One

This England

This royal throne of Kings, this sceptered isle,

This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,

This other Eden, demi-paradise,

This fortress built by Nature for herself

Against infection and the hand of war,

This happy breed of men, this little world,

This precious stone set in the silver sea,

Which serves it in the office of a wall

Or as a moat defensive to a house,

Against the envy of less happier lands,

This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.

John of Gaunt in Richard II, Act II, Scene I

In the mid-fourteenth century, the Channel was a dangerous stretch of water. French ships patrolled the sea, attacking English coastal towns in an attempt to destroy the lucrative wool trade between England and Flanders. In 1340, England and France were three years into a political, dynastic and territorial struggle – a war of succession – that would become known as the Hundred Years War. By summer 1340, both sides were yet to engage in full battle. On 24 June 1340, a ‘Great Army of the Sea’ dropped anchor outside the port of Sluys, the inlet between Zeeland and Flanders, and prepared for combat. The ships were filled with French and Genoese warriors and their intimidating presence incited mass panic along the coastal towns of the Low Countries. Local people either feared attack and fled their homes, or flocked to the coastline to see the spectacle for themselves.

As French ships floated outside Sluys, the King of England, Edward III, led a fleet across the Channel, intending to land an army ashore in Flanders and oust the French who had infiltrated the country in his absence. Two months earlier, Edward had left his heavily pregnant Queen, Philippa of Hainault, in the Flemish town of Ghent where he spent months trying to make an alliance with Flanders. To secure the terms, he was forced to sail back to England, promising to return with an army and money. Philippa – expecting her sixth child – stayed behind as collateral for the enormous loan the Flemish had given the English King to begin his war.

The French King, Philip VI – the first of the Valois family – anticipated Edward’s return to Flanders and mustered a fleet so vast that it would not only block Edward’s landing but threaten the total annihilation of the English naval force. In May 1340, news of this mighty French fleet, floating off the coast of Flanders, reached Edward III as he held a Royal Council at Westminster. Senior members of the English nobility and clergy shouted over one another. Some proposed battle, but the Archbishop of Canterbury, John Stratford, argued against it. He was cautious and warned the King that the French force was too large to be defeated.

Despite reservations from his Council, the King set about mustering the greatest English fleet to ever sail across the Channel. Coastal towns and ports throughout England were to be stripped of all ships and provisions, to be sent to Orwell in Suffolk where ships prepared to set sail.

At dawn on 22 June 1340, Edward III was on board his cog ship – a merchant vessel with one sail – as it passed Harwich on the south-east coast of England, leading a fleet of around 150 vessels. The naval force was cobbled together from warships, merchant ships and even large fishing boats. They were blown forwards by a north-westerly breeze, towards the superior fleet of French ships, and finally came in sight of the enemy at the mouth of the river Zwin two days later. The sheer scale of the French force was overwhelming – described by the chronicler Jean Froissart as a water fortress. A mass of wooden breastworks, barriers and masts bound together by chains: ‘like a row of castles’.

The English fleet, though unprecedented in size, should have been no match for the French. Many of the English vessels were ill-equipped for battle and they were faced by an impenetrable stockade. Alongside six Genoese galleys, the French component of the fleet was led by a Breton knight, Hugues Quiéret, Admiral of France, and Nicolas Béhuchet, its Constable – the commander in chief of the French army.

At around 3pm, Edward III gave the order to advance on the French ships lingering on the horizon. However, at the sight of armoured prows and piercing masts, the morale of the English dwindled. As he paced the deck of his ship, the King delivered an inspiring oration to boost his men. He expounded that their fight was in the pursuit of a ‘just cause, and would have the blessing of God Almighty’. He also permitted his men to keep whatever booty they could obtain from the enemy vessels.¹ The incentive of plunder appears to have lifted the mood, for his army soon became ‘eager’ to face the imposing force ahead and battle drums echoed across the water.

