John is devastated by his wife’s death and turns to Katherine for comfort but she refuses a relationship as his mistress as long as Sir Hugh is alive. John hears of her kindness and courage and engages her as governess to their children. When the Duke is away on a campaign, his wife Blanche contracts the plague and Katherine takes care of her and is with her when she dies. Katherine unwillingly marries Sir Hugh Swynford, a retainer in the Duke of Lancaster’s service, and bears him two children. Philipa is sent to serve the queen at the English court while Katherine is placed in a convent in England and is educated there for a number of years until she, too, is summoned to court. Katherine and her older sister Philipa, daughters of a knight, in what is now Belgium, are left orphaned. Gaunt was the fourth son of Edward III and the Tudor dynasty descended from their illegitimate children. Katherine is a fictionalised account of Katherine Swynford (1349-1403) the woman who was John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster’s mistress for twenty years.
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