Strong Northern Women

Coronation street epitomises strong northern women

This week has felt rather different from most others. For the first time, Joan Beaufort has begun to feel less like a distant historical figure and more like someone whose life I am genuinely beginning to understand.

I have spent much of the week working on the opening sections of my Joan Beaufort biography, particularly the introduction and Chapter One. There is something slightly daunting about beginning a first history book after years of writing talks, blog posts and academic work. A book feels more permanent somehow. It demands not only research, but structure, confidence and patience. Some days I have felt immersed in fourteenth-century England; on others I have stared at the screen wondering whether any of it truly works at all.

Alongside the writing itself, I have also been exploring publishing options. I have had encouraging communication with a publisher, which has given me some hope that Joan’s story might finally find the wider audience she deserves. At the same time, I have also been researching alternative publishers and considering what route might best suit a serious but accessible work of medieval history. The publishing world can feel almost as complex and political as the late medieval court itself.

Much of the week has also been spent searching archives, chasing references and trying to untangle long-repeated assumptions from actual evidence. That process, although often frustrating, is also one of the things I enjoy most. There is a strange excitement in finding a small overlooked detail buried in a patent roll, ecclesiastical register or nineteenth-century antiquarian text. Slowly, a clearer picture begins to emerge.

What has surprised me most, however, is how much I have begun to like Joan Beaufort herself.

History has often treated Joan as an appendage to others — daughter of Katherine Swynford, wife of Ralph Neville, mother of Cecily Neville. Yet the more I read, the more I sense a woman of intelligence, resilience and political awareness moving quietly through an unstable world. She survived scandal by birth, dynastic insecurity, political upheaval and the constant demands placed upon aristocratic women, eventually becoming matriarch of one of the most powerful family networks in England.

Perhaps it is not entirely surprising that I feel drawn toward writing about strong northern women.

Long before Joan Beaufort entered my life, my MA dissertation explored another formidable northern female world: the women of the UK soap opera Coronation Street. Although separated by six centuries, there is something oddly familiar in the emotional strength, endurance, wit and survival strategies of women navigating difficult environments. Medieval noblewomen and Weatherfield matriarchs may appear very different on the surface, but both inhabit worlds shaped by family loyalties, reputation, power and resilience.

One of the pleasures of historical writing is discovering those unexpected human connections across time.

At the start of this project Joan Beaufort felt important. Now she is also beginning to feel real.

 May 10th marks the anniversary of the death of Katherine Swynford in 1403. She died in Lincoln, probably at the so-called Priory within the Cathedral Close, and may well have been in declining health for some time before her death. Over six centuries later, her presence still lingers quietly across the city she came to call home.

Katherine remains one of the most recognisable women of fourteenth-century England. To many, she is remembered primarily through the lens of romance: the long relationship with John of Gaunt, the eventual marriage, and the extraordinary rise of their Beaufort children. It is certainly a remarkable story, but I have increasingly come to feel that reducing Katherine to a romantic heroine alone does her a considerable injustice.

What fascinates me most is not simply the love story, but the woman herself. Katherine survived at the heart of one of the most dangerous royal courts in medieval Europe. She endured public criticism, political upheaval, widowhood, exile from court life, and the uncertainties of dynastic politics, yet emerged with influence, dignity, and lasting significance. In many ways she represents something more complex and more interesting: an intelligent, resilient, and independent medieval woman navigating a world largely controlled by men.

Lincoln forms an important part of that story. Here she spent some of the final years of her life. Here she died. Here she was buried in Lincoln Cathedral beside her daughter Joan Beaufort, Countess of Westmorland. Even now, standing near their tombs in the Cathedral, there is a powerful sense that these are not simply distant historical figures but women whose lives shaped the course of English history.

Increasingly, my own research has begun to turn towards Joan Beaufort. Overshadowed at times by both her parents and her descendants, Joan was nevertheless one of the great matriarchs of fifteenth-century England. Through her children and grandchildren, her influence stretched deep into the Wars of the Roses and ultimately towards the Tudor dynasty itself. Yet Joan also had her own story of power, family, grief, survival, and political importance.

As I begin my journey into historical non-fiction writing, it is Joan who is increasingly drawing me in. There is something compelling about attempting to recover the lives of medieval women not simply as supporting figures in the stories of powerful men, but as individuals who shaped events in their own right.

Perhaps that, ultimately, is what continues to draw me back to Katherine Swynford and her family. Their story is not simply one of romance or scandal, but of legacy, resilience, motherhood, ambition, survival, and memory. And in Lincoln, their story still feels very much alive.

Finding Joan Beaufort

The last couple of weeks have been spent debating whether I could actually write a book about Joan Beaufort. Given my lifetime of imposter syndrome I can think of many reasons why I shouldn’t. However at my stage of life there is a strong argument there is nothing to loose and I might actually enjoy it.

So I have accumulated a pile of biographies, a jumble of documents from the National Archives and a whole host of other potentially useful records.

It is clear at this stage that planning is going to be the most important part of the whole project.

It’s tempting to rush into writing, but with Joan that simply isn’t going to work. She isn’t a figure with a ready-made narrative. More often, she appears briefly—through family connections, landholdings, or the actions of others—before disappearing again. So the first  has to be to take a step back andthink carefully about how her story can be told.

At the moment, my focus is on shaping the approach rather than drafting chapters. Do I follow a

straightforward chronological structure, or build the book around themes—power, land, family,

widowhood? Joan sits at the centre of all of these, but rarely in a way that is obvious at first glance.

A lot of this stage is about mapping: identifying where she appears in the records, and just as

importantly, where she doesn’t. That means working through sources and resisting the temptation to write yet, but to understand the landscape I’m dealing with.Place is also feeding into the planning. 

Locations such as Raby Castle and Lincoln Cathedral are helping me think about structure. These aren’t just settings—they may well become anchors for different parts of the book.

I’m also very aware of what I don’t want to do. Joan is too often reduced to a supporting

role—daughter of Katherine Swynford, or matriarch of a family caught up in the Wars of the Roses. I need to find a way to keep her at the centre, even when the story of those around her take centre stage.

So for now, this is slow, deliberate work. No dramatic breakthroughs, just building a framework that feels honest to the evidence. If I get this stage right, the writing should follow