The Scandalous Duchess

AND AFTER THE FINAL WORD IN THE SCANDALOUS DUCHESS…

John was buried next to Blanche, as he requested.

The magnificent tomb in Old Saint Paul’s of John and Blanche, Duke and Duchess of Lancaster, was completely destroyed in the Fire of London. We have no trace of it, except for an eighteenth-century etching of what it must have looked like.

Choosing not to live in one of her dower properties, Katherine retired to Lincoln, where she must have been happy, and once again rented a house, now known as the Priory, in the cathedral close. There she lived a quiet life, far from the court and major events in England. She had no connection with the uprising in 1399 that removed Richard from the throne and crowned her stepson Henry as King Henry IV. She probably saw little of her own children, who were fully engaged in their own lives. What did she think about during these quiet years after the Duke’s death?

Katherine died in Lincoln on 10th May, 1403.

She was buried in a tomb of Purbeck marble in the Angel Choir of Lincoln Cathedral.

It is on record that Katherine left a will, but no trace of it remains.

It is Katherine and John’s Beaufort children who make such a mark on English history, carrying as they did the important line of Plantagenet blood.

John Beaufort, Marquis of Somerset: his grand-daughter was Margaret Beaufort, who married Edmund Tudor. Their son was of course Henry Tudor, later Henry VII.

John’s daughter Joan married James I of Scotland, who was the first of the Stuart kings of Scotland.

Henry Beaufort: he had no descendants but was Bishop of Winchester, one of the most astute and gifted politicians of the fifteenth century.

Joan Beaufort: she had a large family with her second husband, Ralph Neville, Earl of Westmoreland. Her children came to be related to almost every noble family in the realm. Perhaps the most important for posterity was her daughter Cecily Neville, who married Richard of York and became mother of Edward IV and Richard III.

Thomas Beaufort, Duke of Exeter was the only one to leave no lasting legacy, his only son dying at a young age.

For devotees of Katherine Swynford who might like to make a permanent connection with her:

Why not become a member of the Katherine Swynford Society?

www.katherineswynfordsociety.org.uk

There is also an interesting website you may like to visit about Kettlethorpe in Lincolnshire.

www.kettlethorpe.com/katherine.html