Customer Reviews

Katherine Swynford

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(13)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Billed as a look the the life and times of Katherine Swynford, first mistress and later wife to John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster and third son of Edward III, this carefully-crafted history necessarily emphasizes Katherine's "times" rather than her life, very little trace of which remains today.

It is a tribute to Weir's historical research skills and writing ability that only rarely does this prevent the reader from savoring the story of Katherine, her extended family and the dramatic times in which she lived. It's a glimpse inside the final decades of the 14th century, a time in which feudal society was changing in response to the devastation of the Great Plague of 1348. Katherine inhabited that world, and her rise to prominence was part of the social upheaval against which the privileged and the conservatives reacted vehemently. (John of Gaunt's siblings and the Benedictine monks who chronicled the era were just some of those who reacted with incomprehension and fury to John's 1396 decision to wed his erstwhile mistress and make her the de facto first lady of England.)

Many of the female readers of this book will pick it up because, like Seton and myself, they discovered Anya Seton's famous historical novel about Katherine Swynford, nee Katherine de Roet. This could have been a feeble attempt to capitalize on that novel's enduring popularity, but instead stands on its own as a strong work of history. Indeed, I found it to be as lively a work of history as Seton's novel is a work of historical fiction, and far from spoiling my pleasure in the novel, Weir's careful winnowing out the likely truth of Katherine's youth and marriage added to my enjoyment of both books. I had long been curious about the 'real Katherine', who became the ancestress of so many English monarchs (as well as a slew of American immigrants -- if you can trace your roots back to New England in the 1600s, there's a decent chance Katherine will pop up in your family tree).

Some readers may find frustrating the frequent use of "may have", "could have" or "it seems likely that..." in this biography. Their use is necessary, because of the relative dearth of solid information about Katherine. But I found as much pleasure as frustration in this, as I followed Weir's historical detection and watched her pull together what strands remained of Katherine's life in an effort to present a coherent picture. For instance, Weir addresses what Katherine may have looked like with reference to the tomb sculptures and portraits of her children, noting which features in those resembled John's and deducing what they may have inherited from Katherine. Similarly, she assembles what little evidence of Katherine's role within the Lancaster household may have been, and uses her knowledge of the society of the time and the other personalities involved to reach a "possible" or "probable" conclusion. She never tries to make sweeping claims or assertions based on this kind of flimsy evidence, but instead gives the reader what evidence exists and allows us to see into her reasoning. That helps make this a richer reading experience than many historical biographies that are able to draw on a far wider array of source material.

Ultimately, the book is a biography not only of Katherine the person, but a biography of her place, her times and the characters that peopled her world, from her brother-in-law Geoffrey Chaucer, to the the clergy of Lincoln Cathedral (she lived in a house in its precincts for a long time), the landed gentry of the 14th century and what it meant to be a knight's daughter.

Strongly recommended to anyone interested in the era as well as the subject. To anyone who has read Barbara Tuchman's magisterial work, A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century, this would be an interesting (albeit much slighter) additional book to read. And anyone who hasn't read Tuchman's view of the world Katherine inhabited should do so immediately!

Like Alison Weir, I was first introduced to the story of Katherine Swynford through Anya Seton's romanticized 1954 novel, Katherine. Weir's biography is a pretty comprehensive look at this enigmatic, lesser-known medieval woman.

I have a love-hate relationship with Weir's books: I loved The Six Wives of Henry VIII; liked Mary, Queen of Scots and the Murder of Lord Darnley, and Eleanor of Aquitaine; but detested Queen Isabella and Innocent Traitor (Weir doesn't do fiction all that well). I put Mistress of the Monarchy in the "like for the most part" category.

Katherine Swynford was born Katherine de Roet in 1350, one of the daughters of Sir Paon de Roet. She then married Hugh Swynford, and spent time in the Lancastrian household as the governess to John of Gaunt's children. Katherine's affair with him probably began around the year 1372, and, after producing a number of illegitimate children, married John in 1396. Katherine is the ancestor of most of the royal houses of Europe, plus at least five American presidents. History has seen Katherine as bit of a homewrecker, but in this book, Weir attempts (and mostly succeeds) in portraying her in a more sympathetic light.

