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Birth:          Mar 1340 Abbaye de St. Bavon, Ghent, Flanders
Death:          3 Feb 1399 Leicester Castle, Leicestershire, England
Burial:         15 Mar 1399 St. Paul's Cathedral, London, England

Notes
Duke of Lancaster, Earl of Richmond, Titular King of Castile and Leon, Knight of the 
Garter
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_of_Gaunt
John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster, KG (6 March 1340 – 3 February 1399) was a 
member of the House of Plantagenet, the third of five surviving sons of King Edward 
III of England and Philippa of Hainault. He was called "John of Gaunt" because he 
was born in Ghent, then rendered in English as Gaunt. 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]

As a younger brother of Edward, Prince of Wales (Edward, the Black Prince), John 
exercised great influence over the English throne during the minority of Edward's son, 
who became King Richard II, and the ensuing periods of political strife. Due to some 
generous land grants, John was one of the richest men in his era. He made an 
abortive attempt to enforce a claim to the Crown of Castile that came courtesy of his 
second wife Constance, who was an heir to the Castillian Kingdom, and for a time 
styled himself as such.

John of Gaunt's legitimate male heirs, the Lancasters, include Kings Henry IV, Henry 
V, and Henry VI. His other legitimate descendants include his daughters Queen 
Philippa of Portugal and Elizabeth, Duchess of Exeter (by his first wife Blanche of 
Lancaster), and Queen Catherine of Castile (by his second wife Constance of Castile). 
John fathered five children outside marriage, one early in life by a lady-in-waiting to 
his mother, and four by Katherine Swynford, Gaunt's long-term mistress and third wife. 
The children of Katherine Swynford, surnamed "Beaufort," were legitimised by royal 
and papal decrees after John and Katherine married in 1396. Descendants of this 
marriage include Joan Beaufort, Countess of Westmorland, a grandmother of Kings 
Edward IV and Richard III; John Beaufort, 1st Earl of Somerset, a great-grandfather of 
King Henry VII; and Joan Beaufort, Queen of Scots, from whom are descended all 
subsequent sovereigns of Scotland beginning in 1437 and all sovereigns of England, 
Great Britain and the United Kingdom from 1603 to the present day. The three houses 
of English sovereigns that succeeded the rule of Richard II in 1399 — the Houses of 
Lancaster, York and Tudor — were all descended from John's children Henry IV, Joan 
Beaufort and John Beaufort, respectively. In addition, John's daughter Catherine of 
Lancaster was married to King Henry III of Castile, which made him the grandfather of 
King John II of Castile and the ancestor of all subsequent monarchs of the Crown of 
Castile and united Spain. Through his daughter Philippa, he was grandfather of King 
Edward of Portugal and an ancestor of all subsequent Portuguese monarchs as well. 
Through John II of Castile's great-granddaughter Joanna the Mad, John of Gaunt is 
also an ancestor of the Habsburg rulers who would reign in Spain and much of central 
Europe.

John of Gaunt's eldest son and heir, Henry Bolingbroke, Duke of Hereford, the son of 
his first wife Blanche of Lancaster, was exiled for ten years by King Richard II in 1398 
as resolution to a dispute between Henry and Thomas de Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk.
[3] When John of Gaunt died in 1399, his estates and titles were declared forfeit to 
the crown, since King Richard II had named Henry a traitor and changed his sentence 
to exile for life.[3] Henry Bolingbroke returned from exile to reclaim his inheritance and 
depose Richard. Bolingbroke then reigned as King Henry IV of England (1399–1413), 
the first of the descendants of John of Gaunt to hold the throne of England.
Duke of Lancaster
John was the fourth son of King Edward III of England. His first wife, Blanche of 
Lancaster, was also his third cousin; both were great-great-grandchildren of King 
Henry III. They married in 1359 at Reading Abbey as a part of the efforts of Edward III 
to arrange matches for his sons with wealthy heiresses. Upon the death of his father-
in-law, the 1st Duke of Lancaster, in 1361, John received half his lands, the title "Earl 
of Lancaster", and distinction as the greatest landowner in the north of England as 
heir of the Palatinate of Lancaster. He also became the 14th Baron of Halton and 11th 
Lord of Bowland. John inherited the rest of the Lancaster property when Blanche's 
sister Maud, Countess of Leicester (married to William V, Count of Hainaut), died 
without issue on 10 April 1362.

