Was Katherine Swynford Really a “She-Devil”?

How Lincoln cathedral choir to promote Katherine Swynford tours

Looking at the information apropos the 2026  Lincoln Cathedral Katherine Swynford tours I was struck by the descriptions of Katherine used.

“Sorceress.”

“She-devil and enchantress.”

“Unspeakable concubine.”

“An adulterer and pursuer of luxury.”

These phrases are not inventions. Hostile commentary directed at Katherine appears in late fourteenth-century political discourse, particularly during the period surrounding the Good Parliament of 1376 and subsequent anti-Lancastrian agitation (Goodman, 1992; Saul, 1997).

But quotation is not interpretation.When such language is foregrounded without contextual framing, it risks reproducing factional rhetoric rather 

John of Gaunt was the wealthiest and most powerful magnate in England for much of Richard II’s reign. Criticism of Gaunt frequently surfaced in parliamentary complaint and popular unrest (Goodman, 1992; Saul, 1997). Women associated with political power in the later Middle Ages were often attacked through moralised and gendered language — accusations of sorcery, sexual manipulation, or corrupting influence were common tropes (Barron, 1984; Walker, 1990).

The language used about Katherine reflects this political climate. It tells us more about factional hostility and anxieties surrounding Gaunt’s influence than about Katherine’s documented conduct.

To present such rhetoric without explanation risks perpetuating precisely the narrative constructed by her opponents.

More Than a Mistress

Katherine married John of Gaunt at Lincoln in January 1396. The marriage was public and canonically valid (Goodman, 1992). Following their union, she became Duchess of Lancaster — the highest-ranking noblewoman in England outside the royal family.

Her four Beaufort children, born before the marriage, were legitimated by papal bull (1396) and confirmed by royal letters patent (1397) (Given-Wilson and Curteis, 1984). Through the Beaufort line, she stands in the ancestry of the Tudor dynasty and, by extension, the present monarch These are not marginal details.

Rehabilitation and Respectability

By the end of her life, Katherine was not a political scandal but a recognised duchess and widow of Gaunt. She was buried with dignity in Lincoln Cathedral in 1403, and her daughter Joan Beaufort was later interred nearby (Goodman, 1992).Her chantry foundation and burial location signal status, not disgrace. If fourteenth-century England could accommodate her rehabilitation, modern heritage interpretation can surely manage nuance.

The Responsibility of Heritage

It is I personally believe important that any use of this type of language is balanced by recognising Katherine Swynford was:

• Duchess of Lancaster
• A substantial landholder
• Political consort to the realm’s most powerful magnate
• Matriarch of the Beaufort line
• Ancestress of later ruling dynasties

Reducing her primarily to the language of scandal risks replicating medieval propaganda rather than illuminating it.

History deserves proportion, and so does Katherine.

References

Barron, C.M. (1984) ‘The Good Parliament and the Peasants’ Revolt’, in Hilton, R. and Aston, T.H. (eds.) The English Rising of 1381. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Given-Wilson, C. and Curteis, A. (1984) The Royal Bastards of Medieval England. London: Routledge.

Goodman, A. (1992) John of Gaunt: The Exercise of Princely Power in Fourteenth-Century Europe. London: Longman.

Saul, N. (1997) Richard II. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Walker, S. (1990) ‘Political Saints? Women and Power in Late Medieval England’, History Today, 40(6), pp. 14–20.

Lincoln Cathedral Katherine Swynford tours summer 2026

 The dates for these fascinating tours have been announced.

I can highly recommend them and the opportunity to visit one of Katherine’s homes is an incredible privilege.

They do sell out very quickly so time is of the essence for anyone interested 

https://lincolncathedral.com/events/katherine-swynford-tour/

Katherine and Joan: Tombs, Memory, and the Responsibilities of Interpretation

My photos from this morning: To get remotely decent images involves standing on tip toe ( I am over six feet tall) and sticking my camera through the railings!

I am currently undertaking research into the tombs of Katherine and her daughter Joan, with the aim of better understanding both their original form and the subsequent history of alteration, movement, and interpretation. In the course of this work, I have identified nineteenth-century correspondence in the Lincolnshire Archives relating to proposals to “restore” the tombs. In practice, these proposals amounted to a speculative recreation in a highly ornamental neo-Gothic style which, even by contemporary standards, risked imposing a visually intrusive and historically misleading narrative onto the monuments.

What survives today, however, raises a different set of concerns. The tombs as presently displayed are poorly labelled and difficult to view, and they do little to communicate the historic and cultural significance of two women who were central to both the story of Lincoln Cathedral and the wider dynastic history of England. Their importance is not immediately legible to visitors, and the current presentation offers little sense of context, biography, or continuity.

