Queen: Catherine of Lancaster, Queen of Castile, 1373-1418

Royal and noble women in Medieval times had more to do than have babies and preside over courts.  They also had to have keen survival skills to protect themselves and their offspring, and to take charge of their husband's or son's domains when the occasion demanded.  Catherine of Lancaster, 1373-1418, the daughter of John of Gaunt by his second wife, Constance of Castile was more than a match for whatever life threw her way.

Catherine was born at Hertford Castle, one of her father's many splendid residences throughout England.  Her mother, Constance, was a Castilian princess, the daughter of King Peter of Castile.  Pedro has come down in history as either the Cruel or the Just, depending on who tells the story.  A brilliant man with more than a touch of crazy, it didn't help to get on Peter's bad side.  He was eventually assassinated by Constance's half-brother Henry II, and a war for the Crown of Castile ensued, John of Gaunt even claiming the title for himself at one point.  In 1385, King John I of Portugal defeated King John I of Castile, the successor of Henry II.  This victory encouraged John of Gaunt and Constance to press her claim to the Castilian throne.  Another of their daughters, Philippa, would marry John 1 of Portugal and then Portugal and England would join in alliance against Castile.  Catherine accompanied her parents on the campaign to Castile.

Years before Napoleon, John of Gaunt learned how hard it was to rule in Spain.  He conquered Santiago de Compostela, Vigo and Pontevedre, then turned to the neighboring Kingdom of Leon.  At that point, he and Constance decided that it would be better to keep her birthright safe through the marriage of her daughter, Catherine, to the heir of John I of Spain.  Then, Constance herself would renounce her rights to the Castilian throne to Catherine.  A treaty drawn up in Bayonne, Gascony sealed this deal, bringing an end to Spanish intervention in the Hundred Years War.  At the age of about 15, Catherine agreed that she entered into the treaty and marriage voluntarily and was given a dower of several Castilian cities.  She and Henry married in Palencia Cathedral.  Henry succeeded his father as Henry III in 1390 and was declared of age in 1393.  Catherine and Henry had 2 surviving daughters and a son, John II of Castile. 

In 1406, Henry III died, leaving his year-old son John II as his heir.  Henry's will specified that Catherine would share regency with the King of Aragon (another Ferdinand) and give custody of her son to two high-ranking nobles.  Catherine drew the line at this.  Plantagenet mothers of lions raise their own cubs and Catherine barricaded herself in the Alcazar of Segovia, prepared to withstand a siege before she would give up her baby to anybody.  The regency council relented and allowed Catherine to keep physical custody of the young King.  There were constant tension between Catherine and the King of Aragon.  With her sister Philippa in Portugal and her family's backing in England, she was able to maintain her hold on the regency.  The King of Aragon died in 1416 and what should have been Catherine's chance at a bid for power came to naught in tragedy.  She suffered a stroke and was forced to relinquish custody of her son and allow the regency council to do most of the ruling.  She died in Valladolid in 1418 of another stroke.  She was buried in the Chapel Royal in Toledo, Spain.

Her son, John II, would go on to have a daughter, Isabella I, whose own daughter, Catherine, would return to England first as Princess of Wales and King of England, coming down in history as the tragic but determined Katherine of Aragon, first wife of Henry VIII.

Descendants: the Wives of Henry VIII

Just as many Scots claim and can sometimes prove, a descent from Robert the Bruce, many people in England or former English-owned countries can also trace their descent from the various Kings of England between 1154-1485.  That's because most of these kings had several children who did manage to survive childhood, grow up and have children of their own, who married into the great families of the realm.  Plantagenet descendants spread throughout Europe, and down the social scale.  One of the odd results of this phenomenon was that all of King Henry VIII's famed 6 wives, including two foreign princesses and four women often described as commoners had royal blood and were in fact distantly related to him.

Katherine of Aragon.  The English and Castilian royal families formed several alliances over the years the Plantagenets ruled England.  Long before Henry VIII's Mary Rose, English kings were interested in shipping and sea power and contracted alliance with like-minded countries, which Castile was.  Eleanor of Castile was the first wife of Edward I.  John of Gaunt married as his second wife a Castilian princess, Constance.  In return, the English sent Eleanor of England, daughter of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine and Catherine of Lancaster, daughter of John of Gaunt and his wife Constance.  The result of the Lancastrian connection was that Catherine of Aragon, who was named for her great-grandmother, was twice descended of John of Gaunt. 