John received the title "Duke of Lancaster" from his father on 13 November 1362. By 
then well established, he owned at least thirty castles and estates across England and 
France and maintained a household comparable in scale and organisation to that of a 
monarch. He owned land in almost every county in England, a patrimony that 
produced a net income of between £8,000 and £10,000 a year.[4]

After the death in 1376 of his older brother Edward of Woodstock (also known as the 
"Black Prince"), John of Gaunt contrived to protect the religious reformer John 
Wycliffe, possibly to counteract the growing secular power of the church.[5] However, 
John's ascendancy to political power coincided with widespread resentment of his 
influence. At a time when English forces encountered setbacks in the Hundred Years' 
War against France, and Edward III's rule was becoming unpopular due to high 
taxation and his affair with Alice Perrers, political opinion closely associated the Duke 
of Lancaster with the failing government of the 1370s. Furthermore, while King Edward 
and the Prince of Wales were popular heroes due to their successes on the 
battlefield, John of Gaunt had not won equivalent military renown that could have 
bolstered his reputation. Although he fought in the Battle of Nájera (1367), for 
example, his later military projects proved unsuccessful.

When Edward III died in 1377 and John's ten-year-old nephew succeeded as Richard 
II of England, John's influence strengthened. However, mistrust remained, and some
[who?] suspected him of wanting to seize the throne himself. John took pains to 
ensure that he never became associated with the opposition to Richard's kingship.
[citation needed] As de facto ruler during Richard's minority, he made unwise 
decisions on taxation that led to the Peasants' Revolt in 1381, when the rebels 
destroyed his home in London, the Savoy Palace. Unlike some of Richard's unpopular 
advisors, John was away from London at the time of the uprising and thus avoided the 
direct wrath of the rebels.

In 1386 John left England to seek the throne of Castile, claimed in Jure uxoris by right 
of his second wife, Constance of Castile, whom he had married in 1371. However, 
crisis ensued almost immediately in his absence, and in 1387 King Richard's misrule 
brought England to the brink of civil war. Only John, on his return to England in 1389, 
succeeded in persuading the Lords Appellant and King Richard to compromise to 
usher in a period of relative stability. During the 1390s, John's reputation of devotion 
to the well-being of the kingdom was largely restored.

During his second marriage, John of Gaunt had entered into an extra-marital love affair 
with Katherine Swynford, the daughter of an ordinary knight, which would produce 
four children for the couple. All of them were born out of wedlock, but legitimized upon 
their parents' eventual marriage. The adulterous relationship endured until 1381, when 
it was broken out of political necessity.[6] On 13 January 1396, two years after the 
death of Constance of Castile, Katherine and John of Gaunt married in Lincoln 
Cathedral. The children bore the surname "Beaufort" after a former French possession 
of the duke. The Beaufort children, three sons and a daughter, were legitimised by 
royal and papal decrees after John and Katherine married. A later proviso that they 
were specifically barred from inheriting the throne — the phrase excepta regali dignitate 
("except royal status") — was inserted with dubious authority by their half-brother Henry 
IV.

John died of natural causes on 3 February 1399 at Leicester Castle, with his third wife 
Katherine by his side.

Military commander in France[edit]

Because of his rank, John of Gaunt was one of England's principal military 
commanders in the 1370s and 1380s, though his enterprises were never rewarded with 
the kind of dazzling success that had made his elder brother Edward the Black Prince 
such a charismatic war leader.

