Leicester > Ratae Corieltauvorum Leicestershire United Kingdom

We know more about the Duke of Lancaster's character than of most of his contemporaries through his memoirs, the Livre de seyntz medicines (Book of the Holy Doctors).

This book is a highly personal treatise on matters of religion and piety, but it also contains details of historical interest.

It, among other things, reveals that Lancaster, at the age of forty-four when he writes the book in 1354, suffers from gout.

The book is primarily a devotional work though; it is organized around seven wounds which Henry claims to have, representing the seven sins.

Lancaster confesses to his sins, explains various real and mythical medical remedies in terms of their theological symbolism, and exhorts the reader to greater morality.

Lancaster, after returning to England in November 1360, falls ill early the next year, and on March 23 dies at Leicester Castle.

It is likely that the cause of death is the plague, which this year is making a second visitation of England.

Lancaster was married in 1330 to Isabella, daughter of Henry, Lord Beaumont.

The two had no sons, but two daughters: Maud and Blanche.

While Maud is married to William I, Duke of Bavaria, Blanche had married Edward III's son John of Gaunt.

Gaunt ends up inheriting Lancaster's possessions and ducal title, but it will not be until 1377, when the dying King Edward III is largely incapacitated, that he is able to restore the palatinate rights for the county of Lancaster.

When Gaunt's son Henry of Bolingbroke usurps the crown in 1399 and becomes Henry IV, the vast Lancaster inheritance, including the Lordship of Bowland, will be merged with the crown as the Duchy of Lancaster.

John of Gaunt, King Edward III’s fourth son and Duke of Lancaster, in 1396 marries his longtime mistress Katherine Swynford (who is also the sister of Geoffrey Chaucer’s wife, Philippa de Roet).

The crown, in the person of Gaunt’s nephew Richard II, legitimizes his children by her (as the Beauforts) but bars them from succession to the throne.

In this year also, John’s daughter Joan weds Ralph de Neville, who in 1388 had become the fifth Baron Neville de Raby.

Wolsey had been stripped of his government office and property in 1529, including his magnificently expanded residence of Hampton Court, which Henry has taken to replace the Palace of Westminster as his own main London residence.

However, Wolsey had been permitted to remain Archbishop of York.

He had traveled to Yorkshire for the first time in his career, but at Cawood in North Yorkshire, he was accused of treason and ordered to London by Henry Percy, 6th Earl of Northumberland.

In great distress, he sets out for the capital with his personal chaplain, Edmund Bonner.

He falls ill on the journey, and dies, around the age of fifty-seven, on November 29, 1530 at Leicester.

Just before his death he reputedly spoke these words,

I see the matter against me how it is framed.

But if I had served God as diligently as I have done the King, he would not have given me over in my gray hairs.