John of Gaunt

“ In 1371 the Black Prince was back in England. His eldest surviving brother, John of Gaunt—or Ghent—Duke of Lancaster, continued the war in France. In 1372 the English lost town after town. In 1373 John of Gaunt set out from Calais. He could plunder, but he could not make the enemy fight. "Let them go," wrote Charles V. to his commanders; "by burning they will not become masters of your heritage. Though storms rage over a land, they disperse of themselves. ”

“ Raised by the hand of the Almighty from amidst you, but still one of you, if the mother of a family is a part of it, here I stand surety for John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, for his loyalty and allegiance.
Gaunt. [Running back toward Joanna.] Are the rioters, then, bursting into the chamber through the windows?
Joanna. The windows and doors of this solid edifice rattled and shook at the people’s acclamation. My word is given for you: this was theirs in return. Lancaster! what a voice have the people when they speak out! ”

“ In July 1386 John left England with a strong force to win his Spanish throne. He landed at Corunna, and during the autumn conquered Galicia. Juan, who had succeeded his father Henry as king of Castile, offered a compromise by marriage. John of Gaunt refused, hoping for greater success with the help of the king of Portugal, who now married the duke’s eldest daughter Philippa. In the spring the allies invaded Castile. They could achieve no success, and sickness ruined the English army. ”

“ She speaks to the angry citizens and deftly turns their anger. "Let none ever tell me again he is the enemy of my son . . . your darling child, Richard. Are your fears more lively than a poor weak female's? than a mother's? yours, whom he hath so often led to victory, and praised to his father, naming each—he, John of Gaunt, the defender of the helpless, the comforter of the desolate, the rallying signal of the desperately brave!" She stands surety for his loyalty and allegiance, and the fickle mob cheer the Duke as well as herself. ”

“ John of Gaunt having departed to Spain, where he was stirring up civil strife in the name of his wife, the heiress of Peter the Cruel, Gloucester put himself at the head of the opposition. Playing the part of the demagogue, and exaggerating all his nephew’s petulant acts and sayings, he declared the constitution in danger, and took arms at the head of a party of peers, the earls of Warwick, Arundel and Nottingham, and Henry, earl of Derby, the son of John of The “lords appellant.” ”

“ This was no baron’s business, but a dunghill fermentation, and being slow and sodden and savage, was like to be more terrible when thoughts of blood and fire and vengeance fumed up out of this mixen of discontent.
Of all the great lords of the land no man was more hated than the King’s uncle, John of Gaunt. It was said that he had the King in the palm of his hand, that the curse of the heavy taxes flowed from him, and that he had no thought or pity for the poor. Men spoke of his Palace of the Savoy as the most wonderful house in England, packed with plate and jewels, rich stuffs, and armour. ”

“ Then John of Gaunt advanced, pillaging and laying waste the country in the old English manner from Calais to Bordeaux, while Sir Robert Knowles, the Free Companion leader, with an army of 30,000 men, took his way by Terouenne and through Artois, burning and destroying all before him. He nest advanced to the very gates of Paris, up to which one of his knights rode, and struck a blow with his spear, having made a vow that he would strike his lance on the gate of Paris. The daring warrior, however, lost his life returning through the suburbs, being cut down by a gigantic butcher with his cleaver. ”

“ Descendants of John of Gaunt, Noses of (Vol. vii., p. 96.) .—Allow me to repeat my Query as to E. D.'s remark: he says, to be dark-complexioned and black-haired "is the family badge of the Herberts quite as much as the unmistakeable nose in the descendants of John of Gaunt." I hope E. D. will not continue silent, for I am very curious to know his meaning.
Y. S. M.
"Put" (Vol. vii., p. 271.) .—I am surprised at the silence of your Irish readers in reference to the pronunciation of this word. ”

“ But those were not peaceful days in England, and John of Gaunt made the fatal mistake of defying the knights of the shire and burgesses who composed the House of Commons, and who really represented the thoughts and feelings of the people.
"What do these base and ignoble knights attempt?" he asked contemptuously. "Do they think they be kings or princes in the land?" ”

“ Policy of John of Gaunt.—The Good Parliament.
John of Gaunt's object in favouring Wicliffe was purely political; with the reformer's religious views he can have had little sympathy. But he wished to turn the seething discontent of England into the channel of an attack on the Church, and to keep it from his own doors. For the last twenty years legislation against ecclesiastical grievances had been not infrequent. In 1351 the Statute of Provisors had prohibited the Pope from giving away English benefices to his favourites. ”

“ He is quite alone, and his thoughts go back, with some bitterness, to his previous trial, when the people crowded the doors shouting for their favorite, and John of Gaunt and the Lord Marshal of England were standing by his side. He has learned since then not to put his trust in princes. The power of his enemies has rapidly grown; even the young King (Richard II) has been won over to their cause, and patrons and friends have drawn back from his side, whom the Church has resolved to crush. ”

“ From the fact that the insurgents directed their enmity against himself and the advisers of the king, John of Gaunt saw that he could never hope to succeed in his ambitious schemes in England; and from this time he kept very much in the background, till, in 1386, he carried him- self and his restless plottings to Spain and Gascony. Richard, in 1390, made him Duke of Aquitaine for life. In 1385 Richard invaded Scotland, and took Ed- inburgh and burned it ”

“ The doting King, seeing that his ministers and Parliament were in earnest, and knowing that Alice Perrers had incurred the hatred of his people, sent them a humbly worded petition on her—behalf a petition recalling the abject submissiveness of his unfortunate father, Edward II., when the toils were closing around him, and reminding one of the phenomenal humility of his elder grandson, Richard II. The bishops humoured their monarch so far as to let his mistress depart unharmed, after swearing that she would never come back to Court.
John of Gaunt began by showing fight. ”

