John of Gaunt

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Welcome to this episode of Gone Medieval from History Hits. I'm Matt Lewis. I'm delighted to be joined today by historian, broadcaster and now author, Helen Carr. who's come to talk to us today about one of medieval England's and perhaps Europe's most fascinating characters. He wasn't a king, though he used the title for a time, and some thought he had his eyes on the crown of England too.

Dynastically, he sits at the heart of royal houses across Europe, not least in England. Wealthy beyond imagination, powerful beyond belief, as divisive on social media today as he was in his own lifetime, but also apparently everyone's granddad. John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, deserves more attention in his own right. And Helen's fantastic new book, The Red Prince, John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, does a brilliant, captivating job of pulling this man out from the myths.

that have mired his reputation since the 14th century. Thank you very much for coming to talk to us today, Helen. Thank you for being here. I love that introduction. That was very good. So as a brief, quick intro, who was John of Gaunt? He was the third surviving son of the warrior king, Edward III. He was most famous for initiating the Hundred Years' War.

started in 1337 which was three years before John of Gaunt was born but he's also the younger brother of the Black Prince who a lot of people have heard of because of his famous nickname which we're not exactly sure why he's called the prince but there are a few rumors circulating about that but John of Gawne sort of he's the lesser known plantagenet within this immediate family so you've got

Edward III, the great warrior king, and then the Black Prince, and then John of Gaunt, who people have heard of, but not quite as well as the other two. Which is interesting because it's his legacy that really ends up outshining everybody else's ultimately. Where does the Gaunt bit come from? So this is because he was born in Ghent.

Now, I mentioned that he was born three years into the Hundred Years' War. So he was actually born in quite extraordinary circumstances, whilst his mother, Philippa of Hainault, was held by Flemish merchants who had lent money to Edward III. to begin his war she was serving as a sort of collateral for the loan that they had given him and so she was heavily pregnant in Ghent at the time when Edward III was forced to sail back to England to persuade Parliament to let him go

Shortly after John of Gaunt was born, there was the Battle of Sluice, which was the first English naval victory of the Hundred Years' War. So John of Gaunt was born on the 6th of March 1340 at the Abbey of St Bavoni. Ghent. So yeah, he was kind of born into this weird sense of captivity, but also in the middle of the tumultuous start of the Hundred Years' War. Yeah, so a promising childhood. And so Gaunt is kind of an anglicised version of Ghent.

And we'll probably get into it a little bit as we go through, but John ends up kind of being married three times, having a whole raft of children who go on to play important roles later on. But just to stick with his childhood for a second, I got the impression...

from reading your book that perhaps the greatest influence on John as he was growing up was his older brother Edward, the Black Prince that you mentioned before. Perhaps even more than his father was an influence on him. Do you think that's fair? Yeah, absolutely. I think definitely. And I think what's important to remember is ultimately the Black Prince and Edward III died around the same time. They were only a year apart in their deaths. So John of Gaunt was influenced.

by his father but it was more of a loyalty to his father and a sense of princely subjugation whereas the black prince he revered and he looked up to as a brother in arms a brother but also as a tutor so from quite a young age Even though they were 10 years apart, John of Gaunt lived in the Black Prince's household. So this is where he did all of his training. It's where he had a tutor, but it's also where the prince taught him how to manage land.

And so the prince was also in a very effective feudal overlord. So he had lands in Cheshire and Cornwall. And I think this definitely influenced John of Gaunt. as he was older when he inherited the Duchy of Lancaster, which he ran very efficiently. And if you do look at the Black Princes... records in his register around the time that John of Gaunt was living in his household as a boy, you do see how the prince quite effectively managed his property.

and the counties in which he controlled. And so I think John have domestically learned a lot from his brother, and they spent lots of time together. In the accounts, the prince demonstrates that he was ordering clothing for John of Gorton. He was ordering saddles to be made, even armour. So I think they were doing everything together. The prince was taking his brother. everywhere with him. And from the age of 10, he even took him into battle. So John of Gorm was...

taken into the Battle of Winchelsea, which took place just off the coast of Winchelsea in 1350. And it's said because he didn't want to be parted from his older brother. So at his 10 years old, he went into this great naval battle. which actually ended up being really quite brutal. And so he experienced war from a very young age in the shadow of his older brother, and he definitely looked up to him.