Anne Boleyn.  One of the slights thrown at Anne was her family's obscure and common birth.  While she may not have been royalty like Catherine of Aragon, Anne had no less than 5 ties to Edward I.  Her father's mother had Anglo-Irish connections to the Butler Earls of Ormond, an earldom Thomas Boleyn tried unsuccessfully, even during his daughter's reign, to clinch as his own.  The Butlers of Ormond descended twice over from one of Edward's daughter, Elizabeth of Rhuddlan.  Anne also had another important English family, the Montacute Earls of Salisbury, who descended from another of Edward's daughters, Joan of Acre.  The Howard family gave Anne two more points of Plantagenet connection, to Elizabeth of Rhuddlan, again and Thomas of Brotherton, an early holder of the Duchy of Norfolk. 

Jane Seymour.  The Seymours were an old Wiltshire family but it was Lady Margaret, wife of Sir John Seymour, who brought the royal genes to her daughter Jane and grandson Edward VI.  She carried descent from the Cliffords, who also descended from Edward I's daughter Joan of Acre.  There was also a Percy connection which led to Lionel of Antwerp, son of Edward III and brother of John of Gaunt.

Anne of Cleves.  How did a German princess from the middle of nowhere wind up with Plantagenet heritage?  Edward I and Eleanor of Castile had a daughter Margaret, who became Duchess Consort of Brabant, now part of Belgium.  Her great-granddaughter Margaret de Dampierre, Countess of Flanders, was the great granddaughter of both of Anne's parents, John III of Cleves and Marie von Julich, both from very old German princely families.

Katherine Howard carried the same ancestry on her father's side as did Anne Boleyn, which meant that she could hark back to Elizabeth of Rhuddlan and Thomas of Brotherton, Duke of Norfolk.  But her mother, Joyce or Jocasta Culpepper also had a drop of lion's blood.  Again, Princess Joan of Acre via the de Clare family.

Katherine Parr.  This lady had so much Plantagenet blood it's a wonder she didn't end up in the Tower with Margaret of Salisbury.  She had a descent from John of Gaunt and his third wife Katherine Swynford via the Neville family, a grandmother was a sister of Warwick the Kingmaker himself.  Katherine's Paternal grandmother was a Montacute, leading back to Joan of Acre and Edmund of Woodstock, a son of Edward I by his second wife Marguerite of France.  A maternal grandmother had descent once from Elizabeth of Rhuddlan and twice from Joan of Acre.

Royal: Anne of York, Duchess of Exeter, 1439-1476

Little would Richard III have guessed that, more than 500 years after his death, he would have his big sister to thank for rescuing him from oblivion and giving him the King's burial that he deserved.  Anne of York, Duchess of Exeter, 1439-1476 was the eldest of the many children born to Richard, 3rd Duke of York and his formidable wife, Cecily Neville.  Richard, born in 1452, was the baby of the family.  Their siblings including two kings, Edward IV and Richard III, a duke, George of Clarence, an earl, Edmund of Rutland, who died in battle while still a teenager, Margaret, Duchess Consort of Burgundy, and another Elizabeth of York, aunt of the famous Queen of that name.

Anne was born at Fotheringhay Castle, now famous as the site of the execution of a Plantagenet descendant, Mary of Scotland.  The castle no longer exists today.  At around 8 years old, Anne was married to Henry Holland, 3rd Duke of Exeter.  The marriage lasted long enough for Anne to grow into the duties of a wife and bear her husband at least one daughter, also named Anne.  Then, Exeter did the unthinkable and sided with the Lancastrians against his wife's own Yorkist family.  No Plantagenet ever put up with disloyalty.  After Edward IV was acclaimed King in 1461, he attainted Exeter or confiscated his estates, and gave them to Anne, with remainder to their daughter.  Exeter remained steadfast in his loyalty to Henry VI and the Lancastrian cause.  He and Anne separated in 1472.  Meanwhile, she had drama with other men in her life.  Her brother George had also jumped the family ship, throwing in his lot with Henry VI in 1471.  Anne went directly to Clarence and persuaded him to return to family loyalty.  Her intervention tipped the balance against Henry's forces and allowed Edward to reclaim his throne.

