During the November Parliament, the Duke pet.i.tioned for the removal of Sir John Stanley from the manors of Lathom and Knowsley in Lancas.h.i.+re. Sir John had recently married Isabel, the daughter of Sir Thomas Lathom; upon Lathom's death in 1370, those manors had pa.s.sed to his heir, another Sir Thomas, who died underage in 1383. Because Thomas had been a minor, John of Gaunt, as his feudal lord, had taken him and his manors into wards.h.i.+p, and although Isabel was her brother's heiress, her husband had taken possession of Lathom and Knowsley on Thomas's death without first establis.h.i.+ng his right to do so in the Duke's palatine chancery. There was, of course, more to this than met the eye: Sir John Stanley, who became Robert de Vere's deputy in Ireland the following year, appears to have been a client of the favourite, and almost certainly de Vere was behind this slight to the Duke and upheld Stanley's possession of the manors in Parliament.

But the law was on the Duke's side. After John of Gaunt complained that Stanley had been in 'grave contempt' of his ducal rights, Parliament decreed that Stanley's entry into the manors had been illegal and ordered him to vacate them and to lodge his claim in the palatine chancery. In the end, John of Gaunt was just. He had vindicated his right to the manors, but he was aware that they should pa.s.s to Stanley in right of his wife. So he granted them to Katherine Swynford, who in turn, at his behest, sold them to Stanley. The Duke even returned to Stanley a substantial part of the price.81 Thus we have evidence that John and Katherine were in contact, indeed, in collaboration, at this time, and that she was willing to support him in such matters.

The King, eager to get rid of his troublesome uncle, now lent him money for his Castilian venture,82 and from January 1386, preparations for the great invasion went ahead.

8.

'The Lady of Kettlethorpe'

Nearly five years on from the end of their affair, Katherine could perhaps view the prospect of John leaving England for a long period with equanimity. After all, it would not be forever there is some evidence to suggest that he never intended to take up permanent residence in Castile, but antic.i.p.ated that England would remain his chief base.1 Thus their children would not be permanently deprived of a father, nor Katherine of the occasional contact with him.

Inwardly, she might have worried about John, for he was no longer young. Ferno Lopes, whose description of him as he appeared in Portugal in 13867 may derive from the reminiscences of Philippa of Lancaster and other contemporaries, says he was still tall, lean and upright, but estimated him to be 'about sixty years old, with fewer white hairs than is normal for one of his age' unsurprisingly, as he was still only forty-six. It does appear, though, that a lifetime of care and campaigning had prematurely aged him, and his experiences in Spain would doubtless leave their mark as well.

The Duke spent the months prior to his departure putting his affairs in order, and his provision extended to Katherine's family. He took Thomas Chaucer into his service.2 He betrothed nine-year-old Joan Beaufort to Sir Robert Ferrers of Willisham, heir through his mother to the Boteler estates in Wem.3 And on 19 February, on the day after the standard of the Cross was raised in St Paul's Cathedral and his Castilian venture was preached as a crusade, he was in Lincoln.

John was there to attend an impressive ceremony in the chapter house of Lincoln Cathedral, in which, in the presence of nine canons, 'the Lord Henry, Earl of Derby, son of the Lord John, the most high Prince, King of Castile and Duke of Lancaster' was to be admitted by Bishop Buckingham to the cathedral's confraternity, just as John himself had been admitted at the age of three. Alongside Henry, John Beaufort, now about thirteen and already knighted, Sir Thomas Swynford, Philippa Chaucer and Sir Robert Ferrers were also made members.4 Sir Thomas Swynford, in company with another Lincolns.h.i.+re knight, Sir William Hauley, was officially in attendance on the Duke that day.5 The inclusion of Katherine's sons, her sister and her future son-in-law in this important Lancastrian ceremony demonstrates how highly regarded, and how important, she and her family were within the Duke's closest circle.

