Dan Snow's History Hit - John of Gaunt: THE Royal Ancestor

Episode Date: February 22, 2021

Helen Carr joins me today to discuss John of Gaunt: son of Edward III, younger brother to the Black Prince, uncle of Richard II and father of Henry IV. Not only was he the key intersecting ancestor around which the Plantagenet family split, but his other children also give us the Tudor dynasty. He is THE royal ancestor and one that many of us can trace our family trees back to. In this fascinating episode, Helen discusses his royal aspirations, his attempted conquest of parts of Spain, his role in the Peasants' Revolt and his experiences of the Black Death.

Douglas Adams, the genius behind The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, was a master satirist who cloaked a sharp political edge beneath his absurdist wit. Douglas Adams' The Ends of the Earth explores the ideas of the man who foresaw the dangers of the digital age and our failing politics with astounding clarity. Hear the recordings that inspired a generation of futurists, entrepreneurs and politicians. Get Douglas Adams' The Ends of the Earth now at pushkin.fm slash audiobooks or wherever audiobooks are sold. Hello everybody, welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit. Thank you to all those people that listened to all the podcasts in the last few days. The one with David Baddiel was really interesting. He has just published a

bestselling book here in the UK about antisemitism. And it was so fun listening back to that interview we made a couple of years ago and hearing his kind of thoughts coalesce around that subject. It was all so bizarre. I don't know what you guys felt, that I could be in the same room as somebody. It was so different. And it really struck me how much nicer it is when these interviews are conducted in the flesh and we can interrupt each other and laugh and bounce ideas off each other. And those days are returning again soon, everybody. So thank you very much for putting up with this in the meantime. We're doing the best we can remotely, but cannot wait for us to get back in a little recording booth and have some good old chats in the months and years to come. Speaking of people I'm really

looking forward to seeing, Helen Carr is right up there. She is long time fans and followers of History Hit will know that Helen was with us right from the beginning. Helen Carr is a fantastic historian. She's a broadcaster. She's made several shows for History Hit TV. She's been on the podcast before. And for a long time, she's had a book in her she's been writing about john of gaunt the very powerful important son of edward the third younger brother to the black prince uncle to richard the second and famously father of henry the fourth rampart of henry the fifth he's the key intersecting ancestor around which the plantagenet family splits and eventually

beats itself to death. But actually his other children also give us the Tudor dynasty. So really he is the royal ancestor and he's the ancestor to which many of us in Britain can trace ourselves back. Although as Adam Rutherford has said on this podcast before, we are pretty much all descended from John of Gaunt, so don't get too excited if you can put him on the top of your family tree, because we all can, all right? We're all royal. In fact, the royals are all us, I think, more importantly. John of Gaunt's a fascinating historical figure. He had royal pretensions in Spain. He was at the centre of the dispute that led to the Peasants' Revolt. He was alive during the Black Death. This guy, he's like the Forrest Gump of the 14th century. You've got to check him out. And Helen has written a brilliant book about him and is

on the podcast now to talk all about him. If you want to watch Helen Carr's brilliant documentaries that she's made in the past for history, including a very cool documentary where she went to the Savoy in London and tried to find out more about John of Gaunt's magnificent palace that once stood there, you can go to historyhit.tv. The Netflix for history, thousands of podcasts, TV shows, it's all on there. You love history, go and check it out. You're not going to regret it. But in the meantime, everyone, here is the wonderful Helen Carr talking about John of Gaunt. Helen, great to have you back on the podcast. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. Oh, well, it's good to have a key member of the History Hit family.