And you saw all the way through the early part of Gaunt's life and certainly up until the end of the Black Prince's life, John of Gaunt was hugely loyal to him and his campaign into Spain. was something that was...

ultimately the downfall of the Black Prince, but John of Gaunt still revered it because I think that it was a brotherly campaign and he saw an element of glory in it. That's where John gets his first taste of battle as a... an adult participant not just a 10 year old who I guess a 10 year old in a naval battle that must have been a weird combination of terrifying and exciting but it's part of as part of the Black Prince's Spanish campaign that John gets his real

First taste of being involved in a battle? First and only pitch battle. So it was his formative experience of pitch battle during the Hundred Years' War. But it was also his only experience of pitched battle in the Hundred Years' War, which is something actually you probably know quite well. People think the Hundred Years' War must have been battle after battle and all of these huge, you know, clashing armies. Actually, it really wasn't.

a handful of battles that took place over years and most of the time it was just the English raiding through France conducting these brutal chevachers and pillaging the countryside and the French hiding behind their various fortifications because they knew if they waited long enough, the English would get starving and bored and have to go back. It was like a big game of chess, really, rather than a hundred year war. Yeah, it really was. It really was.

So John of Bourne didn't have all that many opportunities to enact these sorts of pitched battles, but Nehera was the main one and the only one. And it was a victory as well, which is helpful, I guess, in forming an opinion of what it's like to be involved in the battle.

And as you mentioned a little bit earlier, John of Gaunt really remains loyal to his brother Edward until Edward's death. And then even after that, he remains loyal to Edward's memory through the reign of John's nephew, Edward's son. king richard ii so do you think that tells us something about edward the black prince the kind of person and character that he was or about john and the kind of character that he was or perhaps both i think they were quite different

I think being the third son and not the son and heir is quite significant. And I think one's place in the royal court, but also in domestic and... external politics is going to be different to that of the Black Prince. The Black Prince was... a celebrity of his time. I mean, there's this amazing description of when he comes back, having won the Battle of Poitiers, having captured King John II on the battlefield, serving him on bended knee.

he comes back through London and takes John to the Savoy Palace and he gives... John II, the beautiful white stallion to ride on, and then he rides the kind of, you know, subpar black pony or whatever behind him. He was... all about chivalry and pomp and spectacle. He had a sense of his own importance from a very, very young age, which I think is something that definitely was passed on to his son, Richard. And John of Gaunt was always sort of on the sidelines observing.

this enjoying it and being part of it and being part of the chivalry being part of the joust being part of all of the pomp that goes with that but he was never the center of it whereas the black prince was always the centre of it he was the war hero he was the heir he was the prince that was going to lead England into victory against France

And I think that that all shifted when he became very, very sick. So I do think that they were very different people. John could barely have had a better teacher in terms of how to be a medieval.

nobleman and warrior and everything else, the Black Prince must have been the perfect teacher for him. And the experience is, do you think John was a little bit starstruck? Because it definitely seems to have left a mark on him. You know, he remained committed to the Black Prince even after the Black Prince was dead.

I think he was committed to the idea of chivalry and knighthood. And I think that he was committed to the vision that his father had in line for the Plantagenet dynasty. I think Edward kind of wanted...

a type of Plantagenet empire akin to the Angevin Empire. I think that he was ambitious king. And I think John of Gaunt inherited that ambition. And I think the Black Prince had that ambition too. I think that whole... generation of that family were they had they shared a vision together and they were very close knit they supported each other they wanted to look out for each other but they went forward

as a collective rather than as individuals. And I think that that's something John of Gaunt really wanted to push forward, continue to do in the reign of Richard II, but he was hamstrung by Richard's opposing interests. And so John is...

