John of Gaunt: Son of One King, Father of Another by Kathryn Warner

Author:Kathryn Warner [Warner, Kathryn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Amberley Publishing
Published: 2022-01-12T16:00:00+00:00

39

Of Very Noble and Royal Blood

In the summer and autumn of 1381, John of Gaunt became embroiled in a huge and furious row with Henry Percy, first earl of Northumberland. Supposedly, Gaunt blamed the earl for refusing to shelter him during the uprising, and the ensuing quarrel came to the attention of several chroniclers, who wrote extensively about it, claiming that the two powerful noblemen’s row threatened to destroy England. Both men brought large retinues to London and almost came to blows on Wednesday 6 November in the Painted Chamber in the palace of Westminster, where Parliament was about to begin. At first, Northumberland refused to back down, but in the end, he had to, and was forced to make a grovelling apology to John on his knees on 9 November. Addressing Lancaster as ‘monseigneur d’Espaigne’ and speaking in French, Northumberland admitted that in his ignorance he had addressed Gaunt far less courteously than he should have, given that Gaunt was the ‘son of my very dread liege lord the king, whom God absolve, and uncle of my very dread liege lord the present king, and of such high person and of very noble and royal blood as you are, my lord’.

Percy also addressed part of his apology to Richard II, admitting that he had displeased the king by addressing his uncle less than politely in his presence. It seems that John of Gaunt was genuinely hurt by Henry Percy’s actions in 1381, and that he felt betrayed by a man he had always considered a good friend, kinsman, and ally. In May 1372, John had spoken of the ‘very great and sincere affection and perfect love which we have and bear towards our dearest and beloved cousin, Sir Henry, Lord Percy.’ A few years later, Gaunt sent Percy a gift of a tun of wine, and in September 1377, the duke of Lancaster was appointed as a mediator to settle Percy’s ongoing dispute with the Scottish earl of Douglas.1 According to the Alnwick Chronicle, Henry Percy had been brought up in the household of his uncle Henry of Grosmont, first duke of Lancaster (which seems very likely to be true, given that several of Grosmont’s other nephews joined his retinue), and therefore might have known Gaunt well for a very long time.2

John of Gaunt was in Fulham on 8 and 18 November 1381 during Parliament when he granted safe conduct to the abbot of Holyrood in Edinburgh to travel to Canterbury on pilgrimage with a dozen attendants, and was still there on the 29th, when he ordered his servant Symond (or Simon) de Bygrave to bring ‘partridges and other birds’ for the consumption of his household in Higham Ferrers, Hertford, London and elsewhere. He was still in Fulham on 10 December when he wrote to his steward in Norfolk, Sir Edmund Gurney, making reference to the recent ‘horrible uprising’ and to any malefactors who might be living in the county. Gurney and Adam Pope, John’s receiver in Norfolk, were

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