The Scandalous Duchess

QUESTIONS FOR YOUR READING GROUP

1. What do you think of Katherine Swynford? What appeals to you about her and what doesn’t?

2. John of Lancaster was a very complex character, both hated and admired by his contemporaries. Why do you think he attracted such widely differing attitudes?

3. John and Katherine were guilty of the sin of adultery in an affair that lasted for twenty-five years and was widely condemned. How do we view this, from a far less religious age?

4. Katherine was on record as a woman of great piety. How was she able to set aside her strong beliefs and engage in a relationship that must destroy all her respectability and undermine the tenets of morality in which she was raised?

5. Constanza of Castile was the third person in this uncomfortable ménage à trois. Do you react to her with sympathy or censure?

6. Katherine reacted with fury to the quitclaim. Is this a typical reaction of a woman scorned?

7. Can you forgive the Duke for rejecting Katherine so publicly?

8. Katherine was forced to decide whether she could absolve the Duke from past infidelities. What, in her shoes, would you have decided?

9. Katherine must have been a remarkably strong-willed woman. Where do we see the best examples of this?

10. The relationship between Katherine and John is often regarded as a great love affair. What do you think? Was it as simple as that? What was it that kept them together for twenty-five years, against all the odds, until John married her?

11. How difficult would it have been for Katherine to leave her Beaufort children to follow the Duke? Could you have made that choice?

12. Katherine was attracted to the Duke from the very beginning. What lessons was she forced to learn in the years as John’s mistress and later his wife? How did her love for him develop?

13. As Duchess of Lancaster, Katherine still yearned for recognition in her own right. Can you understand this? Would it be unusual for a woman of the fourteenth century?