Admission to the cathedral's 'order of the brotherhood' which it claimed had been founded 'when the Bible was written',6 but which in fact dated from c.11857 was a socially prestigious privilege that enabled members of the laity to benefit from the prayers of the clergy in perpetuity, and to be buried in the cathedral; in return, it was piously hoped, they would be generous benefactors and patrons.8 The Duke no doubt felt that he and those dear to him needed such intercessions at this crucial time. His visit to Lincoln Cathedral would have afforded him the opportunity to pray at the three altars where his name-saints were wors.h.i.+pped, and to the Holy Virgin, to whom the church was dedicated.9 After the ceremony, wine and comfits were served, then the company repaired to the castle for a feast hosted by the Duke.10 Professor Goodman is probably correct in suggesting that John made this auspicious day the occasion for a farewell gathering prior to his departure. And with the focus on two of her sons, her sister, her former charge and her patron, there can be little doubt that Katherine Swynford, whose house was nearby, was also present with her other children. Nor that her long a.s.sociation with the cathedral, and the omission of her name from the list of new members of its confraternity, suggest that she herself already belonged to it, and perhaps had done for some years, for Sir Hugh Swynford may also have been a member.11 Philippa Chaucer's admission suggests that she was still resident in Lincolns.h.i.+re at this time and living apart from her husband. She was probably preparing to go to Castile in the train of the d.u.c.h.ess Constance: after all, her son Thomas was going with the Duke, and with her daughter in a convent and her husband living apart from her, there was little to keep her in England.

John of Gaunt returned to London immediately after the ceremony; his d.u.c.h.ess was then away on a pilgrimage to various shrines, praying for the success of her husband's great enterprise. She can hardly be blamed for not attending the ceremony in Lincoln, at which the Swynford connections were so prominent.12 Instead, she was received into the confraternity of St Albans Abbey, home of the chronicler Walsingham,13 a place where she was much admired for her piety, which might account in part for Walsingham's past hostility towards the Duke.

On 8 March, Richard II formally recognised John of Gaunt as King of Castile, placing him next to himself at the council table.14 At Easter, the Pope again proclaimed the enterprise a crusade, and sent John a holy banner.15 By then, the Duke had begun a.s.sembling his fleet, and there was a ceremony of farewell at court, with the King and Queen solemnly placing golden diadems on the heads of John and Constance. After that, John departed on his own pilgrimage to various shrines in the West Country.16 On 8 April, as King of Castile, he agreed a treaty of perpetual friends.h.i.+p with Richard II, and on the 20th, the King ordered the impressing of every s.h.i.+p in the realm for John's fleet.

By 14 June, the Duke had arrived in Plymouth; four days later, his fleet was finally a.s.sembled. Preoccupied as he was with the myriad aspects of his venture, he yet had to find time to deal with the unseemly conduct of his strong-willed17 daughter, Elizabeth of Lancaster. Bored with her child husband, who was still only fourteen to her twenty-three years, Elizabeth had willingly allowed herself to be seduced by the King's half-brother, Sir John Holland,18 a volatile schemer who in 1384 had been involved in the plot hatched against John of Gaunt at the Salisbury Parliament; it was he who in 1385 had caused outrage and grief to his mother, the Princess Joan by killing Stafford's son, as a result of which he had been forced to flee to sanctuary until the King's wrath abated. Holland was licentious too, and around 1380, he had reputedly enjoyed a torrid affair with the flirtatious Isabella of Castile, Constance's sister and the wife of Edmund of Langley.19 Now, Higden says, he had been 'struck down pa.s.sionately' by his love for Elizabeth of Lancaster, 'so that day and night he sought her out'.

When John of Gaunt learned that Elizabeth was pregnant by Holland, he arranged for her unconsummated marriage to Pembroke to be annulled; that unfortunate boy was to remarry, but he would die horribly, pierced through his genitals, in a jousting accident at Christmas 1389.20 On 24 June 1386, Elizabeth and Holland were hastily wed21 in or near Plymouth, narrowly averting a scandal and effecting his complete rehabilitation. The Duke was to show great favour to this son-in-law, so obviously the scoundrel had charm and ability. The couple's daughter Constance was born the following year, and four other children the eldest being named John, after the Duke would follow.