Anne married again in 1474 to Thomas St. Leger.  He remained loyal to Edward but, after Richard took the throne in 1483, participated in a rebellion led by the Duke of Buckingham.  St. Leger was captured and executed, but Anne was confirmed in possession of her late first husband Exeter's property.  She died in 1476 while giving birth to another little girl, also called Anne.  Little Anne would grow up and marry into the Manners family and it was her line of descent that confirmed that a skeleton in a parking lot at Leicester was indeed long lost Uncle Richard III.

The Mortimer Connection

Among the Queen's Beasts, meant to display the various noble families and royal dynasties from whom the modern monarchy descends, is a White Lion, the heraldic badge of the Mortimer family.  Sometimes, though not always, the lion holds on its chest a sun in splendor emblem, which was used by several generations of Yorkist kings, including both Edward IV and Richard III.  So how did this powerful family of Marcher lords become so deeply entwined with the Plantagenets that they're still remembered today?


Roger Mortimer, 1287-1330, 1st Earl of March, came from a family with connections along the Welsh Marches, or the borderland between Wales and England.  They owned a great deal of land and several castles and were instrumental in keeping the lawless border badlands in check.  Roger married Joan, 2nd Baroness Geneville, a wealthy heiress, and the two had many children.  The Mortimers rose in rebellion against King Edward II and Roger found himself in exile in France.  Queen Isabella, Edward's wife, also traveled to France, seeking a respite from her marriage and perhaps funding or backing from her family for a revolt that would put her young son on the throne.  She and Roger became lovers and co-conspirators.  After their successful invasion of England and deposition of Edward II, Edward III created his mother's lover 1st Earl of March.  Unfortunately, Mortimer didn't last long in his new role.  His behavior towards other nobles and members of the royal family soon backfired and he was accused of treason, tried and hanged at Tyburn.  All his titles were forfeit.

Roger's son Edmund, 1303-1331, set about trying to recoup the family fortune.  Despite his loyalty to the Crown, he wasn't permitted to resume his father's title of Earl of March.  That fell to his son Roger, 1328-1360, who distinguished himself during the early phases of the Hundred Years War.  He married Philippa de Montagu, daughter of the Earl of Salisbury and his wife Katherine Grandison, a reputed mistress of Edward III.  Their son Edmund, 1352-1381, became 3rd Earl of March.  Edmund married Philippa of Clarence, a Plantagenet and daughter of Lionel of Antwerp, a son of Edward III..  Their son Roger, 1374-1398, had a daughter Anne, who married yet another Plantagenet, Richard of Cambridge.

Richard was executed for plotting rebellion against King Henry V and his titles were forfeit.  His son, Richard, 1411-1460, became 3rd Duke of York and married wealthy heiress Cecily Neville.  Among their children were two Plantagenet Kings, Edward IV and Richard III.   Incidentally, before he became King Edward IV, Edward bore the title of 7th Earl of March, inherited from his Mortimer forbears.  Edward's daughter, Elizabeth of York married Henry VII Tudor, carrying her Mortimer and Plantagenet blood to her children.  Thus, though he probably wouldn't have guessed it while on the gallows at Tyburn, old Roger Mortimer is a descendant of every King or Queen of England from Edward IV on to the present day.

Chancellor: William de Longchamp, Bishop of Ely, d 1197

Bishops and other ranking clergymen were often appointed to positions of government during the Medieval era, but the practice was not without controversy.  Members of the royal family and leading barons often believed that they had the right to positions of importance.  Further, churchmen in high offices were not only cloaked with royal authority, but also the authority of the church and never let anyone forget that fact.  It was common knowledge that some of these men had bought their way to power or used family connections to get where they were, adding to the resentment.  William de Longchamps, Chancellor and Justiciar under Richard I would experience all of the above.

William's family originated near Argenten in Normandy.  His father was a wealthy knight who owned land in both Normandy and England, as was common at the time.  William's mother was a member of the de Lacy family, which further aided her son's climb up the social ladder.  William was initially in service to Geoffrey, later Duke of York and biological son of Henry II before coming into the service of Henry II in his chancery office.  The chancery was in charge of copying and disseminating official documents and decrees.  Eventually, William transferred into the service of Henry II's son Richard, who was Duke of Aquitaine.  Richard named William Chancellor of Aquitaine.  In 1189, as Henry was dying with his surviving sons in revolt once more, William served as Richard's representative, negotiating with William Marshal who was acting on behalf of Henry.  By this time, William was one of Richard's closest advisors.

