Mistress of the Monarchy (6 page)

Alongside the Church, the State, in the form of the King, the lords in council, Parliament and the administration, governed the lives of the population. The King, whose sovereignty had the almost supernatural authority of a crowned priest, was responsible for maintaining the peace of his realm, for defending it from invasion, and for administering justice to all in the form of good laws.

In the fourteenth century, England was ruled by the Plantagenets, a dynasty of generally vigorous and able monarchs who had kept a largely unbroken grip on their realm since 1154, when the dynamic Henry II had succeeded to the throne. The name Plantagenet derives from the nickname given to Henry II’s father, Geoffrey, Count of Anjou, who habitually wore a broom flower —
planta genista
— in his hat. The name was not actually used as a royal surname until the fifteenth century.

Henry II had married Eleanor of Aquitaine, the greatest heiress in Europe, and through her had acquired the rich Duchy of Aquitaine and the County of Poitou; he already held the Duchy of Normandy, which he had inherited from his great-grandfather, William the Conqueror, who had established his Norman dynasty in England in 1066; and he was Count of Anjou, which he had inherited from his father. Thus he was master of all the land from the Scottish border to the Pyrenees. But Henry’s great empire did not long survive him. The ineptitude of his son, King John, and the aggressive determination of successive French monarchs to gain control of the Plantagenet dominions, resulted in the loss of Normandy and Anjou, and by the fourteenth century, England’s territory in France consisted of a couple of northern towns and a much-reduced Duchy of Aquitaine that centred largely upon Bordeaux, Gascony and parts of the Dordogne region.

As we will see, it was Edward III, who succeeded to the throne in 1327 and to whose court Katherine came nearly thirty years later, who had the audacity to claim the throne of France itself, which he insisted was his in right of his mother, Isabella, the sister of the last surviving kings of the House of Capet. But the French had no desire to see an Englishman on their throne, for England and France had long been traditional enemies, and they chose a member of the royal House of Valois as their monarch. Thus began a war that famously was to last for a hundred years, a war that would have a profound effect, not only in western Europe, but also on the life of Katherine Swynford herself.

By May 1355, as has been noted, Katherine’s brother, Walter de Roët, had joined the Black Prince’s household as a yeoman of the Chamber.
⁵⁴
This was a brilliant opportunity for a young man, as the Prince enjoyed an international reputation as a chivalric hero and warrior that was second
to none. He was ‘the comfort of England’, ‘the flower of chivalry of all the world’,
⁵⁵
and ‘for as long as he lived and flourished, his good fortune in battle, like that of a second Hector, was feared by all races’.
⁵⁶
Already, at twenty-five, he was a legend.

Born in 1330, the sixteen-year-old Edward of Woodstock had won his spurs in 1346 at the Battle of Crécy, in which he ‘magnificently performed’ astounding feats of arms.
⁵⁷
He was ‘fair, lusty and well-formed’, brave, intelligent, charismatic and inspirational. His sixteenth-century nickname — it is not known to have been used earlier — probably derived from the black armour he is said to have worn, but it could equally well have described his vicious and much-feared temper. He could be — it has to be said — impatient, arrogant, and capable of great cruelty.

The Prince’s household provided an environment in which any aspiring young man would have been gratified to be placed. He spent lavishly on his residences, notably his palace at Kennington in Surrey, and lived in great splendour and luxury. He loved tournaments, hunting, gambling and women, and fathered at least four bastards. His admiring contemporaries, whose priorities were those of the fourteenth century and not the twenty-first, regarded him as the epitome of knighthood.

Before 9 May 1355, the Black Prince arranged for two of his retainers, Walter de Roët and Sir Eustace d’Aubrécicourt, to deliver letters to his aunt, the Countess Margaret, in Hainault, and to one of her clerks, Stephen Maulyons, provost of the church of Mons. Maulyons owed the Prince £40, but Edward ordered him to divide it equally and pay it ‘as a gift’ to Walter and Sir Eustace; £20 was a munificent sum — today it would be worth £7,800 — so Walter was clearly highly regarded by his employer. The Prince gave Walter forty shillings (about £780) for his travelling expenses on 10 May, so either a long trip was anticipated — you could never be sure how long a Channel crossing might take — or Walter was to travel in some comfort. By September, Walter had returned from his mission, for that month he accompanied the Black Prince, now King’s Lieutenant in Aquitaine, on a military expedition to the Duchy,
⁵⁸
and he may well have fought under the Prince in 1356 when Edward won a great victory over the French at the Battle of Poitiers and captured John II, King of France himself, thus further enhancing his dazzling reputation. It is possible that Walter was killed at Poitiers, because no more is heard of him. In 1411, Katherine’s son, Sir Thomas Swynford, laid claim to lands in Hainault that he had inherited from his mother on her death in 1403; had Walter de Roët been alive in 1403, those lands would have passed to him, not to the heirs of his sisters.
⁵⁹