Clearly the headstrong Elizabeth had inherited her father's sensual nature; it may have seemed to her that there was no harm in following the example set by her former governess Katherine Swynford in giving herself outside marriage to the man she loved. But Katherine was not a princess of the blood Elizabeth was, and the corruption of her virtue was a more serious matter. It seems that Katherine had failed, by precedent or precept, to impress upon Elizabeth the need for a girl in her position to conduct herself virtuously. Fortunately, her father had dealt with her leniently and advantageously, and her marriage turned out to be successful.

In July 1386, the Duke's retinues began to embark. Having appointed his son Henry to serve as Warden of the Palatinate of Lancaster during his absence, John entertained him to a farewell dinner on board his flags.h.i.+p on the 8th. The following day, a fair wind sprang up; father and son bade each other a hasty farewell, and the fleet set sail on its glorious venture.22 With it went the Duke's three daughters, his sons-in-law John Holland, who had been appointed constable of his army, and Sir Thomas Morieux, serving as marshal; Thomas Chaucer and probably his mother Philippa; and the d.u.c.h.ess Constance, now in high hopes of occupying her father's throne and continuing his dynasty.

For Constance was possibly pregnant at this time, with a child doubtless conceived primarily for dynastic purposes. The arrival of a male heir on Castilian soil would signify divine approval of her cause and inspire the loyalty of her subjects. It would also serve to proclaim that she and her husband were fully reconciled, and go some way towards obliterating the scandal of his former life. Alas, the child if there was a child at all was not of the desired s.e.x: the contemporary chronicler Monk of St Denis says that the d.u.c.h.ess was delivered of a daughter soon after she and the Duke disembarked at Corunna on 25 July.23 No further mention is made of the infant, so either she did not live, or the Monk's information was inaccurate and she never existed.

Katherine Swynford was probably living quietly in Lincolns.h.i.+re when John went away she was still renting the Chancery in 13867, for at that time she was having repairs done to the house.24 Perhaps she went to the cathedral and offered up prayers for the success of the Duke's enterprise, as Bishop Buckingham requested of his flock on 28 July.25 There is later evidence to suggest that she and John were in touch while he was abroad, so probably at some stage she and her Beaufort children received word of his arrival in Compostela and his decision to winter in Galicia before attempting to take Castile. In his absence, she busied herself with domestic matters and continued to administer her son's lands. In 1386, Henry de Fenton granted Katherine tenements in Kettlethorpe, further improving the Swynford inheritance.26 Katherine cannot have seen much of her brother-in-law, Geoffrey Chaucer, these days; maybe, with Philippa possibly gone overseas, they now had little to say to each other. Chaucer did not fare well after the Duke's departure. In 1386, he was a man of substance and status, and in the summer of that year he was nominated to sit in Parliament as Knight of the s.h.i.+re for Kent, taking his seat in October. But towards the end of the year, he either resigned from, or was deprived of, his lucrative controllers.h.i.+ps, and he gave up or was evicted from his house in Aldgate. He possibly took lodgings in Greenwich or Deptford,27 but his only income now was his royal pension, which he continued to collect himself twice a year from the Exchequer.

The loss of his house and offices coming only months after John of Gaunt's departure argues that they had indeed been granted to him through the Duke's influence. But the absent John was now persona non grata in England, for the King was relieved to be rid of his too-powerful and intimidating uncle, and his favourite Robert de Vere now reigned triumphant at court. This might explain why Chaucer whose wife was sister to the Duke's former mistress had lost his offices and would not regain favour until Richard realised just how much he needed John of Gaunt's support.

Meanwhile, the Duke had met up with his ally, Joo I of Portugal, and both were trying to enforce John's claims through diplomacy before resorting to war. To cement their friends.h.i.+p, Philippa of Lancaster was given in marriage to King Joo in February 1387 in Oporto Cathedral.

