Blanche of Lancaster

1342 – 1368 · Generation XVII · House of Plantagenet

Blanche of Lancaster (1342–1368). Married John of Gaunt in 1359. One of their children is recorded in this archive. The younger daughter of Henry of Grosmont, Duke of Lancaster — the realm’s richest peer — and Isabel de Beaumont, she was born at Bolingbroke Castle. The whole royal family attended her wedding to her third cousin John of Gaunt at Reading Abbey, and her inheritance, which became her father’s entire estate after her sister Maud died childless in 1362, laid the foundation of Gaunt’s fortune and his Lancastrian titles. Of their seven children three survived infancy, among them the future Henry IV. She died at Tutbury Castle in 1368 while Gaunt was abroad, possibly of the Black Death. He kept the anniversary of her death for the rest of his life and was laid beside her at Old St Paul’s beneath effigies with joined hands, a tomb lost in the Great Fire of 1666. Chaucer’s Book of the Duchess is believed to have been written in her memory.

Place in the family

Blanche of Lancaster married John of Gaunt, a great-great-great-grandfather of King Henry VIII.
The archive records 4 of her descendants, across 4 generations.

One of 26 people of House of Plantagenet (1126–1485) in this archive. The longest-reigning English house, counting its Angevin beginning and the rival Lancaster and York branches that fought the Wars of the Roses.

Partners

Married John of Gaunt (1340 – 1399) in 1359 — one child together

Children

King Henry IV (1367 – 1413)

Life

1342 — Born
1359 — Married John of Gaunt
1368 — Died