You've got so many shows still on the History Hit channel, and we're going to get you doing more soon. But you took all this time out to write your amazing book. So tell me, it's done finally. What's it like having got it done? To be honest, it was the biggest anti-climax because it was in the middle of lockdown. So everything that I thought I was going to do, I didn't do. And I just sort of

fell asleep for about a week and then woke up and I was like, well, that's done. Cool. And then it was Christmas. So it wasn't as exciting as I hoped it would be, but maybe, just maybe when it's published, it might be. The book is all about John O'Gorton, who's just maybe when it's published, it might be. The book is all about John of Gaunt, who's probably one of the most famous and important members of the royal family who never wore the crown. Why is John of Gaunt a thing? Like, I mean, there's plenty of younger sons knocking about in the Plantagenets. Why is John of Gaunt this towering figure in English and to a certain extent, European history? Well, I think it really came out of his dynasty. So John of Gaunt, as an independent figure, created a whole dynasty under his name. So he created a house in Spain,

and he also was the father of the Beauforts. And the Beauforts, as we know, went through the War of the Roses with Margaret Beaufort, and that is how the Tudor dynasty came to form. So through John of Gaunt, you have the Beauforts, you have dynasty in Spain, which I'm sure we'll go on to talk about. But then he also had, obviously his son became Henry IV, who was King of England as well. So then you also had the royal line come through him there. So he's kind of like the beacon of all of these superpowers going forward. My dad and everybody else is descended from John of Gaunt. Like what in genealogy was it about John of Gaunt?

Why don't we just say Edward III? Because John of Gaunt was Edward III's son. Why don't we all say, oh, he descended from Edward II. Is it because of the Edward II thing? I mean, like, why does everyone go, I can trace myself back to John of Gaunt? It's like, what? Yeah, I often say if I had a pound for everybody who told me that they were related to John of Gaunt, I would be having a really lovely time right now.

I mean, I would have nothing to worry about in the future. Because I'm speaking to the genealogist, Adam Rutherford, about this. And I think it was something like 42 million people are likely descended from John of Gaunt. I don't know exactly where it was in line. He thinks that there was some kind of infidelity around this period. It could be through the Beauforts. It could be somewhere else. We're not entirely sure. But yeah, there is a huge amount of people that claim to be descended from him. Some infidelity. I mean, I think there's probably a truckload of it. And I think there was a fair bit going on with Edward II and his wife. But anyway, let's not forget, Edward II's wife invaded her husband's country with her boyfriend so John of

Gaunt ignoring his fecundity and the fact that he spawned the house of Lancaster Henry IV Henry V Henry VI and then obviously the both what about him like when he was alive before everyone knew that he was this common ancestor his older brother was a rock star prince as well the black prince what was John of Gaunt's reputation was he in the shadow of his older brother was a rock star prince as well, the Black Prince. What was John of Gaunt's reputation? Was he in the shadow of his older brother? Yeah, definitely in his time. And then arguably beyond his time, we've all heard of the Black Prince. He was this sort of rock star super figure. I mean, he was in a knight's tale. He was this really cool, really talented, exciting prince. But he actually didn't live all that long. And his legacy was far less impactful than John of Gaunt's, who was his

younger brother. He had a lot more power and sway throughout his career. And his legacy was more than his older brother. The Black Prince was so popular in his time. And that is because he was the eldest son. He was the son-in-law of the super king, Edward III. He was the warrior prince. So he was the hero of Poitiers. He was the epitome of chivalry and what they considered a prince should be. And in many ways, John of Gaunt, who was considerably younger than the Black Prince in this period of time, he was eight, 10 years younger than him, but he was coached by the Black Prince in his youth. They literally lived together and they were brothers in arms. And he was massively influenced by his brother. But he was more of a politician than his brother was. His brother was an appalling politician. John of Gaunt was actually quite a good one.

But John of Gaunt was terrible at war and his brother was very good at it. So I think that that's what the difference was. And that's why the black prince was ultimately more popular and better known in history. And John, you point out in the book, he was born in Ghent. So actually Gaunt is derived from Ghent. What is the role of a younger brother at the height of Plantagenet England? I think Edward III, like many kings, he had a series of sons. John of Gaunt was his third surviving son. So he had the Black Prince and then another son called Lionel who survived into adulthood. So the role of the