“ To drive him from the realm had been from the close of the Peasant Revolt the steady purpose of the councillors who now surrounded the young king, of his favourite Robert de Vere and his Chancellor Michael de la Pole, who was raised in 1385 to the Earldom of Suffolk. The Duke's friends were expelled from office; John of Northampton, the head of his adherents among the Commons, was thrown into prison; the Duke himself was charged with treason and threatened with arrest. In 1386 John of Gaunt abandoned the struggle and sailed for Spain. ”

“ John of Gaunt at once went down to the house of commons, and boldly suggested that the English should follow the example of the French and allow no woman to become heiress of the kingdom. This was a direct assertion of his own claims to stand next to the throne after Richard of Bordeaux, and before Roger Mortimer. Alarmed at the blow thus levelled against their chief remaining champion, the knights courageously held to their position. "The king," said they, "though old is still healthy, and may outlive us all. Moreover he has an heir in the ten-year-old prince Richard. ”

“ When the baronage were divided, the natural leaders of the parties were the royal princes. Thus, when circumstances had put the reins of power into the hands of John of Gaunt, he fortified himself by assuming the leadership of the lay party, which found its adherents in all sections of society, but no doubt mainly among the barons, jealous of the great part played in the government by the clergy, the vast wealth which the Church held, and which is calculated at more than a third of the land, and rendered self-confident by their successes in the French war. ”

“ I have said he was befriended by John of Gaunt: and this is a name which it is worth while for students of English history to remember; not only because [93] he was a brother of the famous Black Prince (and a better man than he, though he did not fight so many battles) , but because he was also a good friend of the poet Chaucer—as we shall find. It will perhaps help one to keep him in mind, if I refer to that glimpse we get of him in the early scenes of Shakespeare’s tragedy of Richard II., where he makes a play upon his name ”

“ They accused John of Gaunt, the king's son, lord Latimer, and lord Neville, for misadvising the king; and they went to the Tower for it. And now, when there is such a downfall of the state, shall we hold our tongues? Why," continued he, "may we not name those who are the cause of all our evils?" And he added, "Let us palliate no longer; if we do, God will not prosper us. I think the duke of Buckingham is the cause, and till the duke be informed thereof, we shall never go out with honour, nor sit with honour here. That man is the grievance of grievances! ”

“ From Bordeaux the prince had led an army of his father’s Guienne vassals, with which there was a force of English archers and men-at-arms, into central France and had amassed an enormous booty. King John, hitherto engaged against the army of John of Gaunt duke of Lancaster, in Normandy, hurried south to intercept the raiding army and to bar its homeward road. The Black Prince, by forced marching, was able to slip past the French, but reaching Maupertuis, 7 m. south-east of Poitiers, with the king’s army in chase, he found himself compelled to choose between fighting and abandoning his spoil. ”

“ Old John of Gaunt, time-honoured Lancaster, Hast thou, according to thy oath and band, Brought hither Henry Hereford, thy bold son, Here to make good the boist'rous late appeal, Which then our leisure would not let us hear, Against the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray? ”

“ John of Gaunt sought her support as the best means of withdrawing the old king from the influence of the Prince of Wales, and the lay ministers were glad to maintain themselves in their tottering power by means of such powerful allies. Prominent among their party were courtier nobles—such as the chamberlain, Lord Latimer, and the steward of the household, Lord Neville of Raby,—and rich London financiers, chief among whom was Richard Lyons, men who made exorbitant profits out of the necessities of the administration. Faction sought to appear more respectable by professions of zeal for reform. ”

“ Whether the new King wished to be in favour with the priests, or whether he hoped, by pretending to be very religious, to cheat Heaven itself into the belief that he was not a usurper, I don’t know. Both suppositions are likely enough. It is certain that he began his reign by making a strong show against the followers of Wickliffe, who were called Lollards, or heretics—although his father, John of Gaunt, had been of that way of thinking, as he himself had been more than suspected of being. ”

“ This mad and purely selfish scheme of John of Gaunt almost led to the ruin of England. Even when France had laid siege to Calais, and the French fleet had reassembled for the purpose of invasion, John's ships and men were exempted from arrest and impressment, although England obviously needed every vessel within her borders. [707] Nor was the Government less blind in other matters. In June, Sir Philip D'Arcy, between Dover and Sandwich, took some large Genoese cogs and six carracks bound for Sluis, and known to be laden with stores for the benefit of the enemy ”

“ Accordingly he was selected, together with his brothers Thomas and John, to gild the inauguration of a new order of knighthood. The new Lancastrian dynasty had not as yet secured a firm hold on the kingdom. John of Gaunt had never been taken very seriously as a statesman, and his son was but little known in his native land save for his short period of opposition to Richard II. Something must be done to give stability to the new royal house, and to borrow for it some of that outward respectability of appearance which usually only comes with age. ”

“ On shore, two wooden castles were built of ships' spars, and on them were machines for hurling missiles; hut after only three days, John of Gaunt wearied of the siege and withdrew, reaching Corunna on August 9th, and there landing all his troops and stores before the town, which was in possession of the French, and sending his ships back to their ports. [710] On its return to England, the fleet appears to have made a few small prizes, and to have retaken a vessel which had previously been lost to the Spaniards. ”

“ Their plan was to make the otherwise unpopular John of Gaunt, king of England, {279} on the mere report that he had freed his “natives.” The rebels had decided to send to him in order to ascertain, and if the news proved true, to depose his nephew young Richard II. The report had been brought to the city of Canterbury by pilgrims, peregrini, arriving from the North, obviously to worship at the shrine of St. Thomas.382
In mediæval France during the endless wars, and the brief intervals between them, the roads were held by plundering brigands: labourers or knights by birth. ”