Catherine was quite short in stature with long red hair, wide blue eyes, a round face, and a fair complexion. She was descended, on her maternal side, from the English royal house ; her great-grandmother Catherine of Lancaster, after whom she was named, and her great-great-grandmother Philippa of Lancaster were both daughters of John of Gaunt and granddaughters of Edward III of England.

Also, while Chaucer clearly states the addressees of many of his poems ( the Book of the Duchess is believed to have been written for John of Gaunt on the occasion of his wife's death in 1368 ), the intended audience of The Canterbury Tales is more difficult to determine.

It was in keeping with the plans of Gaunt to have a personality like Wycliffe on his side.

An unusual multi-sided tower, the Oriel, provides a counterpoint to the main doorway of the hall and was intended for private entertainment by Gaunt away from the main festivities on major occasions.

The Tudors descended on Henry VII's mother's side from John Beaufort, one of the illegitimate children of the 14th century English Prince John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster ( the third surviving son of Edward III of England ) by Gaunt's long-term mistress Katherine Swynford.

The descendants of an illegitimate child of English Royalty would normally have no claim on the throne, but the situation was complicated when Gaunt and Swynford eventually married in 1396, when John Beaufort was 25.

Ferdinand appealed to John of Gaunt, who also claimed the throne of Castile, on behalf of his wife, Infanta Constance of Castile, daughter of Peter of Castile.

Henry acknowledged the necessity of marrying Elizabeth to secure the stability of his rule and weaken the claims of other surviving members of the House of York, but he insisted on being king due to a tenuous claim of inheritance from John of Gaunt, ruling in his own right, and not by his marriage to the heir of the House of York, and had no intention of sharing power.

Furthermore, while King Edward and the Prince of Wales were popular heroes due to their successes on the battlefield, John of Gaunt had not won equivalent military renown that could have bolstered his reputation.

Gaunt and Warwick then decided to strike Harfleur, the base of the French fleet on the Seine.

Beset on all sides by French ambushes and plagued by disease and starvation, John of Gaunt and his raiders battled their way through Champagne, east of Paris, into Burgundy, across the Massif Central, and finally down into Dordogne.

The death of the Black Prince on 8 June 1376 and the onset of Edward III's last illness at the closing of Parliament on 10 July, left Gaunt with all the reins of power.

It was rumoured ( and believed by many people in England and France ) that he intended to seize the throne for himself and supplant the rightful heir, his nephew Richard, the Black Prince's son, but there seems to have been no truth in this and on the death of Edward III and the accession of the child Richard II Gaunt sought no position of regency for himself and withdrew to his estates.

During the Peasants ' Revolt of 1381 John of Gaunt was far from the centre of events, on the march of Scotland, but he was among those named by the rebels as a traitor to be beheaded as soon as he could be found.

The Castilian king, John of Trastámara, had expected Gaunt would land in Portugal and had concentrated his forces on the Portuguese border ; he was wrong-footed by Gaunt's decision to invade Galicia, the most distant and disaffected of Castile's provinces.

From August to October, John of Gaunt set up a rudimentary court and chancery at Ourense and received the submission of most of the towns of Galicia, though they made their homage to him conditional on his being recognized as king by the rest of Castile.

While John of Gaunt had gambled on an early decisive battle, the Castilians were in no hurry to join battle, and he began to experience difficulties keeping his army together and paying it.

Instead of a full-scale riot, there were only systematic attacks on certain properties, many of them associated with John of Gaunt and / or the Hospitaller Order.

The following year, Edward III bestowed the title ( 2nd creation ) on his fourth son, John of Gaunt, who was also married to the first duke's daughter.

His younger brother, John of Gaunt, used a similar shield on which the ostrich feathers were ermine.

This version, still available on DVD, starred Derek Jacobi as Richard, with John Gielgud making an appearance as John of Gaunt.

