Product Description

Acclaimed author Alison Weir has been prolific with her books on English royalty covering everything from the Houses of York and Lancaster to the reigns of the Tudors and beyond. Now this remarkable historian brings to life the extraordinary tale of the woman who was ancestor to them all: Katherine Swynford, a royal mistress who was to become one of the most crucial figures in the history of the British royal dynasties.

Born in the mid-fourteenth century, Katherine de Roët was only twelve when she married Hugh Swynford, an impoverished knight. But her story had already begun when, at just ten years old, she was appointed to the household of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster and fourth son of King Edward III, to help look after the Duke’s children. Widowed at twenty-one, Katherine, gifted with beauty and undeniable charms, was to become John of Gaunt’s mistress.

Their years together played out against a backdrop of court life at the height of the Age of Chivalry. Katherine experienced the Hundred Years’ War, the Black Death, and the Peasants’ Revolt. She survived heartbreak and adversity, and crossed paths with many eminent figures of the day, among them her brother-in-law, the poet Geoffrey Chaucer. Yet as intriguing as she was to many of her contemporaries, there were those who regarded her as scandalous and dangerous.

Throughout the years of their illicit union, John and Katherine were clearly devoted to each other, and in middle age, after many twists of fortune, they wed. The marriage caused far more scandal than the affair had, for it was unheard of for a royal prince to wed his mistress. Yet Katherine triumphed, and her children by John, the Beauforts, would become the direct forebears of the Royal Houses of York, Tudor, and Stuart, and of every British sovereign since 1461 (as well as four U.S. presidents).

Drawing on rare documentation, Alison Weir paints a vivid portrait of a passionate spirit who lived one of medieval England’s greatest love stories. Mistress of the Monarchy reveals a woman ahead of her time–making her own choices, flouting convention, and taking control of her destiny. Indeed, without Katherine Swynford the course of English history, perhaps even the world, would have been very different.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #23974 in Books
• Published on: 2009-01-27
• Released on: 2009-01-27
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 416 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780345453235
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
Veteran royal biographer Weir (Eleanor of Aquitaine) resurrects the life and times of the remarkable woman who was mistress and eventually the wife of John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, third son of the charismatic and accomplished king of England, Edward III. Through John and Katherine Swynford (1350–1403) descended centuries of British sovereigns, including Queen Elizabeth II. Weir makes use of meager contemporary sources to build a convincing case for an intelligent, poised and talented woman who flouted convention and took control of her destiny in a male-dominated age. After the death of her first husband, one of John's knights, Katherine embarked on an illicit and notorious liaison with John, married to the queen of Castile; the connection survived separations and calamities, and she bore him four children. Repentant in the wake of the Peasants Revolt, John broke off the liaison, but after his wife's death, he risked censure to marry her, making her stepmother to the future Henry IV. Weir's well-researched, engrossing and perceptive biography gives a gutsy beauty her due while vividly describing the age of chivalry and its many players, including Katherine's renowned brother-in-law, Geoffrey Chaucer. 16 pages of color photos. (Jan. 27)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review
Praise for Alison Weir

The Life of Elizabeth I

“An extraordinary piece of historical scholarship.”
–Cleveland Plain Dealer

“Weir succeeds in making Elizabeth and her subjects come to life in this clearly written and well-researched biography.”
–Library Journal (starred review)

Mary, Queen of Scots, and the Murder of Lord Darnley

“The finest historian of English monarchical succession writing now is Alison Weir. . . . Her assiduousness and informed judgment are precisely what make her a writer to trust.”
–The Boston Globe

“Conspiracy, treason, perjury, and forgery, along with . . . political assassination, and several deadly sins . . . While Ms. Weir does not stint on the sensational details, she is above all a historian and dogged researcher. She sifts through sources, which were often compromised, and thinks like a forensics expert.”
–The Wall Street Journal

Eleanor of Aquitaine

“Extraordinary . . . as delicately textured as a twelfth-century tapestry . . . exhilarating in its color, ambition, and human warmth. The author exhibits a breathtaking grasp of the physical and cultural context of Queen Eleanor’s life.”
–Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Evocative . . . a rich tapestry of a bygone age and a judicious assessment of her subject’s place within it.”
–Newsday


From the Hardcover edition.