best remembered as being Duke of Lancaster. So how does he acquire that title? How does he become the Duke? So this was through his first marriage. So his first marriage was to Blanche of Lancaster, who was the daughter of Henry, Duke of Lancaster. The first Duke of Lancaster was Henry. He was endowed the title Duke of Lancaster by Edward III for his...

efforts in the hundred years war and henry duke of lancaster was again he was one of these exceptional knight type figures you know he was revered for his chivalry his ability as a magnate but also his ability on the battlefield as well so he was a very successful overlord he maintained property

all over England. He had this vast duchy. Leicester, he was highly revered. He spent a lot of time and effort building up Leicester and making it a really strong city, the centre of Lancastrian administration. That was something John of Gaunt very much inherited. But Henry, Duke of Lancaster...

was very close to Edward III. And I think the marriage to Blanche was just to solidify that friendship. They were also cousins. So it was also a familial bond. And the House of Lancaster and the Plantagenes it's had historically had some rivalry um if you go back to The uprising against Edward II with Piers Gaveston. And so there had been tensions between the two houses before, but Edward III really sort of pulled that together with the marriage between Blanche and his son, John.

So Blanche is quite well known because she was a figure in one of Chaucer's versus the Book of the Duchess, which was written about her after her death. And John of Gaunt and Blanche were seemingly very happy. She was, you know... always pregnant so i don't think that he really left her alone very much to be honest she had she had many children and she had three surviving children who were

Later, it was Henry, later Henry IV, Henry Bolingbroke, who was born at Bolingbroke Castle. And then there was also Philippa and Elizabeth. So there were the three surviving children from his marriage with Blanche. She died in 1368 and after that John retained the lands of the Duchy of Lancaster. that she inherited after the death of her father and also her sister, Maud, when they died only months apart from each other.

Blanche inherited this huge amount of property from her father which of course in turn went to John and

He found himself in 1368 as a widower, but also an incredibly wealthy man because he had all of this property. And the Duchy of Lancaster is... enormous the Lancastrian lands are enormous so you've got lands all across Yorkshire all through the midlands you're counting leicester you've even got lands in wales and then you're looking at cambridgeshire hungerford even lands in northern in northern france like bergerac as well so this is an extensive amount of

property and wealth during the middle ages i mean it's it was incomparable i think it was really only the crown that maybe had um a little more wealth than the duchy of lancaster yeah i think people quite often forget in the medieval period if we know a person by their title that that doesn't mean they're geographically restricted to that area in any kind of way i'm probably more at home in the wars of the roses so with richard duke of york who was really nothing to do with york

All of his lands were much further south than that. So John really did have a humongous portfolio of lands that, as you say, after the crown probably made him the richest man in the country. And I think...

Then and ever since, he's been considered by some to have been a very ambitious man. So after Blanche's death, he remarries and he actually acquires a claim to a throne. So do you think that was an expression of his... personal ambition or do you think that was more falling in line with his father's dynastic plans for some kind of plantagenet empire i think that's a really good question and i think it was a combination of both i think personal ambition

probably superseding the idea of an empire. I think that John's interest in kingship was piqued much earlier. So he was suggested at one point to be... the heir to the Scottish throne. So to put this briefly into context before we start going into Anglo-Scottish politics in the Middle Ages, which we would be here for hours, there was always tension on the border between the Scots and the English following various uprisings.

Scots and the Scottish Wars of Independence is particularly famous under Edward I. So there was always tension between England and Scotland and Edward III. saw an opportunity through David II who was the son of Robert the Bruce to introduce John of Gaunt as a potential his son as the heir to the Scottish throne following

David II's death. So it was the idea was to unite England and Scotland by having effectively a ruler of Scotland that he could rely on because he was family. And John of Gaunt continued to be very popular in...

Scotland this idea was floated but it never manifested but um he was really popular he he was liked well liked by the Scots which is something I'm sure we'll talk about later when we go into the later period of his life and I think this idea This is when John of Gaunt was about 17, 18 years old, this was floated, that he could be a king in his own right and ruling a land with the same level of...