The French ships were bound together to create a single juggernaut that could crush lone vessels in the water ahead. The English would have to break their defence in order to engage. According to the French Chronicle of London, Edward ordered his men to flee – as the French watched. The English drew their sails to half-mast and raised anchor, as if to turn back. As Edward anticipated, the French immediately played into his hands; they ‘unfastened their great chains’ and pursued the English in anticipated triumph. The French ships, detached from their intimidating unit, were now vulnerable, and proved easy pickings as the English vessels turned back and attacked. To the sound of drums and trumpets, signalling battle, heaving ships crashed into one another, throwing men off their feet with the force of the collision. Both sides boarded each other’s vessels and so began close and bloody combat. ‘Our archers and crossbowmen began to fire so thickly, like hail falling in winter, and our artillerymen shot so fiercely, that the French were unable to look out or to hold their heads up. And while this flight lasted, our English men entered their galleys with great force and fought hand to hand with the French, and cast them out of their ships and galleys’.² In tricking the French into breaking up their fortress of ships, the English were able to beat the odds and trap the French. The result was a rout, described by Jean Froissart as ‘a bloody and murderous battle’. Edward III was wounded in the leg, but his injury was minor in comparison to the fate of the French commanders. Hugues Quiéret died fighting and the Constable of France, Nicolas Béhuchet, was strung up from the mast of his own ship.

The Battle of Sluys was a triumph for Edward III, for he had prevailed in one of the largest and most crucial naval battles of the Hundred Years War, winning him what became known as the English Channel. This victory was so deeply etched into Edward III’s self-image, it was commemorated on a valuable gold noble, depicting Edward ensconced in a ship, gallantly clutching his great sword and shield, branded with the quartered arms of England and France.³

As the King of England celebrated his great victory into the night, his Queen, Philippa of Hainault, was still in recovery from her own bloody and highly dangerous experience: childbirth. Childbirth in the fourteenth century was an agonising and fraught event, accompanied by ritual, prayer and carefully considered practicalities. Managed exclusively by women, those in charge of the safe delivery of a royal baby – and the survival of a Queen – were highly skilled midwives. Two months before the Battle of Sluys, in a dark, hot room in the Abbey of Saint Bavon, in the small town of Ghent, the Queen of England delivered a ‘lovely and lively’ baby boy, named John Plantagenet.⁴ After the battle, Edward III made his way to Ghent, but en route he diverted his men to the Shrine of the Lady of d’Ardenburgh, where they abandoned their horses and walked on foot to the shrine. On his knees, the King of England gave thanks for the great victory at Sluys and for the safe delivery of another healthy Plantagenet prince.⁵

 

Thirteen years before the birth of John Plantagenet, in the cold winter of 1327, his grandfather King Edward II was murdered. Unceremoniously ousted from his throne and imprisoned at Berkeley Castle, the King of England was then dispatched: the names of his murderers and their method remain a mystery. The popular myth that surrounds his death whispers that he was impaled through the rectum with a red-hot poker; a cruel and brutal death for an accused sodomite. Edward II had been overthrown in favour of his young son, Edward – later Edward III – in a rebellion led by his wife, Queen Isabella, and her lover, Roger Mortimer. They believed that the impressionable new King would be a malleable puppet in their schemes, and that they would be well placed to control the realm as regents (in all but name) for the young Plantagenet heir.

Edward III was crowned aged fourteen on 1 February 1327, and began his kingship under the watchful eye of his mother and the seemingly unstoppable Roger Mortimer. The young King tolerated Mortimer for three years, until 1330, when Edward conspired with his closest friends at court to overthrow the man who really controlled the country. On 19 October, in a coup against his effective stepfather, Edward captured Mortimer at Nottingham Castle and dragged him outside, to the sound of his mother’s screams: ‘Fair son, have pity on the gentle Mortimer’. Without mercy, he ordered that Mortimer be imprisoned and tried. With Edward’s agreement, Mortimer was sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered.

On 29 November, Roger Mortimer was dragged to the scaffold at Tyburn on a hurdle and tied to a ladder before the crowd. His genitals were then severed and his stomach was slit, with his entrails yanked free from his open belly before being cast into a fire. Finally, Mortimer’s head was cut off and he was hung by his ankles.⁶ The bloody, headless corpse of the old power in England demonstrated the birth of a new era: the age of Edward III. Very few shed tears for the man who saw himself as King, or for the Dowager Queen. Isabella was left bereft, mourning quietly in confinement and visited by her son only once or twice a year.⁷

Shortly after the Nottingham coup, Edward III released a proclamation which he commanded be read by sheriffs aloud and in public throughout the realm. ‘[Edward] wills that all men shall know that he will henceforth govern his people according to the right and reason, as befits his royal dignity, and that the affairs that concern him and the estate of his realm shall be directed by the common counsel of the magnates of his realm and in no other wise . . .’⁸ The King’s statement made clear that ‘royal dignity’ went hand in hand with royal authority: he believed in providential kingship.