* * *

It is often claimed that Philippa de Roët was placed by the Queen in the household of her daughter-in-law, the Countess of Ulster, around August 1355. Elizabeth de Burgh, Countess of Ulster in her own right and a former ward of the Queen, was then twenty-three, and had been married to the King’s second surviving son, the blond giant Lionel of Antwerp, since 1342, he taking the title Earl of Ulster in her right. There was indeed a girl called Philippa in the Countess’s service at this time, and she had perhaps been engaged to help care for her mistress’s first and only child, yet another Philippa, who was born on 16 August 1355 at Eltham Palace in Kent. This girl’s name was Philippa Pan.

For a long while, historians did entertain doubts as to whether Philippa Pan was Philippa de Roët. These doubts arose from the use of the abbreviated name ‘Philippa Pan.’ in the fragmentary accounts that survive for the Countess’s household.
⁶⁰
On 24 July 1356, a payment was made for the making of trimmings for the clothes of ‘Philippa Pan.’; the following year, the Countess paid 2s.6d (£37) ‘for the fashioning of one tunic’ for her, and in December 1357, gave a serving boy 12d (£15) to escort Philippa Pan. from a place called ‘Pullesdone’ to Hatfield in Yorkshire, where Earl Lionel and his wife were to keep Christmas. In April 1358, the Countess Elizabeth presented Philippa Pan. with a bodice and some furs to wear at the great feast given to mark St George’s Day. This is the last mention of Philippa Pan in the accounts, which come to an abrupt end in November 1359.

In recent years, several historians have subscribed to the theory that Pan. stands for ‘Philippa, Paon de Roët’s daughter’, or ‘Philippa, Panetto’s daughter’, Panetto being the name by which Paon de Roët was familiarly known at court;
⁶¹
this theory seems rather far-fetched and contrived, especially since the Christian names of women in royal households were almost invariably accompanied by their surnames in accounts, registers and official documents. So the ‘evidence’ connecting Philippa Pan with the Roëts is slender indeed.

Who was she, then? It was at one time thought that Pan was short for
panetaria
, or Mistress of the Pantry, but it was virtually unheard of for such a post to be held by a woman, and there is no other instance of the word
panetaria
being thus abbreviated. Besides, a woman serving as Mistress of the Pantry would never be provided with furs by her mistress.
⁶²

Pan. is probably an abbreviation for a surname, and the most convincing theory is that this Philippa was the daughter or kinswoman of a London mercer, William de la Panetrie (who died between 1349 and 1367), who lived in Soper Lane at the east end of Cheapside, in the parish of St Pancras. The Panetries were acquainted with the prosperous Chaucer family, who lived nearby in Thames Street in the Vintry Ward, and who
had managed to place a son in the Countess Elizabeth’s household;
⁶³
this son was a highly gifted youth who was not only to become famous in his own right, but would also play an important part in the lives of Philippa de Roët and Katherine Swynford. His name was Geoffrey Chaucer, he had been born probably between 1339 and 1346, and he is renowned today as one of the greatest English poets who ever lived. Finding Philippa Pan in the same household as Geoffrey Chaucer lends weight to the theory that she was a Panetrie by birth, and that she had perhaps obtained her place by recommendation. As for her link with ‘Pullesdone’ — a place that cannot conclusively be identified — she could have been performing an official errand for her mistress, visiting relatives prior to Christmas, or accompanying a family member on business there; London merchants had far-flung interests.

Geoffrey Chaucer was the son of a rich and influential London vintner, and he is first recorded as a page in the household of the Countess Elizabeth on 4 April 1357, when she purchased shoes, black and red breeches and one of those short, revealing jackets called a ‘paltock’ (to which hose and sleeves could be attached) for ‘Galfridus Chaucer’ of London. The following month, she gave him two shillings (£30). He is last mentioned in these accounts in December, when he was present at the Christmas gathering at Hatfield and received a grant of 3s.6d (£52) for necessities.