Philippa was to prove a model and much-loved queen consort. She was devoted and obedient to her husband, bore him eight children (two were named after her parents; another was the great explorer prince, Henry the Navigator), had them well educated, and set a deeply pious and charitable example.28 In every way she was a credit to her father, and also to Katherine Swynford, who had been in overall charge of her from the time Philippa was thirteen, and who had evidently succeeded with her where she had failed with her sister. And it was perhaps Philippa's fondness for Katherine and the Beauforts that led her to treat her husband's b.a.s.t.a.r.d children with kindness and tolerance.29 It was probably before his departure that Katherine had lent John a substantial sum of money. The Pope had promised special remission of sins to those who helped finance the Duke's 'crusade', so Katherine, mindful of her former life, was perhaps laying up treasure in Heaven. The fact that she had such funds to lend is further testimony to her financial ac.u.men it will be remembered that John himself had entrusted her with large sums of money for the maintenance of his daughters, and we know she was careful with her income, and prudent in providing for the future. But when the Duke was in need, she did not hesitate to a.s.sist him liberally, showing herself selflessly sympathetic to his cause, even though it took him away from her. John did not forget her generosity, and on 16 February 1387,30 he sent instructions to his receiver in Yorks.h.i.+re to repay 100 (33,471) in part repayment of the 500 marks (41,058) she had loaned him 'in his great necessity'.31 We might infer from this that he and Katherine were maintaining some kind of contact while he was abroad: the interests of their children alone would surely have necessitated it.

In the spring of 1387, diplomatic solutions having failed, the Duke took Galicia, and at the end of March he and King Joo invaded Leon, a kingdom ruled by Juan I of Castile. But things did not go well there were complaints that the Duke's womenfolk slowed down the march; his son-in-law, Sir Thomas Morieux, died, worn out by fighting;32 and the Castilians had laid waste the land, so that countless men and horses died of starvation, dysentery and heat exhaustion. 'These are the fortunes of war,' observed Froissart. 'The Duke was at his wits' end, and weighed down by anxiety. He saw his men exhausted and ill and taking to their beds, while he himself felt so weary that he lay in his bed without moving.' John nearly died too, but forced himself to get up and look cheerful, for the sake of maintaining morale among his men. Nevertheless, there was much muttering about his leaders.h.i.+p of the campaign,33 even though the Count of Foix thought John had 'conducted himself valiantly and wisely in this war', and soon King Joo began urging him to abandon the fighting in favour of a return to diplomacy.34 But the Duke refused.

On 2627 March 1387, Richard II and Anne of Bohemia visited Lincoln, to be admitted to the confraternity of the cathedral. It is hard to conceive that Katherine, probably a member herself, was not among the congregation that witnessed this ceremony. Richard II thought highly of her, and may well have singled her out on that day, because the following month, he appointed 'Lady Katherine de Swynford' a Lady of the Garter (or, more correctly, a 'Lady of the Fraternity of St George and of the Society of the Garter'),35 the highest English honour to which a woman might aspire. Her formal robes of scarlet wool embroidered with blue taffeta garters in gold, with the motto Honi soit qui mal y pense in blue silk, and a matching hood, were paid for by the King the following August.36 In 1387, Katherine would have gone to the glittering court at Windsor, donned her robes, partic.i.p.ated in the Garter ceremonies with the other ten ladies of the order, and attended the great feast hosted by the King on St George's Day. Doubtless she met up with many people she had known during her glory days with the Duke, but Katherine could now hold her head up at court in the knowledge that she was there in an honourable and legitimate capacity. Even so, her admission to the most prestigious order of knighthood in Europe was probably a tacit acknowledgement by the King of her special relations.h.i.+p with John of Gaunt, and of her influence with him. It might also indicate that the scandal surrounding their affair had died down and that people knew they were no longer lovers.

