Read Mistress of the Monarchy Online
Authors: Alison Weir
Tags: #Biography, #Historical, #Europe, #Social Science, #General, #Great Britain, #To 1500, #Biography & Autobiography, #History, #Women's Studies, #Nobility, #Women
I
n March 1378, putting aside ‘all shame of man and fear of God’, John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, the mightiest subject in the realm of England, was to be seen riding around his estates in Leicestershire ‘with his unspeakable concubine, a certain Katherine Swynford’. Not only was the Duke brazenly parading his beautiful mistress for everyone to see, but he was ‘holding her bridle in public’, a gesture that proclaimed to all his possession of her, for it implied that the rider thus led was a captive, in this case one who had surrendered her body, if not her heart. And as if this were not shocking enough, the fact that the Duke was flaunting his mistress ‘in the presence of his own wife’ created a scandal that would soon spread throughout the length and breadth of the kingdom and beyond. Even today, echoes of that furore still reverberate in the pages of history books.
John of Gaunt’s conduct in that long-distant spring led disapproving contemporaries to conclude that he had ‘made himself abominable in the eyes of God’, and that Katherine Swynford was ‘a witch and a whore’. Thus was born the legend of the ‘famous adulteress’, who occupies a unique place in English history. There can be no doubt that in her own lifetime, she was the subject of great scandal and notoriety, for she was closely linked to John of Gaunt for a quarter of a century before they married, and she had already known him for many years before he wed the desirable young wife who was so openly insulted on that tour of Leicestershire in 1378. Years later, after John’s wife had died and he married Katherine, controversy and criticism surrounded their union, for she was far below him in status, morally unacceptable and considered highly unsuitable in many respects. But she confounded her critics and gradually came to be tolerated and even respected.
Indeed, all the evidence suggests that Katherine Swynford was no lightly principled whore, which is what hostile chroniclers would have us believe;
on the contrary, she was one of the most important female figures of the late fourteenth century, and more likely to have been a woman deserving of our admiration and esteem. Her partner in adultery — later her husband — was the son of King Edward III of England, and one of the epoch’s most famous and celebrated paragons. From her is descended every English monarch since 1461, and no fewer than five American presidents.
The truth about Katherine Swynford has been obscured by people down the centuries accepting at face value the calumnies that were written about her by a few disapproving contemporaries; and, too, by nearly every aspect of her story being shrouded in mystery, exaggerated by debate or simply obliterated by time. Nearly everything about her is controversial. When and where was she born? What did she look like? How many children did she bear? When did she become John of Gaunt’s mistress? What influence did she have? And what was the nature of their relationship over the years? Above all, did she really deserve all the moral opprobrium heaped upon her after her lover paraded her in public on that fateful spring day?
We will never know the whole truth about Katherine and John, for only echoes of their voices and their deeds have come down to us, but one thing is certain, and it shines forth from nearly every source: these two were lovers, and their love endured through prosperity and adversity, war and endless separations, time and distance. Love and destiny brought them together, sealing their fate and changing the course of English history itself. So this is, essentially, a love story.
K
atherine Swynford, that ‘famous adulteress’,
1
was set on the path to notoriety, fame and a great love at the tender age of two or thereabouts, when she was placed in the household of Philippa of Hainault, wife to Edward III of England. This would have been around 1352, and Katherine’s disposition with the popular and maternal Philippa was almost certainly due to her father, Sir Paon de Roët, having rendered years of faithful service to the Queen and the royal family of Hainault.
Like her benefactress, Katherine was a Hainaulter. She was born Katherine de Roët, her surname being variously given as Rouet, Roëlt or Ruet, and pronounced ‘Roay’. The Roëts were a prominent family in Hainault, then an independent principality located in the western reaches of the Holy Roman Empire, bordering on the kingdom of France and occupying much of what is now Belgium. This fertile and prosperous county stretched from Liège and Brussels in the north to Lille and Valenciennes in the south, and contained other thriving cloth cities: Mons, Charleroi and Tournai; all provided a market for England’s raw wool, her chief export. Formed at the time of the division of Charlemagne’s empire in the ninth century, Hainault had been an imperial fief since 1071, and in the early fourteenth century it was ruled by the House of Avesnes, which had come to power in 1244.
