Katharine Swynford 55 



that of Henry IV (May 30, 1366),^^ is the fact that when this 

 monarch confirmed in 1407 the patent of legitimation granted 

 ten years earlier by Richard II, he caused to be inserted the 

 words, excepta dignitate regali, a phrase which might indeed 

 have been intended to bar his illegitimate half-brother, or his 

 descendants, in any case, but which would certainly have more 

 point if John Beaufort had been born earlier than Henry himself ; 

 the case thus guarded against actually arose*'^ when the throne 

 was claimed by Henry VII.®^ 



Finally, such a reputation had Katharine acquired by the acts 

 of her earlier life that doubts were cast, in her native country of 

 Hainaut, upon the legitimacy of her lawful son Thomas Swyn- 

 ford (born, as we have seen, probably in 1367), for in October, 

 141 1, Henry IV found it necessary, in order that he might inherit 

 in that country, to certify that he was begotten in lawful wed- 

 lock.''^ As Sir Harris Nicolas observes, 'the suspicion of his 

 legitimacy may have arisen from his mother losing her reputa- 

 tion when she became the mistress of John of Gaunt, and from 

 the idea that he was the Duke's child' ; b.ut this suspicion would 

 have been all the more justified, had it been known that she had 

 already borne a child or children to the Duke. 



XII. SIR PAON DE RUET AND CHAUCER 



Paon de Ruet was a Hainauter, who was the lineal ancestor, 

 at the fifth remove, of Henry VII of England,^ and so, at the 

 seventh remove, of Queen Elizabeth; he was also the ancestor, 

 at the fifth remove, of that young Earl of Lincoln^ who was a 



** See Hist. Background, p. 166, note 4. 



^ See the charge made by Richard III (above, p. 52). 



"^ Nicolas, in Exc. Hist., pp. 152-3; Wylie 3. 260, note 2; Derby 

 Accounts, p. 202. 



^ Exc. Hist., pp. 157-9; Wylie 3. 260; Cokayne 7. 169. 



^Paon had (i) daughter, Katharine, who had (2) son, John Beaufort, 

 Earl of Somerset, who had (3) son, John Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, 

 who had (4) Margaret, Countess of Richmond and Derby, who had (5) 

 Henry VII. 



^Paon had (i) daughter, Philippa, who had (2) son, Thomas Chaucer, 

 who had (3) daughter, Alice, who had (4) son, John de la Pole, Duke of 

 Suffolk, who had (5) son, John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln (i464?-i487), 

 chosen by Richard III as heir {Hist. Background, p. 178). 