Edward III had begun the practice of appointing 'Dames of the Fraternity' with Queen Philippa and his eldest daughter Isabella, but since the beginning of his reign, Richard II had been a.s.siduous in admitting ladies to the order, notably his mother Joan of Kent, the d.u.c.h.ess Constance, her sister Isabella, and Philippa and Elizabeth of Lancaster in 13789, and Queen Anne, Catalina of Lancaster, Eleanor de Bohun and Lady Mohun in 1384. So Katherine Swynford was in august company. But there was an ulterior motive for her advancement. By 1387, Richard was engaged in a bitter struggle with those lords who resented his reliance on worthless favourites like Robert de Vere and his former tutor Sir Simon Burley, and were demanding a new push to win the war with France: Richard had never yet led an army into the field an abrogation of his duty, in the eyes of his martially minded magnates and was essentially inclined to peace. That summer, Parliament itself was to demand that he remove his offensive counsellors. Richard had therefore come to a belated realisation of how loyally John of Gaunt had supported him; he knew how much John cared for Katherine, and making her a Lady of the Garter was one way in which he could show favour to his uncle and solicit his support; this would not be the first time he had promoted ladies to the order to forge useful alliances with his n.o.bles.37 It is probably no coincidence too that Chaucer's fortunes now began to improve: in July, he was sent to Calais on the King's service, and in August he was acting as a justice of the peace at Dartford in Kent38 more sops to the Duke perhaps.

But John had far more pressing matters on his mind. His campaign in Leon had ended cruelly in dysentery, ma.s.s desertions and disaster, he had failed to rally sufficient Iberian backing for his cause, and he now saw that there was no prospect of him ever taking Castile.39 His army, encamped on an open plain in the burning sun, was decimated by the b.l.o.o.d.y flux. 'You must believe that the Duke of Lancaster was not without trouble night or day, for he was sorely ill, and his valiant knights dead. He sorrowed for them and cried (if one can say so) every day, and took everything to heart.'40 To make matters worse, King Joo fell seriously ill and nearly died, as a result of which his distraught bride, Philippa of Lancaster, suffered a miscarriage. Their recovery was seen as little more than a miracle.41 One of those who perished of dysentery in Leon may have been Philippa Chaucer. On 18 June 1387, Geoffrey collected her annuity as usual from the Exchequer, but on 7 November, when the next instalment was due, he fetched only his own pension. Nor did he ever pick up any more payments to Philippa.42 Since the usual reason for disappearing from these records was death, the a.s.sumption must be that she died between 18 June and 17 November 1387.43 It has been suggested that a stone effigy of a mediaeval lady that was discovered in the nineteenth century beneath the floor of the church of St Mary the Virgin at Old Worldham in Hamps.h.i.+re is that of Philippa Chaucer. This claim is based on the evidence of a brooch, or 'fermail', on the breast of the figure, which is said to display a Roet wheel. However, the design bears very little resemblance to that emblem, and in fact is common to such brooches. The costume, moreover, is that of the first half of the thirteenth century (when the church was built), not the last quarter of the fourteenth.44 Of course, Philippa could have died in Lincolns.h.i.+re and been buried there, perhaps at Kettlethorpe that is the traditional version or even in Lincoln Cathedral, to which she was ent.i.tled as a member of its confraternity. It has also been suggested that she returned to Hainault and spent the rest of her life there, having inherited property in that region.45 But the most credible theory is that she accompanied Constance to Spain and died there, which would account for there being no record of her death in England and no known tomb. If she did succ.u.mb to dysentery in the heat of Leon, she was probably buried in a pit with other victims, with scant ceremony and no memorial.

Wherever Philippa died, Katherine had lost her sister, and she must have mourned her sincerely: they had evidently been close in recent years, living often in the same household. There is no record of their mutual bereavement bringing Chaucer and Katherine closer together: their lives seem hardly to have coincided for a long time afterwards. For Geoffrey, who never made any reference to his wife's death in his verse, there must have been feelings of regret, but his loss did not diminish his cynicism regarding marriage far from it, as his later poems show. Nor would he 'fall of wedding in the trap' again.