As he took control of the country in his own right, Edward first had to tackle domestic affairs. When Edward inherited the throne, he also inherited a country in a sorry state. Scotland presented the principal threat, with its King, Robert the Bruce, frequently attacking England’s northern border. Wales had been colonised by Edward I and overrun by the English, with a legacy of lingering resentment amongst the Welsh, while Ireland was left largely to its own devices. In 1332, the House of Commons formed after sitting together for the first time in a separate chamber to the lords and clergy. The Commons were made up of country representatives – knights of the shire from the countryside and burgesses from the towns and cities. They were elected locally, whereas lords received direct summons from the King for Parliament. By 1341, the Commons were independent of the clergy or the lords for the first time, which enhanced their position and power as spokesmen for the people. Magnates were appointed to defend the realm, and allocated the responsibility of mustering troops from their county. Edward of Woodstock – the Black Prince – was installed as Prince of Wales, and successfully recruited Welsh soldiers when the time came for war. Edward III strengthened the northern borders against the Scots and later placed his son Lionel in the position of Lieutenant in Ireland.

Despite domestic affairs being of supreme importance, war with France was inevitable. This was in part due to Edward’s forceful and ambitious nature, but also down to an old dispute over territory. Edward III had not only inherited the English crown, but the constant monarchical belief that the lands in France that had once been Plantagenet territory were still by right English. The largest and most significant instigator of the Hundred Years War was the disagreement over Gascony.

Gascony was a treasured fraction of what had once been a Plantagenet domain in France. It was also incredibly lucrative and produced the most popular wine in England. Gascony was, above all, a fiscal asset to the Crown. In 1259 Henry III made peace with Louis IX with the Treaty of Paris, and in doing so renounced Plantagenet claim over lands lost in France. It was agreed that Gascony could be kept, but only in fief – held in return for allegiance or service – to the French crown. Edward I, II and now Edward III refused to acknowledge this agreement, causing an enduring friction between England and France.

This tension came to a head when, in 1337, Philip VI confiscated the Duchy of Aquitaine, a region in the south-west of France, bordering the Kingdom of Navarre, and the county of Ponthieu, an original Norman vassal state at the mouth of the Somme – accusing Edward of breaking his feudal bond. Edward responded with an outright claim of what he considered to be his birthright: the French throne. He was, he asserted, the closest male heir of the late Charles IV of France, through his mother Isabella.

As war with France grew imminent, England began to prepare for combat, mustering troops from around the country. In order to defeat the French, Edward was aware that he needed international allies and sought the support of Flanders, basing himself and his pregnant Queen in Antwerp. With Louis I, Count of Flanders, in strong support of the French, this was an optimistic move. However, the municipal governments of Ghent, Ypres and Bruges relied heavily on the wool trade with the English, in order to keep Flemish mills running. Finally – through the support of the influential Flemish merchant leader, Jacob van Artevelde – Edward negotiated a loan and the services of 2,000 men at arms. The Flemish were in a difficult position regarding their allegiance, being financially obligated to remain loyal to the King of France through funds held by the Papal treasury. The only way they could see around the situation suited the ambitious Edward perfectly.

At a Great Council held in Flanders, it was agreed that the only way to avoid forfeiting the money held by the Papal treasury would be for Edward III to style himself King of France. ‘They would hold him for King and obey him as their sovereign Lord, from who the county of Flanders ought to be held, and would help him gain sovereign power in his realm’.⁹

On a bitterly cold day in January 1340, the townspeople of Ghent circled around the the market square. Before an audience, Edward III was publicly proclaimed King of France in order to secure support from the Flemish towns.¹⁰ Back at home, however, Parliament was at a deadlock, refusing to budge to support the ambitious alliance, as Edward was attempting to subordinate England’s needs to those of his new partners. He promised a subsidy of £140,000, free trade and the removal of the Staple – the centre of the wool trade administration, usually the town in which wool was traded – to Bruges. There was no way of following through with his promises without raising tax and plunging England into financial difficulties.

Eventually, Edward was forced to return home, leaving his family in Flanders as collateral for his onerous promises. He sailed for England, determined to convince Parliament and the Church that the war with France was a necessity, and that he should be relieved of his debts in order to fund the campaign. By 1340, the year of John of Gaunt’s birth, his father was in serious debt to Flanders. England teetered on the brink of revolt and Edward had begun to dismiss government officials, creating political divisions and making enemies in the Commons and among the clergy by imposing taxes and borrowing substantial sums. His envoys had overspent drastically in forming terms with the Flemish, promising them wealth as though the English Crown could afford to repay the debts without issue. The Crown jewels were pawned, yet Edward still needed to beg Parliament for further funds. If unable to pay his debts, he would be forced to return to Brussels as a prisoner until the debt was settled. Despite mitigating some of the debt by granting the Flemish merchants English wool, Edward III was broke.