On the resumption of war with France in 1369, John was sent to Calais with the Earl of 
Hereford and a small English army with which he raided into northern France. On 23 
August, he was confronted by a much larger French army under Philip the Bold, Duke 
of Burgundy. Exercising his first command, John dared not attack such a superior 
force and the two armies faced each other across a marsh for several weeks until the 
English were reinforced by the Earl of Warwick, at which the French withdrew without 
offering battle. John and Warwick then decided to strike Harfleur, the base of the 
French fleet on the Seine. Further reinforced by German mercenaries, they marched on 
Harfleur, but were delayed by French guerilla operations while the town prepared for a 
siege. John invested the town for four days in October, but he was losing so many 
men to dysentery and bubonic plague that he decided to abandon the siege and return 
to Calais. During this retreat, the army had to fight its way across the Somme at the 
ford of Blanchetaque against a French army led by Hugh de Châtillon, who was 
captured and sold to Edward III. By the middle of November, the survivors of the 
sickly army returned to Calais, where the Earl of Warwick died of plague. Though it 
seemed an inglorious conclusion to the campaign, John had forced the French king, 
Charles V, to abandon his plans to invade England that autumn.[7]

In the summer of 1370, John was sent with a small army to Aquitaine to reinforce his 
ailing elder brother, the Black Prince, and his younger brother Edmund of Langley, 
Earl of Cambridge. With them, he participated in the Siege of Limoges (September 
1370). He took charge of the siege operations and at one point engaging in hand-to-
hand fighting in the undermining tunnels.[8] After this event, the Black Prince 
surrendered his lordship of Aquitaine and sailed for England, leaving John in charge. 
Though he attempted to defend the duchy against French encroachment for nearly a 
year, lack of resources and money meant he could do little but husband what small 
territory the English still controlled, and he resigned the command in September 1371 
and returned to England.[9] Just before leaving Aquitaine, he married the Infanta 
Constance of Castile on September 1371 at Roquefort, near Bordeaux, Guyenne. The 
following year he took part with his father, Edward III, in an abortive attempt to invade 
France with a large army, which was frustrated by three months of unfavourable winds.

Probably John's most notable feat of arms occurred in August–December 1373, when 
he attempted to relieve Aquitaine by the landward route, leading an army of some 
9,000 mounted men from Calais on a great chevauchée from north-eastern to south-
western France on a 900 kilometre raid. This four-month ride through enemy territory, 
evading French armies on the way, was a bold stroke that impressed contemporaries 
but achieved virtually nothing. Beset on all sides by French ambushes and plagued by 
disease and starvation, John of Gaunt and his raiders battled their way through 
Champagne, east of Paris, into Burgundy, across the Massif Central, and finally down 
into Dordogne. Unable to attack any strongly fortified forts and cities, the raiders 
plundered the countryside, which weakened the French infrastructure, but the military 
value of the damage was only temporary. Marching in winter across the Limousin 
plateau, with stragglers being picked off by the French, huge numbers of the army, 
and even larger numbers of horses, died of cold, disease or starvation. The army 
reached English-occupied Bordeaux on 24 December 1373, severely weakened in 
numbers with the loss of least one-third of their force in action and another third to 
disease. Upon arrival in Bordeaux, many more succumbed to the bubonic plague that 
was raging in the city. Sick, demoralised and mutinous, the army was in no shape to 
defend Aquitaine, and soldiers began to desert. John had no funds with which to pay 
them, and despite his entreaties, none were sent from England, so in April 1374, he 
abandoned the enterprise and sailed for home.[10]

John's final campaign in France took place in 1378. He planned a 'great expedition' of 
mounted men in a large armada of ships to land at Brest and take control of Brittany. 
Not enough ships could be found to transport the horses, and the expedition was 
tasked with the more limited objective of capturing St. Malo. The English destroyed 
the shipping in St. Malo harbour and began to assault the town by land on 14 August, 
but John was soon hampered by the size of his army, which was unable to forage 
because French armies under Olivier de Clisson and Bertrand du Guesclin occupied 
the surrounding countryside, harrying the edges of his force. In September, the siege 
was simply abandoned and the army returned ingloriously to England. John of Gaunt 
received most of the blame for the debâcle.[11]