Review
Praise for Alison Weir

The Life of Elizabeth I

“An extraordinary piece of historical scholarship.”
–Cleveland Plain Dealer

“Weir succeeds in making Elizabeth and her subjects come to life in this clearly written and well-researched biography.”
–Library Journal (starred review)

Mary, Queen of Scots, and the Murder of Lord Darnley

“The finest historian of English monarchical succession writing now is Alison Weir. . . . Her assiduousness and informed judgment are precisely what make her a writer to trust.”
–The Boston Globe

“Conspiracy, treason, perjury, and forgery, along with . . . political assassination, and several deadly sins . . . While Ms. Weir does not stint on the sensational details, she is above all a historian and dogged researcher. She sifts through sources, which were often compromised, and thinks like a forensics expert.”
–The Wall Street Journal

Eleanor of Aquitaine

“Extraordinary . . . as delicately textured as a twelfth-century tapestry . . . exhilarating in its color, ambition, and human warmth. The author exhibits a breathtaking grasp of the physical and cultural context of Queen Eleanor’s life.”
–Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Evocative . . . a rich tapestry of a bygone age and a judicious assessment of her subject’s place within it.”
–Newsday

Customer Reviews

Fascinating, unavoidably limited glimpse into the life of Katherine Swynford
Billed as a look the the life and times of Katherine Swynford, first mistress and later wife to John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster and third son of Edward III, this carefully-crafted history necessarily emphasizes Katherine's "times" rather than her life, very little trace of which remains today.

It is a tribute to Weir's historical research skills and writing ability that only rarely does this prevent the reader from savoring the story of Katherine, her extended family and the dramatic times in which she lived. It's a glimpse inside the final decades of the 14th century, a time in which feudal society was changing in response to the devastation of the Great Plague of 1348. Katherine inhabited that world, and her rise to prominence was part of the social upheaval against which the privileged and the conservatives reacted vehemently. (John of Gaunt's siblings and the Benedictine monks who chronicled the era were just some of those who reacted with incomprehension and fury to John's 1396 decision to wed his erstwhile mistress and make her the de facto first lady of England.)

Many of the female readers of this book will pick it up because, like Seton and myself, they discovered Anya Seton's famous historical novel about Katherine Swynford, nee Katherine de Roet. This could have been a feeble attempt to capitalize on that novel's enduring popularity, but instead stands on its own as a strong work of history. Indeed, I found it to be as lively a work of history as Seton's novel is a work of historical fiction, and far from spoiling my pleasure in the novel, Weir's careful winnowing out the likely truth of Katherine's youth and marriage added to my enjoyment of both books. I had long been curious about the 'real Katherine', who became the ancestress of so many English monarchs (as well as a slew of American immigrants -- if you can trace your roots back to New England in the 1600s, there's a decent chance Katherine will pop up in your family tree).

Some readers may find frustrating the frequent use of "may have", "could have" or "it seems likely that..." in this biography. Their use is necessary, because of the relative dearth of solid information about Katherine. But I found as much pleasure as frustration in this, as I followed Weir's historical detection and watched her pull together what strands remained of Katherine's life in an effort to present a coherent picture. For instance, Weir addresses what Katherine may have looked like with reference to the tomb sculptures and portraits of her children, noting which features in those resembled John's and deducing what they may have inherited from Katherine. Similarly, she assembles what little evidence of Katherine's role within the Lancaster household may have been, and uses her knowledge of the society of the time and the other personalities involved to reach a "possible" or "probable" conclusion. She never tries to make sweeping claims or assertions based on this kind of flimsy evidence, but instead gives the reader what evidence exists and allows us to see into her reasoning. That helps make this a richer reading experience than many historical biographies that are able to draw on a far wider array of source material.

Ultimately, the book is a biography not only of Katherine the person, but a biography of her place, her times and the characters that peopled her world, from her brother-in-law Geoffrey Chaucer, to the the clergy of Lincoln Cathedral (she lived in a house in its precincts for a long time), the landed gentry of the 14th century and what it meant to be a knight's daughter.

Strongly recommended to anyone interested in the era as well as the subject. To anyone who has read Barbara Tuchman's magisterial work, A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century, this would be an interesting (albeit much slighter) additional book to read. And anyone who hasn't read Tuchman's view of the world Katherine inhabited should do so immediately!