From 1357 to 1359, Chaucer appears to have served Lionel of Antwerp, possibly as a page. In 1359, having received arms and become a squire — he was never knighted — he served in Edward III’s army against the French, and was captured at the siege of Rheims. The King himself paid his considerable ransom of £16 (£5,489) — which must demonstrate the high regard in which he was already held by the royal family — and he was freed by October 1360, when he brought a letter to England from Lionel of Antwerp, who was at that time in Calais. Chaucer then disappears from the historical record for six years. There has been much learned speculation about what happened to him during this period: that he was perhaps studying at Oxford (as his son Lewis later did) or Cambridge, or at the Inner Temple, a theory suggested by his signing himself ‘attorney’ in the 1390s — his writings reveal that he had a good knowledge of the law. Chaucer may have transferred to John of Gaunt’s household,
⁶⁴
although there is no record of this, yet he was certainly on familiar terms with John of Gaunt by 1368, and John did later award him a life annuity. What is likeliest is that when Lionel of Antwerp went to Ireland to serve as the King’s Lieutenant there in September 1361,
⁶⁵
taking his wife and daughter with him, Geoffrey Chaucer went with them. Lionel was created Duke of Clarence in 1362. Tragically, Elizabeth de Burgh died in Dublin on 10 December 1363.

Geoffrey Chaucer possibly returned to England in 1364, perhaps as a member of the party who were escorting little Philippa of Clarence to her grandmother’s household, where she would be brought up. It may have been on his return that he entered upon a period of study at university or the Inns of Court.
⁶⁶
It is possible too that he was sponsored by a member of the royal family, possibly John of Gaunt, who is known to have maintained several students at Oxford.
⁶⁷

So if Philippa de Roët was not the Philippa Pan recorded in the Countess of Ulster’s household in 1356–8, where was she? The likeliest place was the Queen’s own household, and the probability is that she was brought up there with her sister; by 1366, she had been appointed a
damoi-selle
of the Queen’s Chamber, where her duties would increasingly have involved nursing her ailing mistress: after a riding accident in 1360, in which she possibly suffered internal injuries that were never treated, Queen Philippa’s health declined, and her enforced immobility caused her legs to swell, which her contemporaries diagnosed as ‘dropsy’.

By 1366, Katherine de Roët had left the Queen’s household; it may have been as early as 1360 that she was placed by Philippa in the chamber of the latter’s daughter-in-law, Blanche, Duchess of Lancaster, Katherine’s former playmate, now the wife of John of Gaunt. And within two to three years of joining the Duchess’s establishment, Katherine was probably married to Sir Hugh Swynford, one of John of Gaunt’s knights.

D
uring her childhood, Katherine had benefited from the tutelage and example of Queen Philippa; now she was to come under the admirable influence of another great lady, the new Duchess of Lancaster, who was about eight years her senior and one of her former companions in the Queen’s household.

The exquisite Blanche of Lancaster was the daughter of the King’s cousin, the ‘valiant’ and ‘well-respected’ Henry of Grosmont, Duke of Lancaster.
¹
While Edward III was the grandson of Edward I, Duke Henry was the grandson of Edward I’s younger brother, Edmund Crouchback, who had been created Earl of Lancaster in 1267 and died in 1296. Earl Edmund’s eldest son, Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, had been executed for treason in 1322 by Edward II, but his younger brother, blind Henry, had been restored to the earldom two years later. Duke Henry was the latter’s son. He had succeeded his father as Earl of Lancaster in 1345, and been created Duke in 1351, the second man in the realm ever to be raised to ducal rank, the first being the Black Prince, who had been created Duke of Cornwall in 1337.

Henry of Grosmont, who could have doubled for Chaucer’s ‘perfect, gentle knight’, was the greatest nobleman in the kingdom. Not only was he Duke of Lancaster, but also Earl of Derby, Earl of Leicester, Earl of Lincoln, and Lord of Beaufort and Nogent in France. Consequently, his landed interests were vast. He was the greatest of the magnates, an experienced and masterly general, and utterly loyal to the King, who thought very highly of him and treated him as a valued friend. The Duke was a tall and imposing figure, genial and suave. He liked the fine things in life: good food and wine, luxurious and tasteful surroundings, and the robust charms of common women.
²
Yet he was also temperate, pious and charitable, the founder of many religious houses, churches and hospitals.