Partly as a result of these failures, and those of other English commanders at this 
period, John was one of the first important figures in England to conclude that the war 
with France was unwinnable because of France's greater resources of wealth and 
manpower. He began to advocate peace negotiations; indeed, as early as 1373, 
during his great raid through France, he made contact with Guillaume Roger, brother 
and political adviser of Pope Gregory XI, to let the pope know he would be interested 
in a diplomatic conference under papal auspices. This approach led indirectly to the 
Anglo-French Congress of Bruges in 1374–77, which resulted in the short-lived Truce 
of Bruges between the two sides.[12] John was himself a delegate to the various 
conferences that eventually resulted in the Truce of Leulinghem in 1389. The fact that 
he became identified with the attempts to make peace added to his unpopularity at a 
period when the majority of Englishmen believed victory would be in their grasp if only 
the French could be defeated decisively as they had been in the 1350s. Another 
motive was John's conviction that it was only by making peace with France would it 
be possible to release sufficient manpower to enforce his claim to the throne of 
Castile.

Head of government[edit]

On his return from France in 1374, John took a more decisive and persistent role in 
the direction of English foreign policy. From then until 1377, he was effectively the 
head of the English government due to the illness of his father and elder brother, who 
were unable to exercise authority. His vast estates made him the richest man in 
England, and his great wealth, ostentatious display of it, autocratic manner and 
attitudes, enormous London mansion (the Savoy Palace on the Strand) and 
association with the failed peace process at Bruges combined to make him the most 
visible target of social resentments. His time at the head of government was marked 
by the so-called Good Parliament of 1376 and the Bad Parliament of 1377. The first, 
called to grant massive war taxation to the Crown, turned into a parliamentary 
revolution, with the Commons (supported to some extent by the Lords) venting their 
grievances at decades of crippling taxation, misgovernment, and suspected endemic 
corruption among the ruling classes. John was left isolated (even the Black Prince 
supported the need for reform) and the Commons refused to grant money for the war 
unless most of the great officers of state were dismissed and the king's mistress Alice 
Perrers, another focus of popular resentment, was barred from any further association 
with him. But even after the government acceded to virtually all their demands, the 
Commons then refused to authorise any funds for the war, losing the sympathy of the 
Lords as a result.

The death of the Black Prince on 8 June 1376 and the onset of Edward III's last 
illness at the closing of Parliament on 10 July left John with all the reins of power. He 
immediately had the ailing king grant pardons to all the officials impeached by the 
Parliament; Alice Perrers too was reinstated at the heart of the king's household. John 
impeached William of Wykeham and other leaders of the reform movement, and 
secured their conviction on old or trumped-up charges. The parliament of 1377 was 
John's counter-coup: crucially, the Lords no longer supported the Commons and John 
was able to have most of the acts of 1376 annulled. He also succeeded in forcing the 
Commons to agree to the imposition of the first Poll Tax in English history — a viciously 
regressive measure that bore hardest on the poorest members of society.[13] There 
was organised opposition to his measures and rioting in London; John of Gaunt's arms 
were reversed or defaced wherever they were displayed, and protestors pasted up 
lampoons on his supposedly dubious birth. At one point he was forced to take refuge 
across the Thames, while his Savoy Palace only just escaped looting.[14] It was 
rumoured (and believed by many people in England and France) that he intended to 
seize the throne for himself and supplant the rightful heir, his nephew Richard, the son 
of the Black Prince, but there seems to have been no truth in this and on the death of 
Edward III and the accession of the child Richard II, John sought no position of 
regency for himself and withdrew to his estates.[15]