younger brothers really was, for Edward III, very much was to extend Plantagenet influence throughout Europe and also within to strengthen England as a country as well. So John of Gaunt was quite soon married to Blanche of Lancaster, which is where he inherited the Duke of Lancaster title. His older brother Lionel was married into Italy before he quickly died afterwards. And then the Black Prince is a bit of an anomaly because he went and married Joan of Kent, but that's like a different story. But I think the whole point of the younger brothers was to strengthen the dynasty. And for Edward III, I think he had quite a continental ambition. I think he wanted to extend Plantagenet interest in a way that was akin to

the Angemin Empire. I think that that's what his ultimate goal was. He was an incredibly ambitious king. He was incredibly hot-headed. And I think that he pushed his sons to have that same sort of drive. And John of Gaunt, he was as loyal as a dog to his father, and he was as loyal as a dog to that interest. And that's something that he continued to pursue throughout his life. You say as loyal as dog to his father unlike some of the earlier Plantagenets the father and sons didn't get on too well. First and foremost was he a soldier like his big brother I mean the hundred years war was underway? Yeah he tried to be I think he was quite unlucky in war there wasn't actually that many battles in the hundred years war so people think of this war it must have been constant a lot of it was actually evasion was quite unlucky in war. There wasn't actually that many battles in the Hundred Years' War.

So people think of this war, it must have been constant. A lot of it was actually evasion. So the English would go into France on campaign and the French would sort of avoid them and just wait for them to get fed up and leave. That happened quite a lot. So there's actually fewer battles that happened than we might expect. The main ones, obviously, Cressy, Poitiers, those happened when John of Gaunt was quite young. He was effectively a child. One of the main battles that people don't really know about is the Battle of Najera. And that happened in 1367 in Castile. So this was John of Gaunt's only and formative experience of pitch battle. And that was the only battle that he ever fought with his older brother. So the background to that was there was a fraternal feud going on in Castile, which is Spain. So Spain at the time was made up of different kingdoms. You had like the kingdom of Navarre, you had Aragon, Castile,

and you had Portugal on the left. So because Spain was made up of all these different kingdoms, it was made that Castile was the heart of it. The centre is the largest territory. And there was this fraternal feud going on. It spilled out into Europe and then the French got involved and the English got involved. And it just all became part of the politics of the Hundred Years' War. So the English and the Black Prince took the side of King Pedro, Pedro the Cruel, as he was known for murdering his wife and other people. King Pedro, Pedro the Cruel, as he was known for murdering his wife and other people. He wasn't particularly kind. And then Enrique Trastamara, who was Pedro's bastard half-brother. So this feud ensued between them, and the French and the English kind of jumped on board either side.

And it culminated in this grand battle at Najera. So John of Gaunt led the vanguard at the Battle of Najera, along with the great John Chandos, who was one of the chroniclers at the time. And so we know quite a lot about this particular battle, and it was really vividly described in the Chronicles, and it was an English success. It all fell apart after that, because that is possibly where the Black Prince got sick, which then led on to his final illness and death. And everything sort of fell apart for the Black Prince after this battle. But for John of Gaunt, it was massive. He had this amazing experience.

He fought alongside his brother. He led the vanguard. He was victorious. And, you know, he even commissioned a poem to be written about this brotherly success. He was probably the only one that sort of felt strongly about the battle in a positive way, because afterwards it sort of fell apart for everybody else. The two brothers ended up having it out rolling about in the dust until one of them stabbed the other. And that's how it ended in Spain. So he went off and decided from that point

that Spain was going to be his focus, which kind of shifts things when you think of the Hundred Years' War. It kind of shifts things away from the interplay between France and England. But if you're a younger son of the King of England, that's a good shout. It reminds me of their Norman ancestors heading off the Mediterranean. So his father would have been quite pleased with that call. Yeah, he was. I think John of Gaunt was incredibly ambitious. I think he was forward thinking and he kept this focus throughout all of the tumult that happened in the following years after the battle. So he clung on to this