Glory as his brother and the same level of responsibility I think was appealing to him. And it's always a dangerous bit of bait to dangle and then take away, isn't it? Once you sow the seed, it's difficult to get that. out of someone's mind. Yeah, and I think that it had lingered in his mind. I don't think that it would have been anything that he deliberately sought out, but I think he saw an opportunity in Castile. So...

Following the Battle of Nehera in 1367, at which point the English fought on the side of Pedro the Cruel, who was fighting against his half-brother Enrique Trastamaro, who had the side of the French. were kind of fighting each other but following the battle of Nehera which was an English victory John have got a formative experience of battle he fought in the vanguard it was all very glamorous and wonderful

But following that, Pedro the Cruel was actually murdered by his half-brother later on. There was a coup and he was murdered and captured and it was very Game of Thrones, you know, the Hound versus the Mountain, that sort of thing. So after that, Enrique Trastamara took the throne of Spain and Pedro's two daughters, Constance and Isabella, fled to the court of the Black Prince in Bordeaux.

The Black Prince was increasingly sick after his campaign in Spain at Nejera. He was becoming so sick it was possibly dysentery, but it was an illness that eventually killed him many years later. At that point, John of Gaunt needed to take over the Black Prince's position in Aquitaine. So he was charged with a position for a year of Lieutenant of Aquitaine. So the Black Prince went back to England to rest and recover and John of Gaunt took over.

around this time there is a source that say the barons in Gascony the Gascon barons who were loyal to the Black Prince suggested to John of Gaunt you should take another wife why not take the daughter the eldest daughter of the deceased Pedro. Now, this is really interesting because they then go on to say, because your heirs would then have a chance of ruling the throne of Castile, they would have a legitimate claim. And perhaps yourself.

And I think that this is really interesting wording because John of Gaunt very much took this as... myself, I could have a chance of ruling the throne of Castile. Not my heirs. Obviously, you know, he wanted his heirs to, but he very much took this as an opportunity for him to be a king. He sort of heard half of what they said and took the bit that he wanted from it. Yeah, so by right of his wife. And I think this idea...

massively excited him because he didn't even wait for Constance to arrive to where he was in Bordeaux in order to marry her in a ceremony. He actually rode out and met her on the road and had a very unceremonious wedding. And this was purely political. And from that point, he took on the title King of Castile and Leon. And Castile...

At the time, just to explain to any listeners who are a little confused, it's the geography of Spain at this point. Spain was split into a variety of different kingdoms. Castile and Leon was the biggest one, right slap bang in the middle. And then you had Portugal, Navarre.

Aragon and Granada around it so Castile was the main chunk of Spain so this was an extensive amount of land and title but also I think it did have some of these imperial connections as well because the castilians had a very strong navy um john of gaunt you know if he controlled castile If you can imagine what England and Castile against the French could do, that would be quite a force. They would be a superpower that would be difficult to contend with in medieval European politics.

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And I think from your book, it seems to me that this idea of becoming King of Castile was very much John's kind of passion project. It was what he really wanted to do for himself and get his teeth into. And I think...

You mentioned in the book as well, it led to some complaints that there were too many kings in England when he started using the title King of Castile. And that was kind of a people's way of having a little dig at John at the court of Richard II. Yeah, he was always criticised for... you know being a king a displaced king it was really weird because effectively you have the king of england but then you also have another king

It is quite strange. And I think people were suspicious of that. Yeah, it's a dynamic that English kings had always struggled with, with lands in France, isn't it? So, you know, having another king in the kingdom is never a great position and a feudal society. But I think for people who...

find John of Gaunt to be quite an ambitious person. It's striking reading your book the number of times that John set aside his desire to go to Castile and enforce this claim for himself in favour of helping his brother out, helping his dad out, helping... Richard II out, you know, he said his brother got more and more ill. John ended up in Aquitaine. So he seems to constantly set aside his own, what I would say is passion project in favour of helping the family.