It was now painfully obvious that John of Gaunt's long-cherished dream of winning the throne of Castile was never going to come to fruition. Finally accepting this, he agreed terms with King Juan I, and at Trancoso, in July 1387, a settlement was proposed whereby, in return for a cash payment of 100,000 (33,470,817) and an annual pension of 6,666 (2,231,165), John and Constance would relinquish their Castilian claims to their fifteen-year-old daughter Catalina and enter into negotiations for her marriage to Juan's son Enrique.46 Just before John of Gaunt concluded the peace with Juan I, he made an emotional promise to the Virgin Mary to amend his way of life, and was seen weeping in repentance for his sins.47 This echoed the public avowal he had made in 1381, and begs the question whether or not he had lapsed into his old promiscuous ways. But given how ill and weak he was at this time, that is unlikely. Was he referring to Katherine Swynford? Although he had been abroad for over a year, he was perhaps still carrying the proverbial torch for her, and might have maintained contact between them, thereby affronting his wife. If so, that contact can only have been intermittent: that summer, there were alarming rumours in England, but they were just that, for even Walsingham had no idea of what was really happening in Spain; that the Duke's army had suffered terrible losses was known, but some were claiming that the hot weather had 'induced deadly plague'.48 We can only imagine what Katherine and her children would have felt if they heard that.

That same month, a Castilian a.s.sa.s.sin's attempt to murder John and Constance by poison left them shaken and demoralised; the man confessed and was burned to death, apparently on the Duke's orders.49 In August, John was well enough to accompany King Joo to Portugal;50 at Oporto, the next month, after confirming a treaty of friends.h.i.+p with Portugal that still holds good today, and is England's most ancient alliance, John took his leave of his daughter and son-in-law, and sailed with Constance to Bayonne;51 he would never again set eyes on Philippa, and parting from her must have been a wrench, for she had married at the unusually late age of twenty-seven, having remained in her father's care for far longer than most daughters of her caste, and there was obviously a close bond between them.52 On 26 May 1388, Richard II appointed John King's Lieutenant in Aquitaine,53 and for the next eighteen months the Duke would remain in the south of France, ruling the Duchy. At Bayonne, in 1389, he received Thomas Chaucer into his retinue, retaining him for life at an annual fee of 10 (5,102),54 and appointed him Constable of Knaresborough Castle.55 From now on, Thomas Chaucer's fortunes would be closely linked to those of the House of Lancaster.

On 8 July 1388, John of Gaunt and Juan I concluded the Treaty of Bayonne, which confirmed the proposals made at Trancoso, and in September, Catalina, now sixteen, tall, fair and very beautiful,56 was married to the Infante Enrique, the nine-year-old heir to Castile, at Fuentarrabia; she became Queen of Castile when he succeeded as Enrique III in October 1390.57 One of the witnesses to the treaty, unusually, was the Duke's long-serving physician, Lewis Recouchez, whose presence has led several historians to wonder if John was still unwell as a result of the rigours of the campaign.58 After the wedding, with the crown of Castile irrevocably beyond their reach, and their only child royally married, John and Constance no longer needed each other, and appear to have abandoned all pretence of marital unity. From now on, they would effectively live apart. She was of no further political importance to him, and accordingly there are few further references to her in the chronicles. The Duke continued to provide generously for her, but there was to be no more pretence of marital felicity.

For Constance, the abandonment of her cherished hopes must have been hard to bear. In October, she went to visit her daughter and new son-in-law in Castile, where she had her father's remains exhumed from the field of Montiel and honourably reburied with his ancestors. She tried to persuade King Juan to use his influence to end the Great Schism, which had left one Pope in Avignon and another in Rome, and also worked to foster good relations between her husband the Duke and the House of Trastamara.59 Constance would not return to England until the following year, and then she would live mainly at Tutbury, dissociating herself once more from the Lancastrian household and the court, and surrounding herself with her Castilian ladies and gentlemen.60 Her withdrawal would leave the way clear for the relations.h.i.+p between the Duke and Katherine Swynford to flourish once more.

