Katherine Swynford

Katherine Swynford was the daughter of a Hainaut knight and became a member of the household of John of Gaunt. Widowed from Sir Hugh Swynford, she entered a long relationship with Gaunt and bore four Beaufort children.

After the death of Gaunt’s second wife, the couple married in 1396, and their children were legitimised. Through the Beaufort line Katherine became an ancestor of the Tudor dynasty and many later European rulers. Katherine Swynford was born in County of Hainaut and died in Lincoln.

Anya Seton’s Katherine makes Katherine Swynford’s relationship with John of Gaunt the centre of a life shaped by widowhood, court service, the Beaufort children and eventual marriage. Anne O’Brien’s The Scandalous Duchess retells that liaison with greater emphasis on reputation, dynastic obligation and the hostility Katherine faced as the duke’s mistress. Alison Weir’s Katherine Swynford reconstructs the historical life from fragmentary records and explains the political importance of the legitimised Beaufort line. Nathen Amin’s The House of Beaufort follows those descendants from their controversial origins to the Tudor claim to the crown. Philip Gooden’s Chaucer and the Doctor of Physic uses danger to Katherine and John of Gaunt at the Savoy as a parallel political thread to Chaucer’s murder investigation in Dartmouth.