The Death of the Duchess: Katherine Swynford (1350? - May 10, 1403)

Life was a whirl and a blur following Katherine's 1396 marriage to John of Gaunt, a marriage which made the great ladies of the land positively aghast with sputtering indignation (including, improbably, her daughter-in-law Mary de Bohun, wife of Gaunt's son Henry of Derby and Bolingbrook:  Froissart had a habit of getting things like names wrong, unfortunately, as in this instance; dear Mary de Bohun had died two years prior, as had Richard II's beloved Queen Anne of Bohemia).

Katherine's town house near Lincoln Cathedral, with its fine oriel window, a still largely medieval structure on Pottergate where she retired following the death of John of Gaunt in 1399.  (Photo (c) Carolyn Rust)

After the death of Richard II's first queen, Katherine found herself first lady in the realm.  As such, she was the leading lady to provide welcome to the little child-bride of Richard, Isabella of Valois, to England, giving the new queen expensive gifts that were child-sized.

Richard II tenderly displays affection for his young French bride.

The new bride was married to Richard in Calais, on all Saints Day; Katherine Swynford, Duchess of Lancaster, was on hand to greet and accompany Isabella to her wedding to Richard and Isabella soon spent time shuttling between the households/courts of Eleanor de Bohun, Duchess of Gloucester, and the Lady Katherine, Duchess of Lancaster for the duration of her queenly childhood.

Isabella's marriage, at the tender age of 5 or 6, to Richard was not popular in England.  Clearly before the canonical age of consent for marriage and intercourse, and despite Richard's being charmed by her such that the child was formally crowned queen in January of 1397, she would obviously not be bearing an heir to the English throne anytime soon.  Her fairy tale wedding carried in a litter with cloth of gold accompanied by the great Duchess of Lancaster in a magnificent tented city in which Richard and Isabella's father strove to out-do the other, despite her coronation shortly after both Katherine's own marriage to the Duke an hers to the King, Isabella would be a widow at ten years of age.

Perhaps Katherine, who clearly knew something of unpopular royal unions, was of assistance in consoling the girl and providing her charge with the knowledge she herself had learned as a long, hard price of marrying a prince.  Isabella's trousseau included her French dolls.  Yet she was of strong mind in her marriage to her prince, reportedly saying she was happy for it (at the age of six!) because she had been told that she 'would be a great Lady then.'

Richard's internal political affairs disrupted what might have been a long, mutually affectionate and productive union.  But he had his sights set on his uncle John of Gaunt's heir -- Henry of Derby/Bolingbrook, whom he'd banished and then changed the terms of the banishment and forfeiture of inheritance to life.  Suddenly, life for everyone around him had changed.

Richard II:  A True King's Fall
Froissart's Chroniques