So it's quite a selfless streak in what we generally see as an ambitious man. Yeah, he was hugely loyal. And I think you've really hit the nail on the head with that because he was ambitious. But I think... You know, like any of you have to be careful with any of these figures in history as much as you have to with people in the now. You can't sort of there are many nuances to people and you can be ambitious and cunning and.

feckless and all of these different things but he was also phenomenally loyal and i think actually he became more unpopular in england because of his loyalty than he did for anything else for you know being a king of Castile and you know if he had just gone off to Castile

He would have probably managed to rule successfully. He probably would have been quite liked in England because he wouldn't have had his fingers in the politics and he wouldn't have he wouldn't have upset the clergy and he wouldn't have done all of these things that he did. when he was trying to maintain the integrity of Edward III and maintain this image of a very kingly, omnipresent figure, which is what he tried to do.

John of Gaunt was a royalist through and through and what he didn't like was the merchant classes which were gaining more power in the second part of the 14th century. particularly following the Black Death. These wealthy merchant classes having too much influence in court politics, having too much money. The Crown increasingly relied...

on the revenue from the wool trade. He didn't like that because it gave these mercantile figures, these merchant oligarchs of London, more power over the king. So when things like the Good Parliament come to a head... and all of the king's dirty laundry is aired, John of Gaunt really was just trying to, he was just trying to protect his father and protect his name. Trying to defend the institution of the crown, rather than anything else.

And it's interesting you mentioned he wasn't afraid to upset the church because he quite often veered somewhere close to heresy, didn't he? Famously involved with John Wycliffe and the Lollards and people like that. So he wasn't afraid to... to kind of flirt with heresy in an effort to get what he wanted do you think that was genuine religious concern or was that a political tool you know a negotiating bargaining position that he took up

I think probably the latter a bit more. Yeah, he was a big fan of allegedly saying he was going to drag bishops here and there. So he was going to drag a bishop out of by his hair out of St Paul's Cathedral and then he was going to drag a bishop to Windsor who...

who hadn't come to meet with the king. Yeah, he did get in quite a lot of trouble with the church and he did for a time support John Wycliffe. But I think that it's important to think actually a lot of the nobility at this time also supported Wycliffe.

ideals john of gaunt did not like clerical wealth he didn't believe in clerical wealth but his piety was pretty conventional so he did gift to the church you know ornate plate he gave altarpieces he gave all sorts of these you know wealthy gifts that were Often given to the church by people who, not just the nobility, anybody who had wealth, it was considered if you invested your personal wealth into the church, you would be...

effectively paying for alms or you would be various chantries and things were established at this period you know life and the church were interconnected yeah so john could be quite conventional whilst also being a little bit rebellious. in religious terms totally this wasn't the reformation this wasn't a case of i don't believe it i'm just going to strip the church for wealth it really was not at that point like he was very conventional in his piety but he definitely wasn't extreme with it

And he was, for his whole life, he always had Carmelite confessors. And the Carmelite order were an order that prioritised... very gentle piety they didn't they didn't prioritize wealth and show and a demonstration of opulence they were quite you know they're always quite modestly dressed i think He did believe in the Wycliffe ideas for a period, and I think this was really a demonstration of his belief in royal wealth and power being very different to...

church wealth and power and he didn't think that the church should be demonstrative of that level of opulence that you would associate with i suppose high catholicism at the time Yeah, it seems quite aligned as well to his opposition to the merchant classes. So anyone that was in danger of becoming a rival for the crown as an institution was sort of a target for John.