He was sent on a diplomatic mission to Cyprus in June 1393, and appointed deputy to John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster, in the Duchy of Aquitaine.

But in 1373 Henry of Trastámara, now firmly installed as King of Castile and victorious in war against England's ally Portugal, forced Charles of Navarre to agree to a marriage alliance, to surrender the disputed border fortresses he had held on to since the Castilian civil war, and to close his borders to any army of John of Gaunt.

The wealthy John of Gaunt redesigned the heart of Kenilworth Castle, like Windsor the work emphasised a unifying, rectangular design and the separation of ground floor service areas from the upper stories and a contrast of austere exteriors with lavish interiors, especially on the 1st floor of the inner bailey buildings.

Its shooting ground is the sports field of the John O ' Gaunt Community Technology College.

The Ghosts are forced to work behind the backs of Inquisition agents in order to aid Gaunt after he goes to ground in the city following an assault on Balhaut's Commissariat headquarters.

By means of her mother, Catherine had a stronger legitimate claim to the English throne than King Henry VII himself through the first two wives of John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster: Blanche of Lancaster and the Spanish Infanta Constance of Castile.

Exercising his first command, Gaunt dared not attack such a superior force and the two armies faced each other across a marsh for several weeks until the English were reinforced by the Earl of Warwick, at which the French withdrew without offering battle.

It has been speculated that “ one or two ” of these children were actually fathered by John of Gaunt .< ref >“ Chaucer, Geoffrey .” Encyclopædia Britannica.

Kelly, however, has effectively demonstrated that this belief is likely false as John of Gaunt having sexual relations with two sisters would have been considered incest and would have required additional papal dispensation for him to marry Katherine.

The two plays both starred Ian McKellen, Romola Garai, Frances Barber, Sylvester McCoy, and William Gaunt.

The term Ghosts has two meanings: the first is that Corbec tells Gaunt that his decision to abandon Tanith " made ghosts of them, hollow echoes ".

The station has two transmitters serving the area-one on 105. 6 MHz at Wash Common Water Tower above Newbury and a smaller fill-in unit on 107. 4 MHz at the John o ' Gaunt School in Hungerford.

The behaviour of the two junior Lords Appellant, Bolingbroke and Mowbray, probably influenced Richard's decision in 1399 to exile them both, and to revoke the permission he had given them to sue for any inheritance which fell due, as it did in relation to Mowbray's grandmother and, more significantly, of Bolingbroke's father, John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster.

* Rose and Crown: King Edward III used a golden rose as a personal badge, and two of his sons adapted it by changing the colour: John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster, used a red rose, and Edmund of Langley, 1st Duke of York, used a white rose.

By Henry's paternal descent from John Beaufort, 1st Earl of Somerset, another child of John of Gaunt and Katherine Swynford, the two were also fourth cousins, once removed.

In 2006, Beecroft had an on-air row with former presenter Jon Gaunt on talkSPORT, after pointing out that two of Gaunt's three Sony awards were not won by him personally.

During a bloody conflict with the Lawkillers, Gaunt managed to kill two of Major Lash's men, Preacher and Grunt, but turned his back on Lash, disgusted with the senseless bloodshed and murder, including the revelation that the enemy he had killed months ago was his biological son.

She also appeared in two Royal Shakespeare Company productions: as Cordelia in King Lear and as Nina in The Seagull, starring alongside Ian McKellen, Frances Barber, Sylvester McCoy, Jonathan Hyde, and William Gaunt.

The assumption seems to be based on the fact that Gaunt chose to be buried with Blanche, despite his two subsequent marriages, and on the themes of love, devotion and grief expressed in Chaucer's poem ( see below ) a rather circular argument, as it is partly on the basis of these themes that the couple's relationship is identified as the inspiration for the poem.

Queen Catherine was the daughter of John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster, and his second wife, Constance of Castile ( the daughter and heir of King Peter of Castile, who died at the hands of his half brother Henry II ).