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One, Catherine, had married an English gentleman, named Swynford. The other, Philippa, was maid of honor to the queen. There being no impediment in the way, and the king and queen forwarding the matter, Chaucer and his Philippa were soon made man and wife. Not long after their marriage they had the misfortune to lose their generous mistress, the queen.
Hugh's shrine, which stood in this part of the building. In the cathedral is the tomb of Katherine Swynford, wife of John of Gaunt. Adjoining the south-eastern transept are the cloisters and chapter-house.
Philippa Chaucer's sister, Catherine Swynford, who became early a widow, entered the Duke of Lancaster's household as a governess to the children of his first duchess. The poet's own domestic life seems to have been very happy.
In the chancel, among the tombs of forgotten bishops and knights, we saw an immense slab of stone purporting to be the monument of Catherine Swynford, wife of John of Gaunt; also, here was the shrine of the little Saint Hugh, that Christian child who was fabled to have been crucified by the Jews of Lincoln.
The road towards the upper bridge that crosses the Grey at Swynford is bordered by stretches of green grass. Along this the two girls rode at an easy canter, saving when Dr. Marsh's car rushed past, the doctor driving furiously, as was his way.
Kathleen hitched her own and Sylvia's horse to the fence, and entered a small, but wonderfully clean, room, that served as a kitchen and general sitting-room for the family. Here they found Michael, a boy of four, the baby of a family of nine. The other children had gone, as a troop, to the State school at Swynford.
John Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, and his brother, Edmund, Earl of Dorset, were now the representatives of this house. They were grandsons of John of Gaunt by his mistress, Catharine Swynford.
John Beaufort was son of another John Beaufort, Earl of Somerset, who was brother of the celebrated Cardinal Beaufort, and son of John of Gaunt by his mistress Catherine Swynford, a family afterwards legitimatised by Parliament. This second John Beaufort distinguished himself in the French wars of Henry IV., who in 1443 gave him a step in the peerage, creating him Duke of Somerset.
The duke of Lancaster, whose favourite passion was ambition, which demanded the assistance of learned men, engaged warmly in our poet's interest; besides, the duke was remarkably fond of Lady Catherine Swynford, his wife's sister, who was then guardianess to his children, and whom he afterwards made his wife; thus was he doubly attached to Chaucer, and with the varying fortune of the duke of Lancaster we find him rise or fall.
About 1366 he was married to Philippa, dau. of Sir Payne Roet, one of the ladies of the Duchess of Lancaster, whose sister Katharine, widow of Sir Hugh Swynford, became the third wife of John of Gaunt. Previous to this he had apparently been deeply in love with another lady, whose rank probably placed her beyond his reach; his disappointment finding expression in his Compleynt to Pité.
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