This biography of Katherine Swynford is, as with all of Weir's books, meticulously researched. It's less overtly feminist and partisan than some of her other biographies. Pay attention to the subtitle of this biography: the book is more about John of Gaunt than it is about Katherine (in fact, we don't even get a physical description of Katherine until after one is given of John). We also get very detailed biographies of everyone who was related or connected to her, especially Geoffrey Chaucer, her brother-in-law. After finishing this book, I still didn't have a concrete impression of what Katherine was really like. And, because so little is actually known about Katherine's life, Weir makes an awful lot of assumptions here about what her subject "might," "perhaps," or "probably" have done/ thought/ felt.

However, Weir does a wonderful job bringing the details of the period to life. It's an accessible, readable work of history that doesn't get bogged down in pretentious language. For someone who doesn't know medieval Latin or Norman French, Weir does an incredible job of interpreting her sources. And the style of this book is far more lively and engaging than other books written on the Lancasters that I've read. I look forward to reading what comes next from Weir (according to her website, the next book is about Anne Boleyn, though she may be re-treading familiar water with that one).

Alison Weir's new biography of Katherine Swynford (1350-1403) is compelling and almost novelistic in detail, fleshed out with information about the people around Katherine, including the English royals and Geoffrey Chaucer (her brother-in-law).

Weir paints a nicely detailed picture of the late fourteenth century (including feudalism, the plague, the Church, capitalism, national and international politics, and social mores)--and an impressionistic portrait of Katherine and even her character emerges. (This is a pleasant contrast to Jeannette Lucraft's continual complaints about the paucity of information about Katherine and her character in another recent, but much less enjoyable, book on Katherine.) Weir weaves in details of the royals' financial records to good effect, for instance, drawing out patterns associated to the births of Katherine's illegitimate children. Weir also speculates candidly and sometimes persuasively on details that can't be ascertained from the sources.

Katherine was born into the knightly family of Roet in Hainault (a historical county in what is now Belgium and France). The Roets probably had connections to the ruling family of Hainault, and Katherine traveled to England as a young girl in the train of Philippa, daughter of the Count of Hainault and future queen of Edward III. Thus Katherine had the best upbringing possible in the 14th century--one in the royal court--and that she was able to rise to such an important position from relatively humble birth.

In her late teens, Katherine also married a knight in the royal circle, Hugh Swynford, who had a little property and by whom she had three or four children. Around this time Katherine became attached to the household of Blanche, heiress to the Lancastrian duchy and cousin to the King. In 1359, Blanche married John of Gaunt (1340-1399), the third son of Edward III and Philippa. Much like the marriage of the King and Queen, theirs was a love match as well as a dynastic one--Blanche had seven children, including the future Henry IV. The material aspect of their marriage was soon fulfilled when Blanche's father and sister died and John inherited the Lancastrian lands in his wife's right; soon after, the king created him Duke of Lancaster in 1362.

Unfortunately for John, Blanche died shortly after giving birth in 1369. Hugh Swynford died several years later, leaving Katherine a widow just when John of Gaunt was arranging his political marriage to Constance of Castile, who had a claim to that throne through her father. This marriage was not a happy one--Katherine became the governess of the Duke's children and his mistress within months of his wedding. (This was after Swynford's death, Weir persuasively argues.)

During the Peasants' Revolt of 1381, John's London palace was destroyed, and understanding this as God's judgement on his immoral private life, he pubicly renounced Katherine. Arguing against the Lucraft's claim that the affair resumed quietly when the furor died down, Weir makes a convincing argument that John and Katherine resisted temptation and did not become lovers again until their marriage more than a decade later. She cites in particular the fact that Katherine had no more children by John--she'd borne four Beauforts in the nine years of their affair, and she was still young enough to bear more.