idea of expansion into Spain and he realised that Spain and Castile was an important superpower. It wasn't just about kingship in France, it was actually about looking what other large territories one could occupy, therefore expanding that Plantagenet interest. And he married a Spanish woman of royal blood and actually tried to establish himself as king. Yeah, which is remarkable, really, because that's something that people certainly don't know much about John of Gaunt. And this is where he managed to create this Spanish line going forward, the Spanish dynasty. So he married the eldest daughter of King Pedro, who fled to the court of the Balak Prince after her father was killed. She was called Constance. And she was young,

she was 17 when he married her. I should mention by this point that his first wife Blanche had died. So he was the Duke of Lancaster, but he was free to remarry and he saw an opportunity with Constance to marry her and then claim the kingship of Castile through her as her husband. her as her husband. You're listening to Dan Snow's History. We've got Helen Carr talking about John of Gaunt. More after this. Land a Viking longship

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or wherever audiobooks are sold. he invaded and it didn't go so well no so he spent 20 years between the battle of negera in england being a diplomat managing the ascension of richard ii managing the aftermath and the currency of the peasant. There's all of this politics that was loaded onto him, which he was constantly having to push back this ambition that he wanted to invade Castile. So he did try a couple of times. First time was through his younger brother. So he sent his younger brother to lead an army in his place because he was too occupied. brother to lead an army in his place because he was too occupied. He was too important in England at the time to leave the young King Richard II on the throne to fend for himself. So he sent his younger brother, Edmund of Langley, to Spain to try and conquer Castile, which was a massive

failure. So he did go finally in 1386, almost 20 years after the Battle of Nigeria, to try and lay claim to Castile himself. And it was a disaster. So he took on some Portuguese galleys from Plymouth to Galicia, which is on the coast of Castile. So it's just above Portugal. And he landed there and he first marched into Santiago de Compostela, which is kind of the equivalent of Reims in Spain. So he went into the Holy City, he was given the keys, it was all very ceremonial. But then it all fell apart because the Trastamaran king, Juan, who was the son of Enrique, who had died by now,

he applied scorched earth policy and he basically stripped the land of everything and pulled all of the supplies, all of the people, all of the food sources into castles, which basically peppered Castile at the time, so all these fortifications. So John of Gaunt, despite having prepared immensely for this campaign, taking a contingent of knights and young men with him, Thomas Chaucer went on this campaign. He was ultimately unsuccessful because the heat was a massive problem. This was armies that were used to fighting in France.

It's a very different climate when you're in the centre, in the dust and parched land of central Spain in July and August. It's pretty uncomfortable when you're in armour. They had real problems and they couldn't find water sources, they couldn't find food. They were forced to ally with the Portuguese. That didn't work. And there was these descriptions of Portuguese soldiers having no food that they were looking inside birds' nests to try and eat the remains of whatever eggs and things might be in there. And John Fosser, who is a well-known chronicler of the 14th century, describes the heat setting in in the day and these men becoming thirsty and drinking strong red wines. And they're used to drinking things like ale and just becoming so dehydrated and drunker and drunker. And then

they pass out and they wake up in the middle of the night, freezing cold. And John of Gaunt, he couldn't control the eco-structure, he couldn't control the climate. And effectively, this just laid the opportunity for an epidemic to set in. And it did, and it claimed about a third, if not more, even half of his army. And it was all very tragic, because he ended up in the state of melancholy, I think. He wouldn't come out of his tent and he was in a state of depression, possibly even sickness himself. And it forced his men just to flee. And they were trying to obtain passage back through Navarre, having to ask permission from the Castilian king. And John of Gaunt eventually had to admit defeat and he handed his crown to the Castilian King and then he never went back. So it was actually very tragic and a very, very sad

story of a wasted 20 years of his life. But his daughter, by his Castilian sort of princess queen, his daughter would marry back into that royal family and eventually produce people like Catherine of Aragon. Amazing. So the royal line springs from him, the royal line of Castile. Let's come back to England because he's there in England doing all sorts of important things, notably the peasant revolt, which you made a film about for History Hit. How important is he as his father, Edward III kind of declines towards the end of life, doesn't he? And then the Black Prince predeceases him. How important is John in that period politically in England? He's so important.