John's personal unpopularity persisted, however, and the failure of his expedition to 
Saint-Malo in 1378 did nothing for his reputation. By this time, too, some of his 
possessions were taken from him by the Crown. For example, his ship, the 
Dieulagarde, was seized and bundled with other royal ships to be sold (to pay off the 
debts of Sir Robert de Crull, who during the latter part of King Edward III's reign had 
been the Clerk of the King's Ships, and had advanced monies to pay for the king's 
ships .[16] During the Peasants' Revolt of 1381, John of Gaunt was far from the 
centre of events, on the March of Scotland, but he was among those named by the 
rebels as a traitor to be beheaded as soon as he could be found. The Savoy Palace 
was systematically destroyed by the mob and burned to the ground. Nominally friendly 
lords and even his own fortresses closed their gates to him, and John was forced to 
flee into Scotland with a handful of retainers and throw himself on the charity of King 
Robert II of Scotland until the crisis was over.[17]

***

Marriages[edit]
 
On 19 May 1359 at Reading Abbey, John married his third cousin, Blanche of 
Lancaster, daughter of Henry of Grosmont, 1st Duke of Lancaster. The wealth she 
brought to the marriage was the foundation of John's fortune. Blanche died on 12 
September 1368 at Tutbury Castle, while her husband was overseas. Their son Henry 
Bolingbroke became Henry IV of England, after the duchy of Lancaster was taken by 
Richard II upon John's death while Henry was in exile. Their daughter Philippa 
became Queen of Portugal by marrying King John I of Portugal in 1387. All subsequent 
kings of Portugal were thus descended from John of Gaunt.
In 1371, John married Infanta Constance of Castile, daughter of King Peter of Castile, 
thus giving him a claim to the Crown of Castile, which he would pursue. Though John 
was never able to make good his claim, his daughter by Constance, Catherine of 
Lancaster, became Queen of Castile by marrying Henry III of Castile. Catherine of 
Aragon is descended from this line. Constance died in 1394.

During his marriage to Constance, John of Gaunt fathered four children by a mistress, 
the widow Katherine Swynford (whose sister Philippa de Roet was married to 
Chaucer). Prior to her widowhood, Katherine had borne at least two, possibly three, 
children to Lancastrian knight Sir Hugh Swynford. The known names of these children 
are Blanche and Thomas. (There may have been a second Swynford daughter.) John 
of Gaunt was Blanche Swynford's godfather.[25]
John married Katherine in 1396, and their children, the Beauforts, were legitimised by 
King Richard II and the Church, but barred from inheriting the throne. From the eldest 
son, John, descended a granddaughter, Margaret Beaufort, whose son, later King 
Henry VII of England, would nevertheless claim the throne.

Queen Elizabeth II and her predecessors since Henry IV are descended from John of 
Gaunt. Edward IV, Edward V and Richard III were the grandchildren (or, in Edward V's 
case, great-grandson) of John's daughter with Katherine Swynford Joan Beaufort.

Children[edit]

By Blanche of Lancaster: Philippa (1360–1415) married King John I of Portugal (1357–
1433).
John (1362–1365) was the first-born son of John and Blanche of Lancaster and lived 
possibly at least until after the birth of his brother Edward of Lancaster in 1365 and 
died before his second brother another short lived boy called John in 1366.[26] He 
was buried in the Collegiate Church of the Annunciation of Our Lady of The Newarke, 
Leicester (the church founded by his grandfather Henry, Duke of Lancaster[27]) .
Elizabeth (1364–1426), married (1) in 1380 John Hastings, 3rd Earl of Pembroke 
(1372–1389), annulled 1383; married (2) in 1386 John Holland, 1st Duke of Exeter 
(1350–1400); (3) Sir John Cornwall, 1st Baron Fanhope and Milbroke (d. 1443)
Edward (1365) died within a year of his birth and was buried in the Collegiate Church 
of the Annunciation of Our Lady of The Newarke, Leicester.
John (1366–1367) most likely died after the birth of his younger brother Henry, the 
future Henry IV of England; he was buried in the Collegiate Church of the 
Annunciation of Our Lady of The Newarke, Leicester.
Henry IV of England (1367–1413) married (1) Mary de Bohun (1369–1394); (2) Joanna 
of Navarre (1368–1437)
Isabel (1368–1368)[28][29]