Katherine possibly had noble or even royal connections through her mother, but claims that she was closely related through her father to the aristocratic lords of Roeulx cannot be substantiated. The Roeulx were a great and powerful Hainaulter family that could trace its descent from the ancient counts of Flanders and Hainault, who were themselves descended from the Emperor Charlemagne, and from England’s famous King Alfred. William the Conqueror had married a princess of that House, Matilda of Flanders, and by her was the founder of the ruling dynasties of England,
the Norman and Plantagenet kings. Since the twelfth century, the lords of Roeulx had prospered mightily.
2
Their landholdings centred mainly on the town of Le Roeulx, which lies eight miles north-east of Mons, but their name is also associated with Roux, forty miles east of Mons, and Fauroeulx, twenty miles to the south.
That Katherine shared a close kinship with the lords of Roeulx is doubtful on heraldic evidence alone — or the lack of it.
3
Her family was relatively humble. The chronicler Jean Froissart, a native of Hainault, who appears to have been quite well informed on Katherine Swynford’s background, states that Jean de Roët, who died in 1305 and was the son of one Huon de Roët, was her grandfather. Neither bore a title. Yet it is possible that there was some blood tie with the Roeulx. Paon de Roët, the father of Katherine Swynford, whose name appears in English sources as Payn or Payne,
4
and is pronounced ‘Pan’, was almost certainly baptised Gilles, a name borne by several members of the senior line of the Roeulx, which is one reason why some historians have linked him to this branch of the family.
5
Of course, the similarity in surnames suggests a connection (in that period, the spellings of Roeulx and Roët could be, and were, interchangeable), as does the fact that both families are known to have had connections with the area around Mons and Le Roeulx. But discrepancies in arms would appear to indicate that Paon was at best a member of a junior branch of the House of Roeulx; all the same, it is possible that the royal blood of Charlemagne and Alfred the Great did indeed run in Katherine’s veins.
The arms of the town of Le Roeulx were a silver lion on a green field holding a wheel in its paw;
6
this is a play on words, for ‘wheel’ in French is
roue
, which is similar to, and symbolic of, Roeulx. It was a theme adopted by Paon’s own family: his arms were three plain silver wheels on a field of red; they were not the spiked gold Katherine wheels later used by his daughter.
7
On the evidence of heraldic emblems on the vestments given by her to Lincoln Cathedral, Katherine Swynford used not only her familiar device of Katherine wheels, which she adopted after 1396, but also her father’s device of three plain silver wheels.
8
If Jean de Roët was his father, as seems likely, then Gilles alias Paon was born by 1305–6 at the very latest. Thus he did not marry and father children until comparatively late in life. The references in the
Cartulaire des Comtes de Hainaut
to ‘Gilles de Roët called Paon or Paonnet’ imply that the name Paon was almost certainly a nickname, although it was the name by which Gilles became customarily known, and it even appeared on his tomb memorial. In French,
paon
means ‘peacock’, which suggests that Paon was a vain man who liked dressing in brightly coloured, fashionable clothes, possibly in order to impress the ladies. However, in the
form
pion
, it means ‘usher’,
9
a term that may be descriptive of Paon’s duties at court.
10
John of Gaunt’s epitaph states that Katherine came from ‘a knightly family’, and Paon’s knighthood is attested to by several sources,
11
although we do not know when he received the accolade. In 1349, he is even referred to as a lord, and his daughter Elizabeth as ‘noble’,
12
which reflects his landed status and probably his links to aristocratic blood. This is also evident in his ability to place his children with royalty,
13
which suggests — in the case of his daughters at least — that there was the prospect of some inheritance that would ensure they made good marriages.
14
We know Paon held land in Hainault, because in 1411, his grandson, Sir Thomas Swynford, Katherine’s son, was to pursue his claim to lands he had inherited there from his mother.
15
Paon is unlikely, however, to have owned a large estate and was probably not a wealthy man
16
since he was to rely heavily on royal patronage to provide for his children’s future.
Paon had first come to England in December 1327 in the train of Philippa of Hainault, who married the young King Edward III on 24 January 1328 in York Minster. Paon perhaps served as Philippa’s usher, and may have been present in that capacity at the royal wedding, which took place in the as yet unroofed minster in the midst of a snowstorm.
