Blanche of Lancaster

Blanche of Lancaster (March 25, 1345 - September 12, 1369) was an English noblewoman, daughter of Henry of Grosmont, Duke of Lancaster by his wife, Isabel de Beaumont. Both she and her older sister Mathilda (Maud) were born at Castle Bolingbrook.

On May 19, 1359, Blanche was married to John of Gaunt, a son of the reigning English king Edward III, and the marriage brought him titles to the Duchy of Lancaster and the Earldoms of Derby, Lincoln, Leicester, as well as the title of Lord High Steward of England.

Plague struck England for the third time in 1369, and among the toll was numbered Blanche Lancaster among the dead. Her husband, at sea at the time of her death, held annual commemorations of her death for some years thereafter. For one of these, Geoffrey Chaucer, then a young squire and mostly unknown writer of court poetry, was comissioned to write what became The Book of the Duchess, in her honor. Though Chaucer’s intentions can never be divined with absolute certainty, many believe that at least one of the aims of The Book of the Duchess was an attempt to make John of Gaunt see that his grief for his dead wife had become excessive and to prod him subtly to move on.

In 1374, five years after her death, John of Gaunt ordered effigies made of himself and his wife. Twenty-five years later, Gaunt was laid to rest next to Blanche, the two buried in St. Paul's Cathedral in London.

Blanche’s Children with John of Gaunt:

• Phillipa Plantagenet (later Phillipa of Lancaster): born 1360, died 1415.
• John Plantagenet: born 1362, died 1365 of natural causes.
• Elizabeth Plantagenet: born 1364, died 1425, married first to John Hastings, 3rd Earl of Pembroke, then to John Holland, Duke of Exeter, then to John Cornwall, 1st Baron Fanhope
• Edward Plantagenet: born 1365, died 1368.
• Henry IV of England:, born in April of 1369, two months before her death.
• Isabella Plantagenet: born 1368, died young.