Meanwhile, England had descended into political turmoil. Those magnates who opposed the rule of Richard II who styled themselves the Lords Appellant had finally had their way and purged the royal household of his favourites, reminding the King that he was still a minor and forcing him to accept councillors of their own choosing. Richard retaliated by having Parliament declare their actions unlawful and treasonable, but he was no match for the might of the lords. In November 1387, three of the Appellants Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester, and the Earls of Arundel and Warwick angrily accused Robert de Vere and the King's other favourites of treason, and on 20 December, Henry of Derby, who with Thomas Mowbray had lately joined the Appellants, defeated de Vere in a skirmish at Radcot Bridge and was hailed as a hero. Afterwards, de Vere fled into exile, never to return. (In 1392, he was fatally savaged by a boar whilst hunting at Louvain.) By this point, matters had reached such a crisis that for a few days in late December, Richard II, now a captive in the Tower, was effectively deposed.

It was against this background and possibly as a result of the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess going their separate ways in the autumn that at Christmas 1387, Katherine Swynford and her daughter Joan Beaufort were invited to stay in Mary de Bohun's household. Mary and her husband had finally been a.s.signed their own establishment and begun cohabiting in November 1385, and in August or September 1387, at Monmouth Castle (which John of Gaunt had placed at their disposal), Mary had given birth to their first surviving son, called Henry after his father. Again Katherine had been invited to attend Mary after the birth of a child, which suggests that Mary and her husband placed much confidence in the older woman's capabilities; it might also be that the young Derbys were acquiescing to a request made by the Duke that Katherine come to her, or they might have invited her to please him. Even so, she would not have been admitted to their household unless Henry of Derby regarded her as fit company for his wife;61 he seems to have long cherished an affection and regard for Katherine, and perhaps felt that her exceptional qualities more than outweighed her tarnished reputation; and there is evidence that he liked her children too. Henry may have shared with his father a sentimental appreciation of Katherine's links with Blanche of Lancaster;62 she had probably been more of a stepmother to him than Constance ever had, and in later years, as will be seen, he was to refer to her as his mother.63 Henry of Derby was now twenty, a squat and powerfully built young man, always richly and elegantly garbed, and handsome,64 with russet-red hair and beard, as were seen when his tomb was opened in 1831. People were impressed by his courtesy, chivalry and affability.65 Fearless and brave, he was conventional in outlook, staunch and orthodox in his religious views, and had wide-based interests embracing jousting, crusading, literature, poetry and music. Ambitious and restless, he had a thirst for adventure, but he could be a devious and calculating opportunist, who was also indecisive and thick-skinned. On the positive side, he was careful, cautious, serious, even-tempered and generous. The Duke was exceptionally proud of his son, delighted in his military prowess, and demonstrated great affection towards him. Obviously there was a strong bond between them.

Although they had the use of Monmouth Castle and a London house in Bishopsgate, the young couple may have been staying at this time at Kenilworth, which John of Gaunt had also made available to them. By Christmas, Mary had prevailed on Katherine and Joan to join her household, and during the festival she presented them both with gowns of silk in her livery colours of red and white, edged with miniver.66 Again, it may be that Mary was acting on John of Gaunt's instructions; she must have known that he would approve of her receiving Katherine into her chamber.

Thus Katherine came to occupy a place of honour in another royal household. Her duties, as with Blanche of Lancaster, probably involved attending upon the young Countess and helping to look after her rapidly growing family, starting with the infant Henry of Monmouth; yet, given her experience in running a large establishment, she may have enjoyed a more managerial role. Ten-year-old Joan would probably have helped with the Derbys' children, and would have benefited intellectually and socially from being placed in a lordly household; she grew up literate, cultivated and pious, and must therefore have received a good education that befitted her to move with confidence in courtly circles. It is clear, though, that Katherine like her sister Philippa and other damoiselles in royal households divided her time between waiting on her young mistress and her personal and family commitments in Lincolns.h.i.+re, where she continued to rent the Chancery and to look after the Swynford holdings.