Issues of access and interpretation further undermine the visitor experience. A chair permanently obstructs the view of the tombs, a frequent and avoidable frustration for those wishing to engage with the monuments, while the associated interpretative material is sparse, visually unengaging, and of limited explanatory value. From a heritage perspective, this represents a missed opportunity to support informed understanding and meaningful engagement with the site.

It is well established that the chantry itself has undergone significant alteration. The canopy visible today is not original, and documentary and visual evidence confirms that the tombs, which were originally positioned side by side, are now arranged end to end. The precise date and circumstances of this reconfiguration remain unclear.

What can be stated with confidence is that as late as 1640 the tombs still occupied their original positions. This is demonstrated by the drawings produced by William Dugdale during his systematic recording of English ecclesiastical monuments in the years immediately preceding the Civil War (Dugdale, 1656). Dugdale’s work was undertaken in anticipation of iconoclastic damage and has long been recognised as a vital source for monuments that were later altered, displaced, or destroyed.

The subsequent relocation of Katherine’s and Joan’s tombs appears to be undocumented. By 1809, however, an illustration by the architectural draughtsman John Buckler shows the tombs already arranged in their current end-to-end configuration (Buckler, 1809). This suggests that the alteration took place sometime between the mid-seventeenth and early nineteenth centuries, representing a substantial intervention in the spatial and visual coherence of the chantry for which no explanatory record has yet been identified.

Taken together, this raises important questions about curatorial responsibility, interpretative transparency, and commemorative intent. I feel strongly that there is a compelling case for the cathedral to do more to recognise and present these monuments appropriately: to acknowledge their complex material history; to make visible the changes they have undergone; and to tell the stories of Katherine and Joan in a way that reflects their historical significance. These are not marginal figures, and their memorials should be interpreted and displayed accordingly.

⸻

References (Harvard style)

Buckler, J. (1809) Views of the Cathedral Church of Lincoln. London.

Dugdale, W. (1656) The Antiquities of Warwickshire Illustrated. London: Thomas Warren.

Further reading this afternoon has proved fruitful, The Monasticom vol iii of 1672 shows the tombs in their current position. This is likely as a result of clearing up the mess created in 1644.

This appears to confirm that the tombs have been in this position from at least this date.

The next question being were the bodies moved with the tombs!

   The Monasticon Anglicanum is a seventeenth-century record of England’s religious buildings, compiled by William Dugdale

   It preserves early descriptions and images of churches and monuments that were already changing or disappearing.

Interior of Lincoln Cathedral (Angel Choir) as recorded in the seventeenth century. The image shows the cathedral interior by the time of Dugdale’s Monasticon Anglicanum and provides general context for the later position of the Swynford tombs.

Image: Wikimedia Commons (after Wenceslaus Hollar).

What Happened to the Jewels of the Lancaster Women?

Medieval gold posy ring, England, late 14th–15th century (Portable Antiquities Scheme). Rings inscribed with brief phrases invoking love, loyalty, or fate were widely worn in later medieval England. While such rings are sometimes associated—by tradition rather than evidence—with named historical figures, most survive without identifiable owners, illustrating how personal jewellery circulated and lost attribution over time.

Licence: Creative Commons (PAS / British Museum via Wikimedia Commons)

Medieval gold finger ring set with a sapphire, England, 14th century (Portable Antiquities Scheme). Gem-set rings of this type were fashionable among the gentry and nobility during the period associated with the Lancastrian household. Comparable in form to the ring traditionally attributed to Katherine Swynford, this example demonstrates the style and materials without implying personal ownership.

Licence: Creative Commons (PAS / British Museum via Wikimedia Commons)

I have often asked myself the seemingly deceptively simple question: where are their jewels? When we imagine Lancastrian women, we tend to picture necklaces heavy with sapphires, rings bright with heraldry, crowns worked in gold. Such objects feel as though they ought to have survived. And yet, when we look for jewellery that can be securely associated with women such as Blanche of Lancaster, Katherine Swynford, or Joan Beaufort, we find almost nothing at all.

This absence is not accidental. It is itself historical evidence.

In the later Middle Ages, jewellery was not cherished as a personal keepsake or preserved as an heirloom in the modern sense. It was power made portable: worn to display rank, exchanged to secure loyalty, pawned to fund households or wars, reset to suit a new marriage or a changing political moment. For women in particular, jewellery functioned less as private adornment than as a visible marker of marital status, legitimacy, and dynastic position. It belonged to the lineage as much as to the woman who wore it (Cherry, 1992; Laynesmith, 2004).