After Philippa’s nuptial celebrations had ended, nearly all her Hainaulter servants were sent home. Apart from a handful of ladies, only Paon de Roët and Walter de Mauney, her carving squire, are known to have been allowed to remain in her retinue,
17
a mark of signal royal favour, which suggests that Paon was highly regarded by both the young King and Queen, and was perhaps a kinsman of Philippa, possibly through their shared ancestry.
That kinship may also have been established, or reinforced, through marriage. No one has as yet successfully identified Katherine’s mother, for the name of Paon’s wife is not recorded in contemporary documents. The slender evidence we have suggests he perhaps married more than once, that his first marriage took place before
c
.1335, and that his four known children, who were born over a period of about fifteen years or more, may have been two sets of half-siblings; in which case, Katherine was the child of a second wife, whom he possibly married in the mid—late 1340s. We know he maintained links with Hainault, probably through the good offices of Queen Philippa and other members of her House, so it may be that at least one of his wives was a Hainaulter.
18
It is also possible that Katherine’s mother herself was related to the ruling family of Hainault,
19
and while this theory cannot be proved, it is credible in many respects. If Paon was linked by marriage, as well as by blood, to Queen Philippa, that would further explain his continuing links
with the House of Avesnes and the trust in which he and his family were held by the ruling families of England and Hainault. It would explain too why all his children received royal patronage and why Queen Philippa took such an interest in them; and it was possibly one reason why John of Gaunt may have felt it was appropriate to ultimately marry one of them.
But there is unlikely to have been a close blood tie.
20
If Paon’s wife was related to the House of Avesnes, it must have been through a junior branch or connection. Had the kinship been closer, we would expect Paon to have enjoyed more prominence in the courts of England and Hainault. There have, of course, been other unsubstantiated theories as to who Katherine’s mother could have been,
21
but this is the most convincing.
Whether Paon was related by marriage to Queen Philippa or not, he was evidently held in high regard by her, and he played his part in the early conflicts of the Hundred Years War, which broke out in 1340 after Edward III claimed the throne of France. For a time, Paon served Queen Philippa as Master of the House,
22
and in 1332, there is a record of her giving money to ‘Panetto de Roët de Hanonia’;
23
this is the earliest surviving reference to him. His lost epitaph in Old St Paul’s Cathedral describes him as Guienne King of Arms
24
and it may have been through Philippa’s influence that he was appointed to this office in
c
.1334,
25
Guienne being part of the Duchy of Aquitaine and a fief of the English Crown.
By the mid-1340s, Paon was back in Queen Philippa’s service as ‘one of the chevaliers of the noble and good Queen’.
26
In 1346, he fought at Crécy under Edward III. That same year, ‘Sir Panetto de Roët’ was present at the siege of Calais, and in August 1347, he was Marshal of the Queen’s Household, and one of two of her knights — the other was Sir Walter de Mauney — who were assigned to conduct to her chamber the six burghers who had given themselves up as hostages after Calais fell to Edward III, and whose lives had been spared thanks to the Queen’s intercession.
27
Philippa, however, never courted criticism by indiscriminately promoting her compatriots, and this may explain why Paon, although well thought of and loved by the Queen because he was her countryman,
28
never came to greater prominence at the English court
29
and why he eventually sought preferment elsewhere.
By 1349, the year the Black Death was decimating the population of England and much of Europe, Paon had apparently returned to Hainault. From that year onwards, there are several references to him in the contemporary
Cartulaire des Comtes de Hainaut
, the official record of service of the counts of Hainault.
30
The first reference concerns a ‘noble adolescent,
Elizabeth de Roët, daughter of my lord Gilles, called Paonnet, de Roët’, who, some time after 27 July 1349, was nominated as a prebendary, or honorary canoness (
chanoinness
),
31
of the chapter of the Abbey of St Waudru in Mons by Queen Philippa’s elder sister, Margaret, sovereign Countess of Hainault and Empress of Germany. The choice of a convent in Mons, so close to the former Roeulx estates, reinforces the theory that Paon was connected to that family and that his lands were located in this area.