John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster

John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster, KG (March 6, 1340 – February 3, 1399) is a member of the House of Plantagenet, the third surviving son of King Edward III of England and Philippa of Hainault.

He is called "John of Gaunt" because he was born in Ghent, at this time rendered in English as Gaunt.

When he becomes unpopular later in life, scurrilous rumors and lampoons circulate that he is actually the son of a Ghent butcher, perhaps because Edward III was not present at the birth.

This story always drives him to fury.

As a younger brother of Edward, Prince of Wales (Edward, the Black Prince), John exercises great influence over the English throne during the minority of his nephew, Richard II, and during the ensuing periods of political strife, but is not thought to have been among the opponents of the king.

John makes an abortive attempt to enforce his claim to the Crown of Castile in the name of his second wife, Constance, who is an heir to the Castillian Kingdom, and for a time styles 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, by his first wife, Blanche, his daughters Queen Philippa of Portugal and Elizabeth, Duchess of Exeter; and by his second wife, Constance, his daughter Queen Catherine of Castile.

John fathersfive children outside marriage, one early in life by a lady-in-waiting to his mother, and four surnamed "Beaufort" (after a former French possession of the Duke) by Katherine Swynford, Gaunt's long-term mistress and third wife.

The Beaufort children, three sons and a daughter, are legitimized by royal and papal decrees after John and Katherine marry in 1396; a later proviso that they are specifically barred from inheriting the throne, the phrase excepta regali dignitate (except royal status), is inserted with dubious authority by their half-brother Henry IV.

Descendants of this marriage include Henry Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester and eventually Cardinal; Joan Beaufort, Countess of Westmorland, grandmother of Kings Edward IV and Richard III; John Beaufort, 1st Earl of Somerset, the grandfather of Margaret Beaufort, the mother of King Henry VII; and Joan Beaufort, Queen of Scots, from whom are descended, beginning in 1437, all subsequent sovereigns of Scotland, and successively, from 1603 on, the sovereigns of England, of Great Britain and Ireland, and of the United Kingdom to the present day.

The three succeeding houses of English sovereigns from 1399—the Houses of Lancaster, York and Tudor—are descended from John through Henry Bolingbroke, Joan Beaufort and John Beaufort, respectively.

In addition, John's daughter Catherine of Lancaster is married to King Henry III of Castile, making John the grandfather of King John II of Castile, and thus an ancestor of all further monarchs of the Crown of Castile, later monarchs of united Spain, and through John II of Castille's great-granddaughter Joanna the Mad, an ancestor of the Habsburg dynasty which would rule Spain and much of Central Europe.

Lancaster's eldest son and heir, Henry Bolingbroke, Duke of Hereford, is exiled for ten years by King Richard II in 1398 as resolution to a dispute between Hereford and Thomas de Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk.

When John of Gaunt dies in 1399, his estates and titles are declared forfeit to the crown as King Richard II names Hereford a traitor and changes his sentence to exile for life.

Henry Bolingbroke returns from exile to reclaim his inheritance and depose Richard.

Bolingbroke then reigns as King Henry IV of England (1399–1413), the first of the descendants of John of Gaunt to hold the throne of England.

Due to some generous land grants, John is one of the richest men in his era.

No related events match the current filters.