#137 THE PRINCE AND HIS MISTRESS
She was his mistress for 25 years while he was married to someone else, bore him four illegitimate children—and then he married her anyway, making her a duchess and her descendants the Tudor dynasty. England 1396. John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, aged 49, the richest and most powerful nobleman in England, uncle to the king, stood before witnesses and married his mistress. Not a young mistress nor a strategic alliance. His longtime lover—a woman he had been sleeping with for over two decades while married to someone else. Katherine Swynford was about 46 years old. She had been John’s mistress since her twenties and had borne him four children. She had been publicly denounced, called a witch and a whore, and blamed for corrupting one of England’s most powerful men. And now he was making her his wife, his duchess and one of the highest-ranking noblewomen in England. It was one of the most scandalous marriages in medieval England. KATHERINE SWYNFORD ...