By Constance of Castile: Catherine (1372–1418), married King Henry III of Castile 
(1379–1406)
John (1374–1375)[29][30]

By Katherine Swynford (née de Roet/Roelt), mistress and later wife (children 
legitimised 1397): John Beaufort, 1st Earl of Somerset (1373–1410)—married Margaret 
Holland.
Henry Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester and Cardinal (1375–1447)
Thomas Beaufort, Duke of Exeter (1377–1427), married Margaret Neville, daughter of 
Sir Thomas de Neville and Joan Furnivall.
Joan Beaufort (1379–1440)—married first Robert Ferrers, 5th Baron Boteler of Wem and 
second Ralph Neville, 1st Earl of Westmoreland.

By Marie de St. Hilaire of Hainaut, mistress: Blanche (1359–1388/89), illegitimate, 
married Sir Thomas Morieux (1355–1387) in 1381, without issue. Blanche was the 
daughter of John's mistress, Marie de St. Hilaire of Hainaut (1340-after 1399), who 
was a lady-in-waiting to his mother, Queen Philippa. The affair apparently took place 
before John's first marriage to Blanche of Lancaster. John's daughter, Blanche, 
married Sir Thomas Morieux in 1381. Morieux held several important posts, including 
Constable of the Tower the year he was married, and Master of Horse to King Richard 
II two years later. He died in 1387 after six years of marriage.

Burial[edit]

John of Gaunt was buried beside his first wife, Blanche of Lancaster, between the 
choir stalls of St Paul's Cathedral. Their magnificent tomb had been designed and 
executed between 1374 and 1380 by Henry Yevele with the assistance of Thomas 
Wrek, at a total cost of £592. The two alabaster effigies were notable for having their 
right hands joined. An adjacent chantry chapel was added between 1399 and 1403.
[31] The grave and monument were destroyed with the cathedral in the Great Fire of 
London in 1666. A modern monument in the crypt lists John of Gaunt's grave as among 
the important ones lost.

Titles and arms[edit]

Titles[edit]
Earl of Richmond: granted as an infant in September 1342, surrendered to the crown 
in June 1372.
Earl of Leicester, Earl of Lancaster, Earl of Derby: inherited jure uxoris in November 
1362 following the death of his wife's father Henry of Grosmont.
Duke of Lancaster: granted as a new creation in November 1362 following the death 
of the prior Duke, Henry of Grosmont.
King of Galicia, King of Castile, King of León: claimed in January 1372 by his second 
marriage to the heiress to these thrones, unrecognised except for a brief period when 
he was able to capture Galicia from 1386 to 1387; claim surrendered 1388.
Duke of Aquitaine: granted in January 1390 by his nephew, Richard II of England, 
who himself had inherited it from his father Edward the Black Prince.

Arms[edit]

As a son of the sovereign, John bore the royal arms of the kingdom (Quarterly, France 
Ancient and England), differenced by a label argent of three points ermine.[32]

As claimant to the throne of Castile and León from 1372, he impaled the arms of that 
kingdom (Gules, a castle or, quartering Argent, a lion rampant purpure) with his own. 
The arms of Castile and León appeared on the dexter side of the shield (the left hand 
side as viewed), and the differenced English royal arms on the sinister; but in 1388, 
when he surrendered his claim, he reversed this marshalling, placing his own arms on 
the dexter, and those of Castile and León on the sinister.[33] He thus continued to 
signal his alliance with the Castilian royal house, while abandoning any claim to the 
throne. There is, however, evidence that he may occasionally have used this second 
marshalling at earlier dates.[34]

In addition to his royal arms, Gaunt bore an alternative coat of Sable, three ostrich 
feathers ermine. This was the counterpart to his brother, the Black Prince's, "shield 
for peace" (on which the ostrich feathers were white), and may have been used in 
jousting. The ostrich feather arms appeared in stained glass above Gaunt's chantry 
chapel in St Paul's Cathedral.[35]

In popular culture[edit]

John of Gaunt is a character in William Shakespeare's play Richard II. Shortly before 
he dies, he makes a speech that includes the lines "This royal throne of kings, this 
scepter'd isle, This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars ... This blessed plot, this earth, 
this realm, this England". He is also referred to by Falstaff in Henry IV Part I.