Richard became King of England in 1189 and William was able to by the office of Chancellor for 3,000 pounds.  The chancery charged a fee for the use of the Great Seal on public documents, which enabled William to recoup the money and accumulate his own nest egg.  Richard also made William Bishop of Ely.  Bishoprics often came with their own reward of manor lands, which provided further lucrative income.  In 1189, as Richard left for the Third Crusade, he named both William de Longchamp and Hugh de Puiset, Bishop of Durham jointly as Chief Justiciars of the kingdom.  This move alienated many barons and it definitely upset John, Richard's brother, who felt he had the right to be regent of the kingdom while Richard was away.  William did his best to enforce the laws, sending justices on regular rounds throughout the kingdom, but he and Hugh were unable to work together.  Richard made Hugh of Durham responsible for dispensing justice north of the River Humber and William oversaw matters to the south of the river.  William was eventually able to elbow Hugh out of power altogether and received powers as Papal Legate, or official papal representative in England.  Richard most likely paid Pope Clement III for the legateship on behalf of William, further raising hackles at home.

William made himself at home in his new authority.  He gave the City of London the right to elect their own sheriffs, and remit their yearly levies directly to the Exchequer.  He held Legatine counsels at Leicester and Westminster, and restored order in York, which had seen continued unrest due to the massacre of the Jewish population in 1190.  When William traveled, he did so with a large entourage of clerics and servants.  He also began the practice of the royal we in England.  Monarchs often used the third person, as did Popes and ranking clergy.  As the Pope's representative, William felt he had a right to use the we, but he was only inflaming jealousy with John and other barons.  It didn't help that William was perceived as a foreigner who was ignorant and unaccepting of English customs.  William was aware of John's resentment and began replacing the custodians of castles with people loyal to him.  Friction flared into open rebellion, as some of John's retainers refused to surrender their holdings.  Richard had to send the Archbishop of Rouen to negotiate a peace between John and William, who agreed to acclaim John as Richard's successor in the event of Richard's death.

Matters came to a head when William sent men to arrest Geoffrey, Richard's half-brother, who had been appointed Archbishop of York.  The forcible arrest of Geoffrey was too close to home for people who remembered Thomas Becket's martyrdom and turned public opinion against William de Longchamps.  Fed up, several other English prelates convened a trial on London Bridge on October 5, 1191, and ordered William to appear.  He refused and holed up in the Tower of London.  He was deposed as justiciar and excommunicated.  Longchamps fled London and tried to seek escape in Dover, but couldn't speak English so was unable to engage a ship to take him to the Continent.  He finally left on October 29, 1191.  William fled to the court of the Holy Roman Emperor, Henry VI, the overlord of Leopold of Austria, who was holding Richard captive in Durnstein Castle.  William put his negotiating skills to work and brokered a deal to release Richard with a hefty ransom. 

When Richard returned to England in 1195, he rewarded William de Longchamps with the Sheriffdoms of Essex and Hertfordshire, but William was soon back at odds with Geoffrey of York and followed Richard to the Continent.  Richard used William on a series of diplomatic missions, but Geoffrey was becoming the senior diplomat and Hubert Walter was Chancellor.  William trailed Richard around Europe until his own death in 1197 at Poitier.   He was not missed by anyone except maybe for Richard.  Chroniclers and colleagues were acid in their critique.  He was described as a monster and a person with little virtue and a quest for fame.  Later historians have found the critique unfair, praising William as a capable administrator whose career was dominated by his ultimate failure.  In his spare time, William drew up a treatise on the laws of the Angevin portion of the Plantagenet empire that may have had some basis for Magna Carta.

The Duchy lf Lancaster

As if being King or Queen of a country isn't enough, many monarchs have lesser titles that only appear in a full list of their official designation.  Thus, Elizabeth the II, by the Grace of God Queen of England, Scotland and Northern Ireland...and of all her other realms and territories queen, is also Duke of Lancaster.  Not Duchess.  Duke.  The Queen holds the estates pertaining to the Duchy of Lancaster as separate from the Crown Estates and they provide a substantial portion of her income.