(3.5 stars) Fairly good
Like Alison Weir, I was first introduced to the story of Katherine Swynford through Anya Seton's romanticized 1954 novel, Katherine. Weir's biography is a pretty comprehensive look at this enigmatic, lesser-known medieval woman.

I have a love-hate relationship with Weir's books: I loved The Six Wives of Henry VIII; liked Mary, Queen of Scots and the Murder of Lord Darnley, and Eleanor of Aquitaine; but detested Queen Isabella and Innocent Traitor (Weir doesn't do fiction all that well). I put Mistress of the Monarchy in the "like for the most part" category.

Katherine Swynford was born Katherine de Roet in 1350, one of the daughters of Sir Paon de Roet. She then married Hugh Swynford, and spent time in the Lancastrian household as the governess to John of Gaunt's children. Katherine's affair with him probably began around the year 1372, and, after producing a number of illegitimate children, married John in 1396. Katherine is the ancestor of most of the royal houses of Europe, plus at least five American presidents. History has seen Katherine as bit of a homewrecker, but in this book, Weir attempts (and mostly succeeds) in portraying her in a more sympathetic light.

This biography of Katherine Swynford is, as with all of Weir's books, meticulously researched. It's less overtly feminist and partisan than some of her other biographies. Pay attention to the subtitle of this biography: the book is more about John of Gaunt than it is about Katherine (in fact, we don't even get a physical description of Katherine until after one is given of John). We also get very detailed biographies of everyone who was related or connected to her, especially Geoffrey Chaucer, her brother-in-law. After finishing this book, I still didn't have a concrete impression of what Katherine was really like. And, because so little is actually known about Katherine's life, Weir makes an awful lot of assumptions here about what her subject "might," "perhaps," or "probably" have done/ thought/ felt.

However, Weir does a wonderful job bringing the details of the period to life. It's an accessible, readable work of history that doesn't get bogged down in pretentious language. For someone who doesn't know medieval Latin or Norman French, Weir does an incredible job of interpreting her sources. And the style of this book is far more lively and engaging than other books written on the Lancasters that I've read. I look forward to reading what comes next from Weir (according to her website, the next book is about Anne Boleyn, though she may be re-treading familiar water with that one).

An Influential Life
Katherine Swynford was long the mistress and eventually the third and final wife of the immensely powerful and wealthy John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, third (and oldest surviving) son of Edward III of England and a leading figure in medieval Europe. His illicit relationship with her unquestionably contributed to his unpopularity under Richard II and endangered his life. His later marriage to this commoner and "whore" was also a scandal. This suggests that they probably loved one another, not a normal consideration for marriages in the high nobility of the time.

Through the children she bore as Gaunt's mistress (the Beauforts, later recognized by Gaunt) Swynford is an ancestor of not only the last Yorkist kings but of the Tudors and of all the British royals since. Not bad for a woman who was a foreigner in England as well as a commoner.

Weir does an excellent job of following the traces of Swynford's life, and they are traces. We know next to nothing of the personal lives and views of even major figures of the time let alone of commoners such as Swynford. Even with kings and princes it is largely a matter of formal records of various kinds (deeds, wills, church records, court records, treaties, proclamations, lists of gifts and transactions, occasional formal letters) and mentions in chronicles. For commoners, hard information is virtually non-existent unless they owned property of some kind. Of Swynford personally we know that she was pious, was said to be beautiful, was probably literate and cultured and sufficiently compelling that clerical chroniclers said she was an enchantress. Her relatively few appearances in the records are mostly associated in various ways with Gaunt (many of them relating to gifts and other property that Gaunt gave to her).

Formal records are narrow in scope. Chronicles were usually written to prove a point (often moral) and can be unreliable. No one kept personal diaries or journals, and there was no "media" to cover the notables of the day. An historical novelist can depart from the bare record to fill in the thoughts and personalities as she deems fit (and novelist Anya Seton does that with Swynford's life in her hugely popular--and historically inaccurate-- novel "Katherine"); but an historian must stick to the record.

So it is with Alison Weir, a very competent historian. She has mined the contemporary records and has used this, other research and her knowledge of the time to convey an apt sense of the period. But her book is not a novel and it is inevitably replete with "may have," could have," "might have," and Gaunt dominates the story (he's just much more visible in the sources). Yet her book succeeds. She does a good job of recreating salient personalities from the sparse records and presents a compelling story about a strong, competent and (probably) very passionate woman and her times.