General Notes

Alias:<ALIA> Catherine De Roet /Swynford/
REFN: 2693AN
Katherine (or Katharine or Catherine) (c. 1350 – 1403) was the daught
er of Payne (or Paen) De Roet (or Rouet or Roelt) a Flemish herald from Ha
inault who was knighted just before dying in the wars, leaving Katherine a
nd her older sister Philippa, as well as a brother, Walter, and eldest sis
ter, Isabel (Elizabeth) De Roet, (who died chanoinness of the convent of S
t. Waudru's, Mons, c. 1366). About the year 1366, at the age of 16, Kather
ine married Hugh Swynford or Synford, an English knight from the man
or of Kettlethorpe in Lincolnshire, and bore him at least two children (Bl
anch, Thomas, and likely the Margaret Swynford who was nominated a n
un at the prestigious Barking Abbey by the command of Richard II in 137
7) before he, too, died in the European wars. She then became attach
ed to the household of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, ostensibly as gov
erness to his two daughters (the sisters of the future Henry IV of Englan
d) by his first wife Blanche, but eventually she became his official mistr
ess. Katherine's sister Philippa married the poet Geoffrey Chaucer, who
se poem The Book of the Duchess commemorated Blanche's death in about 1369
.
Long after the death of his second wife Constance (or Constanza) of Castil
e, John and Katherine married in January 1396, three years before he die
d. The four children Katherine had borne John of Gaunt had been given t
he surname "Beaufort" and were already adults when they were legitimized (
but barred from inheriting the throne by a clause inserted by half-broth
er Henry IV well into the latter's reign) in 1390:
John Beaufort, 1st Earl of Somerset.
Henry Cardinal Beaufort.
Thomas Beaufort, 1st Duke of Exeter.
Joan Beaufort, Countess of Westmorland.
Her son John was the great-grandfather of Henry VII of England and the gra
ndfather of James II of Scotland; her daughter Joan Beaufort was the grand
mother of Edward IV of England and Richard III of England, whom Henry V
II defeated to take the throne. (Henry then married Elizabeth of York, dau
ghter of Edward IV, and their son became Henry VIII of England). Her step-
son became Henry IV of England by deposing Richard II of England (who w
as imprisoned and died shortly thereafter, in Pontefract Castle, where Kat
herine's son Thomas Swynford was constable, and he was said to have starv
ed Richard to death for his step-brother); her step-daughter, John and Con
stance's daughter Catherine (or Catalina), was the great-grandmother of Ca
therine of Aragon, the first wife of Henry VIII of England and mother of M
ary I of England.
Katherine survived John by only four years, dying on May 10, 1403. (Sin
ce she was then dowager Duchess of Lancaster, there was a record of the ex
act day, as there was not for her birth, when she was a nobody.) Her tom
b, and that of her daughter Joan Beaufort, are under a carved-stone cano
py in the sanctuary of Lincoln Cathedral, but their remains are no long
er in them, because the tombs were despoiled in 1644, during the English C
ivil War, by the Roundheads.
Katherine Swynford is the subject of Anya Seton's novel Katherine (first p
ublished in 1954).
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