After Constance's death, John obtained a papal dispensation, married Katherine in 1396 (the obstacle was that he had stood godfather to one of her Swynford sons), and legitimated their Beaufort children. Her marriage to the most powerful man in England put Katherine in a very select society--only a few other mistresses who married their royal lovers spring to mind: Anne Boleyn, Madame de Maintenon (Louis XIV's second wife), and the current Duchess of Cornwall. Richard II had always liked Katherine, and the nobility gradually accepted her.

After John of Gaunt's death in 1399, Katherine retired to the country, probably due to ill health (maybe the venereal disease that probably killed the Duke), and kept out of the political turmoil that followed. Her children were quite involved, but on the side of Henry IV (at least privately). She died in 1403, the mother of rich and powerful children (one was almost elected Pope) who would have illustrious descendants of their own. Her granddaughter Joan Beaufort married James I of Scotland; another granddaughter, Cecily Neville, married Richard, Duke of York, and was the mother of two kings; her great-great-grandson Henry Tudor ended the Wars of the Roses in 1485 and founded the Tudor Dynasty. Several American presidents are descended from Katherine.

Two things mar this otherwise enjoyable book: an annoying occurence of wrongly placed hyphens (perhaps from a previous typesetting), and overly precise modern equivalents of ancient monetary amounts (e.g., on page 41, she has 4000 pounds back then being equivalent to 1,075,396 pounds now--surely the uncertainty of the conversion factor is large enough that saying "about 1 million pounds" would be better).

Notwithstanding those small criticisms, Weir should be applauded for elucidating the life of an unfamiliar but important figure in English history. I would recommend this book to fans of Weir's books and Anya Seton's Katherine--and to anyone interested in medieval society.

I admire Alison Wier's writings enormously - she has a gift for telling a biography like a great novel and at the same time her research skills are immaculate. This book is a remarkable achievement, detailing as best as can be done, the amazing life of Katherine Swynford, the beautiful and charming woman who won the heart of John of Gaunt and in doing so became the ancestress of the royal family that we have known for over 500 years.

If I have a small problem with this book, and the reason that I have given it 4 stars instead of 5, is that, fascinating though the subject herself may be, there is actually very little source material remaining that makes even so much as a reference to her, so what we have is a book about the times that Katherine lived in, and the famous people in her life. Much of what we read of Katherine is pure speculation, pieced together from the little that has remianed. Clearly she was a remarkable woman to have kept the affections of a powerful and high profile man who thumbed his nose at convention and married her later in life, but so little is known about the woman herself. Perhaps the book should have had some sort of long title that encompassed royalty, scandal and newly legitimised children.

If we are to consider a more fictional approach to her life, Anya Seyton wrote the justly famous romantic novel "Katherine" in the 50s, based on many of the same source documents that Alison Wier has referenced, and Alison offers this novel due acknowledgement. Of course this earlier book makes no claim at being a scholarly work, but in many ways it fleshes out the woman that was Katherine Synford in a way that Alsion Wier, for all her skill in attempting to paint a picture of the "real" woman misses.

This is a great book - it is detailed, meticulously referenced and written as is Ms Wier's forte, but at the end I really didn't feel that I knew a lot about Katherine, and this isn't something that I say when I finish an Alison Wier book. It is an entertaining read, but I think I wanted just a little more.

Untimately this is a book for those who have read and loved Seyton's "Katherine", and want to know just what was really behind that wonderful story.

Katherine Swynford (c1350 to 1403) was first mistress and then third wife to John of Gaunt (1340-1399). John of Gaunt was the third son of Edward III and the father of Henry IV (with his first wife Blanche of Lancaster)

John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, had four children with Katherine. These children, legitimised after their parents married, feature in the ancestry of the houses of York, Tudor and Stuart. Unfortunately, there seems to be little documentary material about the life of Katherine Swynford herself which makes the task of any biographer difficult. What Ms Weir does is present a story of likely possibility, based on research with some speculation. In part it works well: the options presented are consistent with the known facts but ultimately, for me at least, it is not completely satisfying. Katherine herself remains an enigma.