I think from now on, whenever anyone says John of Gaunt, I'm going to refer to him as Dragger of Bishops. I think that's stuck in my head now. And John was famously a target of the Peasants' Revolt in 1381. So he... More than anybody else probably represented the wealthy landed classes that the Peasants' Revolt aimed to tear down effectively. His fabulous Savoy Palace that you mentioned a little bit earlier, this absolute glittering jewel.

in london's thames side property was burnt to the ground but he wasn't there at the time and this opened up a seam of john's life to me that i'd not really known about before and that you alluded to a little bit earlier in his relationship with Scotland. So as you mentioned, there was early potential that he could have been a king of Scotland, but his really strong relations north of the border seemed to persist for the rest of his life. So he's frequently tasked with securing...

peace on the borders but also the scots seem to like john i think when the west peasants revolt takes place he tries to get back into england and struggles and ends up going back to scotland to get some some shelter there so do you think that relationship helped to keep the peace on the border? I mean there never really was peace on the border but could it have been worse if John hadn't been there?

Oh, for sure. Definitely. I think he was well liked. And I think, you know, John of Gaunt, again, I talk about how the Black Prince is better known. The Black Prince is better known because he was good in battle.

John of Gaunt wasn't necessarily good in battle or, you know, as I said, didn't have many opportunities for battle, but he was a fantastic diplomat. He was a smooth... talker he made people feel good he made people feel listened to you know he was he was an excellent politician and that is why he was dispatched the borders a lot i think he was dispatched the borders

quite a lot for this reason but also because Richard II wanted him out of his hair quite a lot of the time because he had too much influence and he was the best person at really sort of... giving Richard a proverbial spanking when he was acting out of order. So he'd always push him off to Scotland to go and do some negotiations. But John of Gaunt was popular in Scotland. He had a very good relationship with the Scots and he respected them as well.

So after the Peasants' Revolt, there was about a few days to a week lead time between John of Gaunt finding out. He tried to keep the revolt in England quiet in order to be able to... smooth out and finalise the negotiations that he had agreed with the Scots. But he was at the same time phenomenally nervous and vulnerable because he hadn't heard from Richard. He was the most powerful magnate in the land. He was effectively regent because Richard was...

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really still in his minority even though he'd never been officially appointed regent he was sort of acting as a regent and um he had to go through this period of weeks of not hearing from his nephew not knowing where he stood with rumors of a rebel army of 20 000 rebels coming up to drag him from scotland and kill him effectively so he had his entire household were

in Pontefract at the time. He had to think about their safety. There were all of these moving parts that he had to consolidate whilst also being in a position where he was in Scotland, you know, negotiating. A truce on a March day, which is a day of talks. And...

But the Scots were still enemies. So he was in enemy hands in a vulnerable position. And he was also the Duke of Lancaster and the uncle of the king. I mean, the fact the Scots didn't do anything about that, I think is pretty remarkable because they were fully aware. that there was a huge rebellion going on in England. They found out about it from their spies. So instead, John of Gaunt tried initially to go to Henry Percy in Northumberland.

Henry Percy had basically been waiting for an opportunity to rebuff John of Gaunt and sort of put him in his place a bit because... Gaunt had been given so much responsibility in the north, that was kind of Percy's domain, and he got a little bit territorial and wanted to put Gaunt back in his place. So he said to him... I cannot receive you he sent him a message on the road of two two messengers and said I cannot receive you I have had no word

from Richard, you're not to go to any of your properties and you're to stay where you are. It's a strong power move from Henry Percy, isn't it? To take on the king's uncle, the most powerful man in the country, the nominal king of Castile and say... You're not welcome. Oh my goodness. And did Gaunt make him pay? But yeah, he was mortified, absolutely mortified. So he was forced then to go back up to Scotland.

go back to the Scots who sent an escort of Spears to meet him at Melrose Abbey and escort him back into Scotland. He stayed. at Holyrood Palace and he he waited but he was treated remarkably well he was cared for and he responded by gifting the Scots enormously. I think this was partly to prove that he was still powerful. He gave them money. He gave them gifts. But I think that it was also because he was genuinely incredibly grateful. He gave the...

