54 Katharine Swynford 



Another circumstance pointing to the birth of John Beaufort, 

 at least, not only during the lifetime of Blanche, but even before 



been named after his wife? She herself was no doubt named after her 

 great-grandmother, Blanche of Artois, niece of St. Louis, through whom 

 the lordship of Beaufort, near Troyes, came to the Lancasters (Armitage- 

 Smith, p. 197). She, in turn, may have derived her name from her great- 

 aunt, Blanche of Castile, the mother of St. Louis. Chaucer's Blanche 

 seems to have been very lenient toward Katharine, since in 1372 (May 

 15) John of Gaunt, in commuting a former grant of 20 marks a year, 

 in recognition of the 'bone et greable service quelle avoit fait et ferroit 

 a nostre tres chere compaigne, que Dieux assoille,' to a present 50 marks 

 for life, alleges ia tres grande affeccion que nostre dite compaigne avoit 

 envers la dite Katerine' {John of Count's Register i. 169). No wonder 

 John wished to be laid by Blanche ; and no wonder Chaucer puts into his 

 mouth these praises (Bk. Duch. 929-932, 937, 994-8) : 



I durste swere, thogh the Pope hit songe. 



That ther was never through hir tonge 



Man ne woman gretly harmed ; 



As for hir, [ther] was al harm hid. . . . 



Ne chyde she coude never a del. . . . 



Therto I saw never yet a lesse 



Harmful than she was in doing — 



I sey nat that she ne had knowing 



What was harm, or elles she 



Had coud no good, so thinketh me. 



With certain obvious changes one might apply to Blanche and her 

 mother-in-law, Philippa (cf. Diet. Nat. Biog. 45, 167), who died scarcely 

 a month earlier, what I have elsewhere (Last Months, p. no) quoted con- 

 cerning the wife of John of Gaunt's brother, Lionel, and two women 

 nearly related to her: 'She was a lady of sweet and honorable soul. It 

 rarely happens that in one house are found three spirits so exquisite, so 

 compassionate, and so swift to all goodness, as were Bianca of Savoy, 

 Isabella of France, and Violante. . . . They were noble souls in lovely 

 bodies, and Heaven only knows what good they wrought in natures like 

 those of Galeazzo and his son.' 



Considering Blanche's goodness, it is not so surprising that she should 

 have condoned Katharine's most grievous fault; but, notwithstanding the 

 public acceptance of certain bastards, such as the Count de la Roche 

 toward the end of the 15th century (see Exc. Hist., p. 172), and of the 

 Beauforts themselves, we are not prepared to hear the following with 

 regard to Katharine (Wylie 3. 258-9) : 'During the lifetime of . . . 

 Constance, she and her daughter Joan were attached to the household 

 of the Countess Mary (Henry's first wife), and received every Christ- 

 mas their livery in scarlet and white silk furred with minever, with 

 pieces of white damask bawdekin, and their presents of diamonds, gold 

 rings, coral rosaries, and so forth each New Year's Daj^ and Egg-Friday.' 