Still, my interest in Katherine is secondary to my interest in John of Gaunt. This book provides me some additional insights into the life and times of John of Gaunt which I can now explore. There is also a wealth of information here about the historical period and I'd recommend this book for that detail alone.

Those looking for the `real' Katherine may find some interesting material here, others may not. Those looking for some introduction to the main characters and events in this period of history will find this book a worthwhile starting point.


Jennifer Cameron-Smith

In 1376, a powerful noblewoman named Katherine Swynford was publicly criticized for not doing her part to clear a section of the silted-up Fossdyke Canal that ran through her property in Lincoln. The 12-mile canal had been built by the Romans in 120 A.D., but the poor and unimaginative English of the dark ages and medieval times had let it slide into disrepair. In 1384, John of Gaunt (who had been Katherine's illicit lover and would later marry her), headed a commission that also directed Katherine to do her part in fixing the canal. Nothing happened. In 1518, another commission made the same demands of property owners alone the canal. Finally, in 1670, Parliament decreed repairs must take place, and it allocated funds for the job.

This minor anecdote illustrated for me the life-and-times of Katherine Swynford and other nobles that are covered in "Mistress of the Monarchy." On the one hand, there are letters that testify to sophisticated efforts to facilitate commerce, and the political negotiations that took place among the rich and powerful. On the other hand, nothing happened for 300 years! Yet, England was stable enough that three centuries later, the needs of commerce still justified the repairs. It's hard to imagine anything that exists today being commercially relevant (not an historical artifact) in 300 years.

I love that anecdote. Unfortunately, too little of "Mistress" is as memorable. The book is a good attempt at uncovering the life of Katherine Swynford and the times in which she lived. But the actual historical record is so paltry, and some of the sources are so biased, that author and historian Alison Weir has little material with which to work. The historical record is little besides laundry lists of payments to her, gifts she gave and received, and homes she rented. The author is left to making guesses and surmises, and then repeating the same information to pad the text.

The padding and repetition are excessive. At least 37 times, I counted a reference to Katherine as "good with children," reflecting on her work as an attendant to various nobles and their children. Similarly, I read over and over again about how a gift was an indication of the high regard with which Katherine was held by John of Gaunt or someone else. I got the point -- the nobility gave gifts to each other, and those gifts had monetary and symbolic value. These repetitions made the book rather dull reading at times.

The book also suffers in that the author is trying to please two audiences: truly knowledgeable people and people with superficial knowledge of the history of England and France in 1350-1400 (me). There were times when the dynastic histories, for example, were merely lists to me. I have no idea whom those people were, nor why they were important. Just as critically, the book uses numerous religious and historical terms that were not familiar to me. A glossary of 30-40 terms would have been immensely helpful. Could I have picked up those words on the Internet? Sure. But I was reading the book during my daily train commute, so I didn't have online access.

Given those objections, I'm satisfied that I read the book. Its evocation of a crucial period in English (and French) history is interesting. The book's descriptions of major historical figures rings true, and the author is scrupulous about indicating when she has good information, and when she either has no information or is working with sources of questionable accuracy and objectivity. Weir does a good job of giving a sense of the wealth of the highest circles of the court in those days, as well as where glimpses of that period can be seen in contemporary England (and, alas, they are few). And it explains why the public love that Katherine and John of Gaunt shared was so remarkable for its time, and how that strong bond forged the Lancastrian and Tudor empires.

One final note. I'm stunned by the amount of traveling that John of Gaunt did during his lifetime. According to this book, it seemed that every two weeks, he was on the move from one of his castles to another, or going to and from attendance in court. He sailed to France seemingly a dozen times, and he journeyed repeatedly to Scotland for battle or negotiations. I doubt that a US president is busier today than John of Gaunt was. Obviously, John's journeys were orders of magnitude more difficult than what political leaders face today. So this book did something that I always value when I engage a new topic: It spurred me to look more deeply, as I will soon look for a strong biography of John of Gaunt.