Katherine and Joan's presence in Mary de Bohun's household testifies to their continuing inclusion in the Lancastrian inner circle. When Mary was appointed a Lady of the Garter in April 1388, Katherine was again provided with Garter robes and once more travelled to Windsor for the St George's Day solemnities and feasting. Mary was then pregnant again, and in September 1388 she bore a second son, Thomas, who was speedily followed by a third, John, in June 1389 Henry of Derby did not spare his young wife. However, their marriage appears to have been happy, with the couple sharing a love of chess, dogs, parrots and music (Mary, who came from a cultivated family, played the harp and cithar, Henry the recorder), and he was conspicuously faithful67 and a.s.siduous in sending gifts of food to satisfy his wife's cravings during pregnancy.68 Theirs must have been a happy and lively household, and Katherine is again recorded in it at Christmas 1388,69 further evidence of her enduring a.s.sociation with the Derbys.

In February 1388, in what became known as the Merciless Parliament, the Lords Appellant had had five of the King's remaining favourites tried and convicted, and his beloved Simon Burley executed. For more than a year afterwards, Richard endured in humiliating tutelage to the Appellants, until in May 1389, now twenty-two, he belatedly declared himself of full age, dismissed them and a.s.serted his regal authority. In September, Henry of Derby ostensibly forgiven was restored to the Council: Richard knew he needed the support of John of Gaunt, who had remained in Aquitaine to conclude a new truce with the French. That year, 1389, Richard had again issued Katherine Swynford with Garter robes; he also created the Duke's son-in-law, John Holland, Earl of Huntingdon, and appointed him Chamberlain of England, Admiral of the Western Fleet and a privy councillor. Richard now wanted needed his powerful uncle in England. After more than three years abroad, John of Gaunt had begun making plans for his return home,70 but on 30 October, the impatient King who had already sent funds for his voyage71 formally summoned him back.72 The s.h.i.+p carrying the Duke docked at Plymouth on 19 November 1389.73 He came home far wealthier than before, 'with an immense sum of gold treasure',74 but prematurely aged a French councillor referred to him at this time as 'an old black boar' and probably in poorer health. From Devon, he journeyed eastwards, obeying the royal summons, and in December, paying his uncle a great honour, the King rode out two miles from Reading to greet him and gave him the kiss of peace with enthusiastic warmth. He even removed John's Lancastrian livery collar of linked Ss and placed it about his own neck, symbolising his intention to be a good lord to the Duke and 'the good love heartfully felt between them'.75 In return, John would have the King's white hart badge incorporated into his SS collars.76 With past differences forgotten, an atmosphere of conciliation pervaded the Council meeting that the Duke attended at Reading on 10 December;77 on the 12th he was at Westminster, where he received an unexpectedly warm welcome from the Mayor and Corporation of London, before attending services of thanksgiving for his return in Westminster Abbey and St Paul's Cathedral,78 where he no doubt paid his respects at Blanche's tomb. By Christmas, he was back at Hertford Castle.79 On 21 January 1390, John of Gaunt and Thomas of Woodstock were finally appointed to the Council.80 John's return to the political scene in England ushered in an era of greater political stability and order. The King was now happy to place great trust and confidence in him, and anxious to work with him to promote peace with France. He promised his uncle he would listen to good counsel and bestow his patronage more wisely than in the past. For his part, the Duke proved moderate and staunchly loyal, acting as a peace-broker between the King and the former Appellants, and as a b.u.t.tress to the throne he so honoured, and slipping effortlessly into the role of elder statesman, 'the most sufficient person in the realm'.81 No longer was he so hated by the people, for time had prov