John of Gaunt First Duke of Lancaster ¹

  General Notes:

John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster, KG, (6 March 1340 \endash 3 February 1399) was the third of five surviving sons of King Edward III of England. A soldier and statesman, he fought in the Hundred Years' War and was an influential figure during the reigns of his father and nephew, Richard II. His birth place, Ghent, then rendered in English as Gaunt, gave origin to his name. When he became unpopular later in life, scurrilous rumours and lampoons circulated that he was actually the son of a Ghent butcher, perhaps because Edward III was not present at the birth. This story always drove him to fury.[2]

Owing to his royal origin, advantageous marriages and some generous land grants, John of Gaunt was one of the richest and most influential men of his era. His career, however, went through a time of difficulty for England, amidst military reverses in the ongoing Hundred Years' War with France and internal problems at home. His influence in national affairs, thanks to the incapacity of his father and brother, made him the focus of much popular discontent. He made an abortive attempt to enforce a claim to the Crown of Castile that came courtesy of his second wife, and for a time styled himself as King of Castile.

John exercised great influence over the English throne during the minority of King Richard II, and the ensuing periods of political strife. He mediated between the king and a group of rebellious nobles, which included Gaunt's own son and heir, Henry Bolingbroke.[3] Following Gaunt's death in 1399, his estates and titles were declared forfeit to the crown, and his son, now disinherited, was branded a traitor and exiled.[4] Henry Bolingbroke returned from exile shortly after to reclaim his inheritance, and deposed Richard. He reigned as King Henry IV of England (1399\endash 1413), the first of the descendants of John of Gaunt to hold the English throne.

As Duke of Lancaster, Gaunt is seen as the founder of the House of Lancaster, whose male heirs would rule England from 1399 until the time of the Wars of the Roses, when the English crown was disputed with the House of York (formed by the descendants both of his younger brother Edmund, Duke of York and his elder brother, Lionel of Antwerp, 1st Duke of Clarence). Gaunt also fathered five children outside marriage; one early in life by a lady-in-waiting to his mother), the others by Katherine Swynford, his long-term mistress and third wife. They were later legitimized by royal and papal decrees, but which did not affect Henry IV's bar to their having a place in the line of succession. Despite that restriction, through these offspring, surnamed "Beaufort", Gaunt is ancestor to all Scottish monarchs beginning in 1437, and of all English monarchs of the houses of Lancaster and Tudor as well as, incidentally, York.

Through his eldest daughter, all Portuguese kings starting in 1433 descend from him. Through another daughter, he has among his descendants all monarchs of Castile from 1406, and subsequently those of a united Spain. Finally, John of Gaunt is also an incidental ancestor of the Habsburg rulers who would reign in Spain and much of central Europe.

John married Blanche of Lancaster. (Blanche of Lancaster was born on 25 Mar 1345 in Bolingbroke Castle, Lincolnshire, England and died on 12 Sep 1368 in Tutbury Castle, Staffordshire, England.)