Not a King, but Close to the Crown
The title of this article needs a correction. John of Gaunt was never king of England. He was a son of Edward III, the uncle of Richard II and the duke of Lancaster, one of the wealthiest and most powerful nobles of his time. He did claim a crown in another country, as king of Castile (in Spain), through his second marriage, though he never ruled there. The royal line known as the Lancastrian dynasty was founded not by Gaunt himself, but by his son Henry Bolingbroke, who took the throne as Henry IV in 1399, a few months after his father’s death.
Early Life and Titles
John was born in 1340 in Ghent, in Flanders, which is the origin of the name Gaunt, an English form of Ghent. He was the third surviving son of Edward III and Philippa of Hainault. As a younger son he had no claim to the throne at first, but his father gave his sons great lordships. In 1359 he married Blanche, heiress to the house of Lancaster, and after her father’s death in 1361 he gained its huge estates. He was made duke of Lancaster in 1362.
Blanche died around 1368, probably of plague, leaving three surviving children, including a son, Henry. Gaunt commemorated her in a splendid tomb at St Paul’s, and the poet Geoffrey Chaucer is thought to have written The Book of the Duchess in her memory, though that dating and purpose are not certain.
Soldier and Statesman
Gaunt served in the French wars during the later years of Edward III. His campaigns were not always successful, such as a large march across France in 1373 that cost many horses and men. As his older brother, the Black Prince, grew ill and his father aged, Gaunt became the leading figure in government. He was wealthy, kept a large household and retinue, and had many followers, which made him both useful and feared.
In the 1370s his political position was unpopular. Critics blamed the court for failures in the war, high taxes and corruption. Gaunt was not directly responsible for many of these, but he was the best-known target. His support for the Oxford theologian John Wycliffe, apparently for political reasons as much as religious ones, added to the opposition from church leaders. The Wycliffe teachings were later condemned.
During Richard II’s Minority
After Edward III died in 1377, Richard II became king at ten. Gaunt was the senior royal uncle, but he did not become regent. The first councils of the reign were deliberately chosen to exclude him, partly because many people feared he wanted the crown. Gaunt always denied it, and there is no solid evidence that he did. He supported the boy king, but he still remained a lightning rod.
In 1381 rebels in the Peasants’ Revolt burned his Savoy palace in London since he was seen as an enemy of the common people. He was in northern England at the time. He survived, and he continued to serve Richard as a military leader and diplomat.
The Castilian Adventure
In 1371 Gaunt married Constance, a daughter of the murdered king Peter of Castile. Through her he claimed the Castilian crown, taking the title King of Castile and León. In 1386 he led an expedition to Spain with English support, joining his ally, the king of Portugal. The campaign failed to unseat the ruling Castilian king, and Gaunt eventually made a settlement: in 1388 he gave up the claim in return for a payment and a marriage between his daughter Catherine and the Castilian heir. One of his daughters, Philippa, married the Portuguese king and became queen of Portugal.
This foreign claim drew English attention away from France, but it also gave his family royal connections in Spain and Portugal.
Later Years and the Beauforts
On his return, Gaunt served as lieutenant of Aquitaine and acted as a peacemaker between Richard and the lords who opposed him. He supported the truce with France, which fit Richard’s policy.
His long relationship with Catherine Swynford, who had been the governess of his daughters, produced four children surnamed Beaufort. After the death of Constance, Gaunt married Catherine in 1396. In 1397 the pope and Richard II legitimized the Beauforts. When Henry IV reissued the royal letter in 1407, a clause was added that excluded them from the succession, and the authority for that insertion was later questioned. That qualification would matter a century later, because the Beauforts stood in the ancestry of Henry VII, whose claim to the throne passed through his mother, Margaret Beaufort, and who became the first Tudor king.
Death and Inheritance
Gaunt died in February 1399. Richard II, who had exiled Gaunt’s son Henry the year before, took the Lancaster lands rather than let them pass to Henry. That decision led directly to Henry’s invasion and to the deposition of Richard. In effect, Gaunt’s wealth and followers gave his son the means to take the crown. Henry’s successors, Henry V and Henry VI, completed the Lancastrian line of kings.
Historians still disagree about Gaunt. Some see a loyal servant of the crown who was wrongly suspected of ambition; others see a magnate whose power distorted royal government. What is clear is that, though he never wore the English crown, his actions and his family shaped the century that followed, including the conflicts later known as the Wars of the Roses.