I have read most of Alison Weir's books, and I am always impressed with her research and logical conclusions drawn from diverse pieces of evidence. This one on Katherine Swynford though is particularly sparse on fact and not as gratifying, lots of supposition. But I love Weir's descriptions of the food, mores, decor, clothes, etc. of the time. Also several mistakes in the text and in particular the geneology tables, I had to do a lot of marking up to get the text and trees to match, hmph, Weir deserves a better editing job!

I've been waiting for a new biography from Weir for a long time, and in an interview a while ago she had said it would be on John of Gaunt. I couldn't have been more excited. So to my surprise I found that she had changed the idea of a bio on John of Gaunt to one of his mistress and eventual wife, Katherine. Of course in doing so Weir would invariably have to write abbreviated bios of all the important men in her life, John of Gaunt included.

As with other medieval women their lives are not that easy to uncover. Most often the only way to flesh the real lives of medieval women is to analyze the registries and accounts of significant others, of churches and other organizations. Weir applied this same method with her bio on Eleanor of Aquitaine and Isabella, so I knew what to expect. The view of Katherine is rather flighty and inconsequential for the most part. We are told a lot about the manors she held, the gifts given and received, where she was and where she went according to references from other chroniclers.

We also find a very well rounded picture of Katherine with safe assumptions and assertions that seem accurate and telling. Her love for John of Gaunt, her relations with her Swynford and Chaucer relatives and, just as important, her Beaufort descendents. When it all comes down to it I think I enjoyed the abbreviated bios of John of Gaunt, Richard II and her Beaufort descendents more than the main bio of Katherine, and in many ways we read more about them than we do of her.

All in all I enjoyed Weir's bio of Katherine de Swynford, especially since I knew that we would be treated to the people that surround her just as much. An enjoyable read and a recommend.

4 stars.

I love Alison Weir, and have been enjoying her books for 15 years. This biography of Katherine Swynford didn't rate as highly for me as her other books. I suspect it's because there is so little information about her, but I struggled through some of this, which really surprised me. I didn't count, but it seems like nearly every page has some information about a payment made from someone to someone else, with the values in today's money in parentheses, and it really did my head in. I was a history major, not a math major! I'm sure these are the most available records, but man, seeing payments with parenthetical references and then the conclusions that could be reasonably deduced by what that payment meant, all the time, was just difficult to fight through. And then there's the fact that everybody has the same name. Seriously. It seems like any woman is named either Isabella, Philappa, or Katherine. And the men are all named Henry, John, Richard or Thomas. And then with the fact that once they become an earl or duke of something, they are referred to as that, so you'd see stuff like "Warwick, previously the earl of Leicester" or something, and combined with the fact that everybody has the same first name, it was tough to keep up with.

So I guess her other books focus more on the stories because there is more research that's been done already and there's more to work with and get more stories from. Still, I enjoyed this book - she was a fascinating and inspirational woman, and definitely a worthy subject. Just be prepared to refer to the family trees in the back a lot!

This was a historical biography which I was eager to read as I became fascinated with the life of Katherine Swynford and her connection to the Plantagenet royals. I was first introduced to her through the Anya Seton novel, "Katherine". Ms. Weir, however, spent an enormous amount of time throughout the book instead on the life of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, and I in fact began to wonder, several chapters into the book, if I had been misled as to the subject matter of this book. Further, she employed unsubstantiated speculation on peoples' lives and motives without preserved documentation. To her credit, she did mention numerous times that an event or a person's actions "could have happened" even though there was nothing archived to make her theories valid. The entire book was convoluted with events out of sequence, hopping back and forth and in between so often that it became difficult to even keep track of what she was trying to convey.
At the beginning of this book, she writes that it was through the reading of the Anya Seton novel that she became interested in Katherine Swynford. At the end she lists books, documents and locations for her research. Then she launched into a character assassination of Ms. Seton, her life, her nom de plume and discredit of her novel....which one must remember IS a novel, NOT a biography, and was meant mainly for entertainment. The whole length of this section (and it was prodigious) reeked of jealousy and self-important superiority. In summation, I discovered it was a waste of time and money invested in this book and I was glad it was finished.