Lancaster city council has an administrative ward that bears the name and the city 
also has a public house called the John O'Gaunt.

Remnants of a building in King's Somborne, Hampshire, are sometimes referred to as 
"King John's Palace".[36]

Hungerford in Berkshire has ancient links to the Duchy, the manor becoming part of 
John of Gaunt's estate in 1362 before James I passed ownership to two local men in 
1612 (which subsequently became Town & Manor of Hungerford Charity). The links are 
visible today in the Town & Manor-owned John O'Gaunt Inn on Bridge Street,[37] the 
John O'Gaunt School on Priory Road,[38] as well as various street names. It is 
customary for the Loyal Toast to be given by residents as "The Queen, the Duke of 
Lancaster".

The John of Gaunt School on Wingfield Road in Trowbridge, Wiltshire,[39] is built 
upon land that he once owned.

John held large tracts of land in Lincolnshire and the City of Lincoln. At the 
appropriately named site of Gaunt Street, he maintained a palace, remains of which 
were found in the late 1960s. A finial window, complete, was found between two walls 
in the then "West's Garage". This was moved and now adorns the entrance through 
the east bail of Lincoln Castle.

Opposite the Palace site stands St Mary's Guildhall, locally known as John O'Gaunt's 
stables. This large medieval building once formed the entrance to the John O'Gaunts 
football ground, home to Lincoln City until they moved to their present Sincil Bank 
ground.

The remnants of the castle at Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, once owned by 
John, sit on John o' Gaunt's Street.

The John of Gaunt Stakes is a British race for Thoroughbred horses run annually in 
June.

Fakenham in Norfolk has the full name of Fakenham Lancaster as a tribute to him as 
Duke of Lancaster.

Anya Seton's best-selling 1954 novel Katherine depicts John's long-term affair with 
and eventual marriage to Katherine Swynford.

John of Gaunt is a major character in Garry O'Connor's Chaucer's Triumph: Including 
the Case of Cecilia Chaumpaigne, the Seduction of Katherine Swynford, the Murder of 
Her Husband, the Interment of John of Gaunt and Other Offices of the Flesh in the 
Year 1399 (2007).

John O'Gaunt is a piece of music written for brass band by Gilbert Vinter in 1965. It 
documents John O'Gaunt's life in a musical tone poem.

The romance novel Almost Innocent by Jane Feather tells the story of a possibly 
fictitious illegitimate daughter of John of Gaunt, and contains much history and vivid 
description of John and of royal life.

A suit of armour alleged to have been John of Gaunt's is on display in the Tower of 
London, and is of exceptional size (6'9"), but its ownership is now disputed. The 
armour is believed by experts to have been made c.1540 in Germany, and did not 
enter the Tower's collection until the early 17th century. By 1660 it was described in 
an inventory as "‘a large white armour cap-a-pe, said to be John of Gaunt’s", and this 
erroneous description has remained with the armour.[40]

Parents
____ Edward III (13 Nov 1312 - 21 Jun 1377)
OF HAINAULT Philippa (24 Jun 1311 - 15 Aug 1369)

Siblings
PLANTAGENET Lionel of Antwerp (29 Nov 1338 - 17 Oct 1368)
OF GAUNT John (Mar 1340 - 3 Feb 1399)
____ Edmund "of Langley" (5 Jun 1341 - 1 Aug 1402)

Marriage To DE ROET Katherine (25 Nov 1350 - 10 May 1403)
    m. 13 Jan 1396 Lincoln Cathedral, Lincoln, England

Notes
longtime mistress, married after child born

Parents
DE ROET Payn (ABT 1310 - 1380)
----- ----- ()

Children by DE ROET Katherine 25 Nov 1350 - 10 May 1403
DE BEAUFORT Joan (ABT 1372 - 13 Nov 1440)

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