He's practically leading the country at this point. And I really feel for him at this stage in his life because he's got his brother who is so unwell that he's having to be carried about on a litter. John of Gaunt has literally just spent the last year to two years in France trying to clean up the mess that is Aquitaine and the prince's court at Bordeaux. He's trying to claim back territory that rebel barons have abandoned to the French from English lands in Aquitaine, these hard fought lands. He's been busy. So he

comes back to England. The brat prince is incredibly sick. But then Edward III is also increasingly unwell. He's suffering a series of strokes. He is just starting to lose control of the country. His queen has died. He's embroiled in quite a consuming relationship with his mistress, Alice Peres. So John of Gaunt is left to face the wrath of the Commons himself, which is what led to what is called the Good Parliament, which is the longest parliament that ever ran in history. I think it went on for something like three months. And it was only because the King Edward III had been proroguing parliament for so long that it finally came to this climatic head and all of the corruption that had been happening within the king's inner circle started to emerge. And John of Gaunt was left to deal with

that whilst his brother was incredibly sick. He actually even died during the Good Parliament. So he was left to manage all of this rage and deal with all of the country's politics whilst having to process the grief of losing his brother, who he was incredibly close to. And then shortly after the good parliament, only a year later, his father died as well. So everything would have fallen on his shoulders and he had to arrange the funeral of his father and then also the ascension of his nephew within the space of weeks. I should ask, by the way, John of Gaunt would have been a kid under the age of 10 when the Black Death first came to England. Do we know anything about how his family fared or how he

fared during those waves of bubonic plague? There was nobody who was fully protected from the Black Death. Of course, peasant classes and the lower classes were hideously affected, but he definitely was. And there are some references to him. I believe when the first wave hit in 1348-9, he was in York and he took sanctuary in St. Mary's Abbey in York with his brother. And his sister, Joan, she was a victim of the Black Death. So she was travelling as it was coming into England, she was actually travelling over to France. She was going to be the bride of the later King Pedro the Cruel. So I don't know what fate would have been better for her in a way, but

she was going to be the bride of Pedro. And so she was going over into France, going to cross over to Spain when she and her cohort became sick with the plague. And later in his life, there is evidence and sources of John of Gaunt endowing an obit, which is a sort of continuing pious demonstration of affection to his sister, even though he wouldn't have known her for much of his life. So I think that he was very conscious of the people close to him who had been affected by the epidemic. Right. We did a bit of a detour there to the pandemic because it's on all our minds, at the moment. Tell me, how responsible is he for the Peasants' Revolt and how did he survive? But how did his property fare during the revolt? Yeah, I feel like he gets a really bad

rap with the Peasants' Revolt because a lot of people think he was incredibly unpopular. And that's true to an extent, but he was incredibly unpopular in certain areas of the country, most particularly in London. The city hated him. He was unpopular with the merchant classes because he did not like their power over government at the time and the amount of influence they wielded over the young king and the way that the government was run. Because they had the money, that's where all of the wealth of England was coming in from at the time, the wool trade, etc. So they had a lot of power, but he was a royalist. He really believed in royal power, royal authority. And that came up again and again throughout his life and was a point of contention.

So he was very unpopular in London. He was unpopular with the commons in London. Elsewhere in the country, he was quite popular. He was a very good land owner. He looked after his tenants. He was a good feudal overlord. He was respected. And when the Peasants' Revolt kicked off, actually tenants on his lands often defended him and defended his property. However, that was very different in London. So John of Gaunt, fortunately for him, was up in Berwick on the border of Scotland dealing with Anglo-Scottish relations and peace treaty at the time when the revolt kicked off. So he left the Savoy Palace, which was his main residence in London, which was this Lancastrian property that he had inherited,

