Katharine Swynford 45 



and the death of Sir Hugh Swynford must have been between 

 September, 1371,* and November 13 of that year. Armitage- 

 Smith adds : 'The petition to the Pope^ . . . mentions the 

 adultery in the life of Duchess Constance, not in that of the 

 Duchess Blanche.' Accordingly, he assigns these conjectural 

 dates® for the birth of the illegitimate children of the pair : John, 

 i373(?); Henry, i375(?); Thomas, i377(?); Joan, I379(?)- 

 These dates, it will be observed, are purely inferential from the 

 assumed date of the first illicit connection of Catherine and the 

 Duke. Other good authorities do not differ widely from this. 

 Sir Harris Nicolas,' arguing from the fact that John, the eldest 

 son, was a knight in 1391, deduces that he 'must have been 

 born at least as early as 1375,' while Lucy Toulmin Smith'^ says 

 that he 'would be about 15^ in 1390, when he joined the Barbary 

 crusade.' 



It is my purpose, in the next few pages, to adduce some reasons 

 for believing that Armitage-Smith's dates are too late to account 

 for certain indisputable facts. 



First, as to John Beaufort. 



(i) In 1390 he was closely associated with seasoned knights, 

 and pitted against some of the boldest and most adventurous 

 spirits in Western Europe, for in the spring of that year he 

 belonged to a group of four knights who jousted on the same 

 day at St. Inglevert," near Calais, one of these being his half- 

 brother, then 24 years old, who nine years later was to become 

 King Henry IV, and who on this occasion gained much distinc- 

 tion for his prowess. ^^ Another of the same group, also 

 prominent in the tilting, was Robert Ferrers, who had borne 



* Armitage-Smith, p. 93. 



^ Papal Letters 4. 545: 'While Constance was still alive, he had com- 

 mitted adultery with the said Catherine, an unmarried woman, and had 

 ofifspring by her.' This does not agree with Froissart's statement that 

 their relations had preceded, as well as followed, the death of Sir Hugh 

 Swynford. 



;P. 389. 



'In Samuel Bentley's Exccrpta Historica, p. 155; cf. Derby Accounts, 

 p. 302. 



^ Derby Accounts, p. 301. 



° So Beltz, Memorials, p. 354. 



"Froissart 14. 416; Armitage-Smith, p. 462. 



"Wylie, Henry the Fourth i. 5; 4. 127, note 4. 