So, how did this happen?  During the Anarchy, 1135-1154, the Norman family which held what would become Lancaster Castle and its attendant properties was loyal to King Stephen and remained so even after it was decided that Matilda's son Henry would succeed Stephen as king.  Soon after he began ruling as King, Henry II confiscated Lancaster Castle and its vast estates as royal property.  Rather than slighting the castle by destroying it, he remodeled it and later gave his younger son John the rights to the property to keep John pacified.  Richard also confirmed the rights to the property to John, but he wasn't named Duke of Lancaster.  The Duchy remained part of the crown estates in general and several Plantagenet princes were named Earl of Lancaster.  However, in 1351, Edward III made the last Plantagenet Earl of Lancaster, Henry of Grossmont, Duke of Lancaster, granting him also the estates of the Duchy.  Henry also received several other lesser titles.

Henry died and his only heir was a daughter, Blanche of Lancaster, the first wife of John of Gaunt.  John was Edward III's son and so the old man stepped in again in 1362 and created his son Duke of Lancaster.  It's from John of Gaunt's tenure as Duke of Lancaster that the designation for the red rose faction of the Wars of the Roses, the Lancastrians, takes its name.  John's son, Henry of Bolingbroke, inherited the title but didn't use it.  He had a grander title as Henry IV, King of England.  Once again the Lancastrian estates had merged with the crown.  Henry recreated the dukedom a third time in 1399 for his son and heir, the future Henry V, who was Prince of Wales and Duke of Lancaster until he succeeded to the throne.  Then, Henry did something different with the inheritance to the Duchy of Lancaster.  He recreated it as the Honor of Lancaster and designated it as a property held by the sovereign as Duke of Lancaster in addition to the rest of the crown estates.  Why he did this isn't clear, but it did allow for the incomes of the Duchy to be at the sovereign's personal disposal, rather than voted through Parliament or raised through extra taxation. 

Thus, every monarch of England since Henry V has been, in addition to King or Queen of England, Ireland, etc., also Duke of Lancaster.  The use of the male title Duke indicates that the sovereign holds the title in his or her own right, not married to or as heir of a previous duke.  In Lancashire, the Queen is more commonly referred to as the Duke of Lancaster.  The appropriate toast at parties is, the Queen, the Duke of Lancaster.  Lancaster Castle functions today as a crown court, having been closed as a prison.  The incomes from its vast estate provide much of the monarch's personal wealth and disposable income.

What is: An Adulterine Castle

Castle in Medieval times were thought of in the feminine gender.  A castle that had never been taken by siege was a maiden castle.  Castles taken by siege could be taken or ravaged, words that strongly suggested physical assault (rape).  Likewise, a castle could be an adulteress, though not quite in the Biblical sense. 

Perhaps this vivid imagery in relation to castles illustrates their importance in Medieval life.  A castle was not only an important defense asset, it was also a status symbol.  To have a castle marked a wealthy baron or nobleman as on a par with the king, and able to hold his own if the king was displeased with him.  During periods of unrest, castle building was apt to increase.  Castles which were built without royal permission were said to be adulterine, just as an adulterous woman or her child might be labeled.  In other words, they were built without official royal permission and off the record, just as an adulterous affair was one unsanctioned by the Church even if the couple felt they had gone through some type of wedding ceremony.  Adultery was dangerous, because it threatened the succession of royal and noble houses.  Unauthorized castle construction was dangerous, as it allowed an over-mighty subject to defy his king.

During the period of unrest known as the Anarchy, 1135-1153, the forces of Empress Matilda and King Stephen battled for the English throne and numerous nobles built castles.  When Henry II finally emerged from the chaos as King of England, he had a stern rebuke for all those unauthorized castles.  They were demolished, torn down or damaged, in a word slighted or humiliated, just as an adulterous woman might be.  Slighting a castle meant to demolish it or damage it so that it could no longer be used for defense.  Some of the castles from the Anarchy period are so badly slighted that only the mottes or hills on which they were built are visible today.  Slighting castles was a visible means of a monarch asserted their power and other castles were slighted following various rebellions in the Plantagenet era, such as the Barons' Wars.  During the English Civil War, Royalist and Roundhead forces often slighted castles to prevent the other side from using them.