Earl of Carrick's son a little gold salt cellar in the shape of a dove. So he was very thoughtful in what he was, you know, the gifts that he was giving in gratitude for his safety. And it wasn't for weeks. until he heard from Richard and was able to move south again. So yes, he did always have a continuing good relationship.

with the Scots and then any sort of antagonism on the borders later on when the English were forced to take an army into Scotland Gaunt was very respectful of the property that the Scots had and he was respectful of the people and I think he He purposely inflicted as little damage as he could get away with because I think he genuinely didn't want to.

destroy Scotland in the manner that he might be expected to because of the good relationship that he had yeah he maybe felt like he owed them a little bit by that point so I remember you mentioning on one of the the actual campaigns into Scotland that John of Gaunt was kind of singling out

abbeys and things like that and saying you can't touch this under any circumstances because it was places that he'd been given hospitality and shelter absolutely yeah yeah that shows i guess it's a juxtaposition to the the ambitious selfish man that we

think we know who was so unpopular that he was a target of the Peasants' Revolt that actually in Scotland he's so well liked they're happy to negotiate with him and not just that but to give him shelter in his biggest moment of vulnerability potentially.

Yeah, and also, you know, it's important to remember it wasn't just Scotland. I mean, really, John of Gaunt is considered to be this unpopular... richard the third type caricature uncle he was really not he was actually incredibly well liked particularly in places in lancastrian lands so for example leicester was very well liked in leicester during the peasants revolt the people of leicester

Leicester actually defended Gaunt and Gaunt's property. And they thought, I mean, it all ended up being a rumour, but they thought there was an army of rebels coming to attack Leicester. And they created their own little force with pitchforks and anything they could get their hands on. and stood on top of the hill overlooking the walls of Leicester and waited in order to defend the town and Gaunt's belongings. They genuinely did admire him and care for him.

Gaunt, when he toured his lands, I think that he was really quite happy when he was touring his Lancastrian properties. He just wasn't liked in London. And that was because of this fallout with the clerics, but it was also the Bishop of London in particular. But it was also because of this idea of having two kings in one space and falling out with the merchant oligarchs. It was all within, really within London, its immediate home counties. So it wasn't so much...

in the north, especially not Leicester and the Midland counties. And as his career progresses, it's not until 1387, so 16 years after he marries Constance of Castile, that he actually gets to Spain. to try and enforce his own claim in person. The campaign didn't go very well, although John sees his one daughter from his first marriage married to King John I of Portugal. And his daughter with Constance is married to Henry III, who is the King of Castile at this point. Do you think this was...

A personal blow for John after waiting so long to get there and putting so much effort into it, shelving his plan so many times. This must have hit him quite hard for it to go badly. I think it hit him enormously hard. I think he was utterly humiliated. I think he was infuriated. I actually think that he went through a period of depressive melancholy. There's a couple, I mean, it's mentioned that he was confined to his tent.

at the end of the campaign i mean he lost to put this into perspective he lost over half of his army to plague or some kind of illness it was just a complete disaster they were starving The alliance with the Portuguese didn't go very well because the English and the Portuguese kept falling out. John of Gaunt was also sidelined by the Portuguese in favour of the Constable of Portugal, Nuno Várez. So it's...

He didn't really do very well. He did his best. I think he just could not conquer Castile. He didn't know the terrain well enough. And he didn't know what he was going to be facing well enough. And I think he was conquered in the same way as... the English were conquered many times in France where he couldn't get them to come out and fight he couldn't force them into a pitch battle the army grew increasingly tired lethargic they couldn't stand the heat they were drinking lots of wine

when they were used to drinking beer, they were getting sick. And it was really the conditions that destroyed the outcome of the... of the campaign and so yes i mentioned that he was confined to his tent but interestingly as well when it came to surrender He never actually met with the king of Castile, who is Enrique Trastamara's now son, Juan. He never actually met with him to conduct negotiations he just sent.

on his behalf, which I think is quite significant when he's negotiating a lot of cash and also a marriage between his daughter and Juan's son. He also never went back. to Castile. He was a different person when he came back as well. He just was not interested in war. He was interested in peace and just consolidating himself and his dynasty after. failing in Castile I think it really was to him the ultimate failure and there is a wonderful source that

that recounts him gifting his crown. He was given a circlet by Richard just before he sailed to Castile to take it as his land, and he returned the circlet to Juan Trostamara. as a gift of surrender. Yeah, like a final admission that it was never really going to happen. And I definitely got this really sad feeling from...

your book after this episode, that John came back kind of a haunted man by this experience. He was maybe not quite defeated there, but he came back deflated and changed and really not interested in ever trying that again.