Blanche of Lancaster brought immense wealth into her marriage with John of Gaunt, and contemporary inventories leave no doubt about the richness of her possessions (Walker, 1994). Yet nothing identifiable as Blanche’s jewellery survives. On her death, such items passed swiftly back into the Lancastrian sphere: to her husband, to her children, or into the wider circulation of the ducal household. Her jewels did their work and then dissolved into continuity. The woman remains visible in record and memory; the objects do not.

Katherine Swynford presents a similar, and in some ways more striking, case. Her life is unusually well documented in terms of landholding, household position, and later commemoration, yet her personal material culture has almost entirely vanished. If Katherine owned jewellery—and it would be extraordinary if she did not—it was used, redistributed, or transformed long before anyone thought to preserve it as evidence of a remarkable life. As with her lost tomb brass at Lincoln Cathedral, we are left not with survivals but with traces and absences. Here too, loss becomes part of the story (Binski, 1996).

So where are the jewels now?

Women’s jewellery was especially vulnerable to change. Stones were removed and reset for daughters or daughters-in-law; heraldry was altered to reflect remarriage; gold was melted to support households or finance marriage portions. A jewel might survive for centuries, but rarely as a stable, named object. The materials endured. The woman did not (Cherry, 2008).

Even burial offers little comfort. Noblewomen’s effigies frequently depict elaborate necklaces, rings, and crowns, but by the later Middle Ages these were largely symbolic. Valuable jewellery was removed before burial, replaced in stone or brass by an image of splendour rather than the thing itself. What we see on tombs is an idea of wealth, not its physical reality—a distinction familiar from the wider problems of medieval commemoration and memory (Binski, 1996; Saul, 2016).

Any remaining medieval regalia associated with royal and ducal families faced a final reckoning in the seventeenth century. Political upheaval completed what everyday use had already begun. Objects that had survived by chance were seized, dismantled, melted, or sold, erasing much of England’s medieval royal material culture (Keay, 2011).

So the question is not really where are their jewels? It is what were jewels for? For Lancastrian women, jewellery marked moments—marriage, alliance, legitimacy—rather than memories. It moved on, just as their influence did: reshaped, unnamed, absorbed into the next generation.

In that sense, these women are not absent from the record at all. They are everywhere—in lineage, in land, in political consequence—even if the gold itself no longer glitters.

A Ring Attributed to Katherine Swynford?

One object is frequently cited as an exception to this pattern: a late-fourteenth-century gold posy ring set with a sapphire and inscribed with the motto “alas for fayte”. This ring has appeared in modern auction catalogues and dealer listings described as the “Duchess of Lancaster” ring and is often associated, by tradition, with Katherine Swynford. Its form and date—c.1360–1400—are consistent with the period of her relationship with John of Gaunt, and the inscription sits comfortably within the language of medieval posy rings, which commonly bore brief phrases invoking love, fate, or loyalty (Cherry, 2008).

However, there is no surviving medieval documentary evidence that securely links this ring to Katherine herself. No inventory, gift record, or contemporary description identifies it as hers. The association rests instead on later provenance, stylistic dating, and modern tradition rather than on primary medieval sources (Keay, 2011). As such, the ring cannot be treated as firm evidence of personal ownership.

Its significance lies elsewhere. The very plausibility of the claim reminds us how little survives of women’s personal material culture, and how strongly later generations wish to anchor remarkable lives to tangible objects. Whether or not this ring ever touched Katherine Swynford’s hand, it reflects the kind of jewellery she may have worn—and the difficulty of attaching certainty to objects that were never intended to remain fixed in time.

References 

Binski, P. (1996) Medieval Death: Ritual and Representation. London: British Museum Press.

Cherry, J. (1992) Goldsmiths. London: British Museum Press.

Cherry, J. (2008) ‘Jewels and Plate’, in Saul, N. (ed.) The Oxford Illustrated History of Medieval England. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 211–227.

Keay, A. (2011) The Crown Jewels. London: Thames & Hudson.

Laynesmith, J. (2004) The Last Medieval Queens: English Queenship 1445–1503. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Saul, N. (2016) Lordship and Faith: The English Gentry and the Parish Church in the Middle Ages. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Walker, S. (1994) The Lancastrian Affinity, 1361–1399. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Where Was Katherine Swynford Born?