which was on the bank of the Thames. So if people know London now, it's exactly where the Savoy Hotel is. And I would really recommend if anyone who's listening wants to just go and have a walk around, do go and walk around the streets around there because there are so many unassuming reminders of the Savoy Palace. There's even a pub called John of Gaunt's Tap or something like that and this portrait hangs. But it was this massive vicinity. It was so wealthy and it was this camelot type palace that loomed over the Thames it was crenellated it had these whitewashed walls it had roses growing in the garden rumour has it that it was the red rose of Lancaster that grew in the Savoy Palace gardens it was an incredibly beautiful palace it's so sad that it was destroyed so John of Gaunt left London May. That was the last time that he was at the Savoy Palace to move up to Scotland. And the revolt happened in June. So Londoners, it was London specific conting, you know, expensive bedding, tapestries,

jewels, plate, so things like cups and plates, silver. And they created a pyre of goods that belonged to John of Gaunt. Anybody that tried to steal anything, and there was a lot of wealth inside this palace, anyone that was trying to steal anything was attacked by their own contingent. And they said the whole point was to destroy the rich, not their own contingent. And they said the whole point was to destroy the rich, not steal from the rich. And they really wanted to make an example of John of Gaunt. They found his clothing. They took what was called a jack, which is a sort of jacket surcoat type item of clothing, and they stuck it on a pike. And according to the Chronicle sources, they shot arrows at it and they hacked at it with axes and a really aggressive attack on his person, you know, even though he couldn't be there.

What they weren't aware of was that some of the items that they were loading onto this pyre of goods included gunpowder. So barrels that they assumed were goods or jewels, they pushed onto this pyre. they assumed were goods or jewels, they pushed onto this pyre. And as they lit fires all around the Great Hall, which they did in many of the properties that they destroyed in London, it ignited and it really just engulfed the entire hall. And I think what's a remarkable story about this particular section is that there was a contingent of rebels who had found their way into the cellars where John of Gaunt kept all of his delicious wine from Gascony, as the nobility did at that time. And they got really drunk and they basically had a party in the cellars. But then as the Great Hall and the walls of the Savoy came crashing down on them, they became trapped. And there's this rather

macabre description of the voices and screams of the rebels being trapped underneath the Savoy Palace. But what I think is remarkable is this was the largest amount of destruction done to one property during the Peasants' Revolt. And he never rebuilt it as well, which I think shows, for me, his attitude towards London going forward and the fact that he wanted to absent himself from the city. And I don't think that he felt like he could or should have property there thereafter. Not the first or the last monarch who didn't feel at home in the commercial capital. What about his last wife? And it's a remarkable relationship with the most famous Englishman of the 14th century. the most famous Englishman of the 14th century.

His last wife is the subject of many people's fascination and admiration. Catherine Swinford was his long-term mistress. So she first appears in the records as the maestress of his daughters from his first marriage to Blanche. And she was the wife of one of his retainers, Hugh Swinford, who died in service in Aquitaine. After Hugh Swinford's death, after the death of Blanche of Lancaster, at some point when John of Gaunt had returned with his new wife, Constance, they began a relationship. And it was through Catherine that the Beauforts were born so they had a number of children together a number of Beaufort children including the ancestors of

Margaret Beaufort and the Tudors later on but Catherine I think was remarkable because she was a low low order nobility her father Pandaroe was a member of Queen Philippa of Hainaut's gage. He was a warrior. Her and her elder sister, Philippa, were really just taken under the wing of the queen as a charitable offering when they were children. So that's how they became sort of connected to the royal court. And her older sister, Philippa, actually married Geoffrey Chaucer. So that's quite a well-known connection as well. And that's how Chaucer became John of Gaunt's later brother-in-law.

Like any woman in this period, there's not a lot about her. They had a close relationship. They had a very open relationship. He treated her as if she were his wife. She had apartments at Kenilworth Castle, which was his main castle building project at the time in the 1370s. And she went everywhere with him. They were always together. He was incredibly public with her, which I think on his part was quite feckless.

I don't think he really cared what was being said about their relationship because he was so powerful. This was a point when he was the most powerful man in the country. His nephew was on the throne, but his nephew was practically still a child. I mean, he was really running the show. And so people didn't really dare to say anything. And it was really only after the Peasants' Revolt that things changed. And that was that there was a dramatic severing of ties between John of Gaunt and Catherine Swinford at that point. Because he had to change his whole outlook, it was made very plain to him that he was an unpopular magnate. He was an unpopular man.