And I wonder whether that's a bit of a hangover from this era when maybe his big brother made it look too easy and John thought, you know, that was his only experience. John thought, I'll just waltz in there and I'll become king and found out it wasn't quite as easy as the Black Prince had made it look.

Yeah, I think the Black Prince, I think it was actually more ambitious than what the Black Prince ever set out to do. I mean... The Black Prince was very much just invested in the campaigns of his father. And the Black Prince won a battle, you know, and I suppose he won the Battle of Nehera as well. But he never, he never sought to... remove the king of France from his throne and you know place himself as king so I'm not sure I think I think it was just I think it was phenomenally ambitious but

And John thought he could do that. He thought he had a legitimate claim through Constance. And I think that that was a large part of it. But I'm not, yeah, I'm not sure if it was the Black Prince made it look too easy. I think it...

I think what would be right to say is victory and military success in this period was considered... paramount success I mean that was the the most revered level of of of success that you could I suppose you could have in as a as a nobleman in the middle ages I mean war and martial glory.

was was everything yeah but you can't get those victories if no one will come out and fight you totally totally exactly so i think that um i think in many ways john of gaunt was just quite unlucky with that but his diplomacy and his political acumen

It was considered boring, really, in comparison to what The Black Prince was. Yeah, no showbiz in peace treaties. No, it's kind of like the movie A Knight's Tale. You know how The Black Prince is revered in that movie, and everyone's like, it's The Black Prince. It was really quite like that, I think. So I guess just to round off, John's...

John of Gaunt's legacy really is as an ancestor to almost anyone worth studying in the decades and centuries after his death. So where I'm most at home in the Wars of the Roses is essentially a bunch of John of Gaunt's descendants. Even the Yorkist kings had Beaufort blood from John of Gaunt, all scrapping for the throne of England. And there's obviously his impact on the Iberian Peninsula with his marriages into the royal families of Portugal and ultimately Spain.

and so many other European families. But do you think that does a disservice to John by forgetting the man himself that created all of this? It's not that it does a disservice to him. I think that he has just simply been forgotten. I think it's just been assumed. It's almost like the Tudors start with Henry VII and everything before that is sort of forgotten.

regarding the Tudor dynasty and where it came from. Okay, but what was Henry VII's link here? And I think, you know, he's just been a figure that has been... sidelined until recently, and I feel like I have recovered this sense of character in him and what he did in his lifetime alone.

I think he has been sidelined in favour of these greater martial victorious men. Much of John of Gaunt's life, despite the fact he was so heavily involved in much of the social, religious... and political conflict of the middle ages war and chivalry and crusading and kings have always been what has been the most popular subjects rather than a magnate who effectively was

you know, observing all of this and was heavily involved in it and actually had a larger impact going forward. Right, that's brilliant. Thank you so much. I would definitely recommend your book to anybody. You know, it really does pull John the Man out. from all of these ideas of what he was. And we see him much more as a fully formed character acting on the national and international stage.

So I definitely recommend, now we can get down to bookshops again, definitely recommend that everybody goes out and grabs a copy. Thank you very much, Helen, for a fascinating glimpse at an incredible man. And as I said, Helen's book, The Red Prince, John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, is out now.

and available in bookshops now that they're open again. If you've enjoyed this episode and would like to hear more on Gone Medieval, then subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and tell all your friends and family that you've gone medieval. While I've got you, I did catch an episode of Dan Snow's history hit entitled Life and Death in Medieval England. It's a fascinating chat with Dr. Eleanor Janager about the many ways to live, make a living and ultimately to die during the medieval period.

But anyway, I'd better let you go. I've been Matt Lewis, and we've just gone medieval with History Hits.