 

Evidence, Assumption, and the Comfort of a Good Story

One of the most frequently repeated statements about Katherine Swynford is that she was born in Hainault. It appears with reassuring confidence in popular histories, encyclopaedia entries, guided tours, and the occasional throwaway sentence that sounds as though it has never caused anyone the slightest trouble. It has the neatness of a fact. The problem is that it isn’t one.

No contemporary source states this. No medieval document places Katherine’s birth in Hainaut — or anywhere else. What survives instead is a familiar story, often told because it has been told before.

The question of Katherine’s birthplace remains unresolved. And once we stop treating repetition as evidence, England begins to look at least as plausible as the Continent.

What We Actually Know (Which Is Less Than We’d Like)

There is no surviving record of Katherine Swynford’s birth. No baptismal entry. No household roll. No chronicle aside. This is not unusual. Fourteenth-century women — unless royal — rarely leave such tidy traces (Walker, 1990).

Her mother is also entirely unknown. Not unnamed. Unknown. No record identifies her, places her, or even confirms where she lived. This matters more than is usually acknowledged. Any confident statement about Katherine’s birthplace quietly assumes not only where her father was, but where her mother was too — and on that point the sources are completely silent.

The commonly cited birthplace of “Hainault” refers to the medieval County of Hainaut in the Low Countries. This attribution is inferred from her father’s origin and from long-standing biographical convention, not from documentary proof. In short, the birthplace has been borrowed from the father and handed to the daughter without ever being properly checked (ODNB).

The Timeline That Refuses to Sit Quietly

Katherine Swynford is generally dated to around c.1350. Her father had entered English royal service in 1327, accompanying Queen Philippa to England, and by the 1330s and 1340s he was firmly embedded in English court life. His career, offices, and family connections point to sustained residence in England across several decades (Saul, 1997; Given-Wilson, 2016).

To place Katherine’s birth in the Low Countries therefore requires an undocumented return journey by her parents in the late 1340s, followed by a later return to England. This may have happened — medieval lives are full of unrecorded movement — but it has to be assumed.

An English birth, by contrast, requires no additional explanation at all. It fits the known chronology without adjustment.

This does not prove Katherine was born in England. But it does expose an imbalance: the explanation requiring more assumptions has become the default.

Upbringing Is Doing More Work Than It Should ?

Katherine’s early life unfolded entirely within English noble and royal households. Over time, this English upbringing has been quietly merged with continental origin, helped along by the fact that her father came from Hainaut and Queen Philippa herself was born there. The associations are neat. Perhaps too neat.

Yet medieval identity was not a simple matter of parental origin. Children of continental retainers were frequently born in England and raised at court without being described as foreign-born. Where individuals were known to have arrived from overseas, this was sometimes noted. No such note survives for Katherine (Allmand, 1998).

The silence does not prove anything — but it removes one of the few ways a continental birth might otherwise have been supported.

Why This Keeps Getting Repeated

Part of the appeal of a Hainaut birthplace is that it feels comfortably explanatory. It links Katherine neatly to Queen Philippa, reinforces her father’s origins, and gives her a pleasingly continental backstory. Once introduced into early biographies, the idea passed smoothly into later works and gradually acquired the weight of fact.

Repetition does the rest. Each retelling borrows confidence from the last. Probability hardens into certainty. Eventually, the question stops being asked at all.

But repetition is not evidence. It is simply familiarity wearing authority.

A Note on Method (and Why This Is Not Pedantry)

When dealing with medieval women’s lives, historians often work with fragments: a property grant here, a household reference there. Birthplaces are especially elusive. In such cases, inference is unavoidable — but it should remain visible as inference.

Where one explanation requires undocumented journeys by two people whose movements are otherwise traceable, and another requires none, the balance of probability deserves to be reconsidered. This is not about replacing one certainty with another. It is about resisting certainty where the evidence does not warrant it.

Uncertainty, in this case, is not a failure of research. It is the most honest conclusion available.

What Can Be Said — Carefully

Katherine Swynford’s birthplace is undocumented. A birth in Hainaut remains possible, but it is not proven. Given her father’s long residence in England before her birth, and the complete absence of evidence for a return to the Low Countries — coupled with the total anonymity of her mother — an English birthplace is at least equally plausible.

A careful formulation would therefore be:

Although Katherine Swynford is often said to have been born in Hainaut, this rests on assumption rather than documentary proof. Her father had been settled in England for over twenty years by the time of her birth, and nothing is known of her mother’s location. An English birth cannot be ruled out and may be the simpler explanation.

In the end, the most important distinction is not between England and Hainaut, but between what the sources tell us and what we have grown used to saying.