And if he didn't make some changes, this could go really, really wrong. I mean, he had retainers, he had lost men during the Peasants' Revolt in Coldblood. People were really furious with him and he had to do something about it. So one of the notable things that he did was end his relationship with Catherine. And it's clear he did that because they'd certainly had no more children. There is actually a record that does state that she is no longer in his service and she is given some property elsewhere and she goes and lives quietly in Lincoln. But I think that he always had a lot of respect for her. He sent her wine for her household. He allowed her to have all of her property in her own name. And I think that they retained a mutual admiration

and friendship that endured. And also I think what I found was a really emotional point was in his register shortly after the Peasants' Revolt, about a month afterwards, he had a shrine built to St Catherine in Knaresborough after their relationship ended. So I think that that does demonstrate that he felt very strongly for her. And then, of course, later on, 20 years later down the line, very romantic, nearing the end of his life, he sweeps off her feet and they get married.

It's a very romantic notion to think, oh, well, you know, this her feet and they get married, is a very narromantic notion to think, oh, well, you know, this must be because they're madly in love. But I think in a way it was really to secure his dynasty. And I think that he wanted to legitimise the Beauforts, who were illegitimate at this point. And he appealed to the King, to Richard II, to legitimise them. And I think marrying Catherine, he felt like it was the dutiful thing to do. It wasn't so much about having an immediate heir because he had one with Henry IV, but I think that he felt he demonstrated penitence towards the ends of his life. And I think that it was wrapped up in that. So let's finish up. I want to ask, did John of Gaunt's son, Henry Bolingbroke,

invaded after John of Gaunt's death, stole the crownbroke, invaded after John of Gaunt's death, stole the crown off his cousin, Richard II. Do you think John of Gaunt would have approved of that? Did John of Gaunt have royal ambitions for his son? It's such a dramatic ending. And I loved writing this because it just felt so fast and it felt so writable and narrative and so tied up with emotions as well. And so Henry Bolingbroke was exiled to France at the end of his father's life. And then when John of Gaunt died, having not been able to

have his son at his side when he died, and Henry Bolingbroke finding out that his father had finally passed away and that his cousin had almost seemed glad about it. And then finding out that his cousin Richard II had stripped him of all of his duchy property and title, which is a huge amount of land and wealth. So he comes and he's given a choice and he is actually even beseeched by members of the nobility, come and take back your property, come and take back your right. Richard, he was a bit mad. He wasn't a great king. He was unpopular. There had already been rebellions against his rule. So Henry had a decision to make and he could either take back the Lancastrian lands, take back his father's efforts to build these lands and maintain these lands as Lancastrian, or he could

sit back and stay quiet and be loyal, which his father had always been. So it was a real catch-22. It's like he couldn't really win. I think that John of Gaunt was a royalist. He was loyal, and he swore on his brother's deathbed that he would protect the interests of Richard. So I don't think that he would ever have recommended that his son did that. But I think that his son did do the right thing. Interesting. Interesting. You're a House of Lancaster girl. Fascinating. Well, thank you very much for coming on the podcast. What is the book called? It's called The Red Prince, and it's out on the 15th of April. Thank you very much, Helen, for coming on the podcast.

Thank you for having me. I hope you enjoyed the podcast. Just before you go, bit of a favour to ask. I totally understand if you don't want to become a subscriber or pay me any cash money. Makes sense.

But if you could just do me a favour, it's for free. Go to iTunes or wherever you get your podcast. If you give it a five-star rating and give it an absolutely glowing review, purge yourself, give it a glowing review. I'd really appreciate that. It's tough weather, the law of the jungle out there, and I need all the fire support I can get. So that will boost it up the charts. It's so tiresome, but if you could do it, I'd be very, very grateful. Thank you. up the charts. It's so tiresome, but if you could do it, I'd be very, very grateful. Thank you. Douglas Adams, the genius behind The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy,

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