Katherine Swynford The Story of John of Gaunt and His Scandalous Duchess

Weir combines high drama with high passion while involving us in the domestic life of a most remarkable woman in an equally matter-of-factly compelling book. The first full biography of Katherine Swynford, one of the most intriguing women of medieval English history, and her scandalous affair with John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster. As his mistress and later wife, she became a central figure at court; as mother to the Beauforts, she was an ancestor to every monarch from Richard III through Elizabeth I. Alison Weir rescues Katherine from the footnotes of history and reveals how this one woman's life shaped centuries of English royal succession.