Where the first half of 1340 was marked with crippling financial and military pressure, the second brought triumphs. The Battle of Sluys was a remarkable English victory, gaining Edward the admiration and respect of his soldiers – a force made up largely of his own countrymen – and demonstrating the potential of English military and naval power. His kingship was strengthening and, to add to the promising future, a healthy Plantagenet prince had been born.

Prince John spent the first months of his life in Ghent, baptised at his birthplace – the Abbey of Saint Bavon.¹¹ He had two powerful godparents: John, Duke of Brabant – an influential landowner in Flanders – and Jacob van Artevelde – a powerful textile merchant – who held the baby John at his baptism ceremony.¹² The choice of godparents for the new Prince was tactical. The Duke of Brabant had been Edward’s key ally in the war against France. He had supported Edward’s claim to the French throne and donated 1,200 men at arms to the war effort against the French. Jacob van Artevelde was an influential figure in Flanders. Having amassed vast power and fortune in the textile industry, he became a spokesman and leader of the commercial classes. However, van Artevelde was also a reputed dictator and bully, supposedly using his men to injure and even murder anybody who disputed his authority. His influence in Flanders and control over the textile trade made him a crucial ally for Edward, but his bullish nature eventually backfired. An angry mob murdered him in 1345 for his overexertion of power and growing familiarity with the English.

In the autumn of 1340, the King and Queen made the decision to return their children to England for safety, due to the increasing threat of a French invasion of Flanders. The King could not risk his children being taken hostage, not least due to the immense financial strain he was already under. By July, Edward could not even pay the expenses of his household and three loyal earls, including Henry of Grosmont (later Duke of Lancaster) were arrested by the Flemish and thrown into a debtors’ prison. The King wrote to Parliament pleading for aid, else ‘I and my country, my children, the nobility and my whole people will be undone’.¹³ With an impending march on Tournai to arrange, the King said goodbye to his children, whom he would not see for four months. In November 1340, John of Gaunt was taken to England with his brother Lionel, who was two years older, and installed at Woodstock Palace in Oxfordshire where he would receive the care and education of a prince.¹⁴

 

John of Gaunt was the third surviving son of Edward and Philippa, and aged two was given the title of Earl of Richmond.¹⁵ Before him came Edward of Woodstock, later known as the Black Prince, and Lionel of Antwerp. The Queen gave birth twelve times in total, with nine children surviving infancy. The relationship between Edward and his Queen, Philippa, was loving and the King famously doted on his wife post-partum, lavishing her with gifts of red velvet and robes of cloth of gold lined with miniver. The new Prince, John, was treated with equal adoration, being given a silk robe and colourful bedding of red and green. The newborn John of Gaunt was also appointed his own cradle rocker and no fewer than eleven servants, instructed to attend to his every need: his nurse, Isolda Newman, was paid generously by the King to care for the royal infant.

Despite attentive servants, Queen Philippa was heavily involved in the upbringing of her many children, and occupied herself with the management of the royal nursery.

 

In 1319, when negotiations were in place for Edward and Philippa’s marriage, Bishop Walter de Stapledon, an ambassador for King Edward II, was sent to Hainault to inspect the future Queen of England. In his register, he provides a detailed report of her appearance; she had dark hair, a ‘high and broad’ forehead, with ‘broad’ nostrils, but ‘no snub nose, full lips and was ‘brown of skin all over’.¹⁶ The chronicler John Hardyng predicted Philippa would bear many children. He described her as having ‘good hippes’, necessary to successfully carry twelve babies to term. With just thirteen months between John of Gaunt and Edmund of Langley, it is questionable whether the relentlessly virile Edward ever left his wife alone. Philippa was a portrait of maternal femininity. She did what all good Queens were expected to do: give birth to heirs. Her children were her absolute priority.

Philippa of Hainault took on the responsibility of other children as well as her own. She adopted orphaned children of the nobility into the nursery, such as Joan of Kent, after her mother died and her father was beheaded for treason. Philippa also cared for the children of those in her service, such as Katherine and Philippa de Roet, whose Flemish father, Pan de Roet, had died on campaign in France. She extended her interests further, into rural industry by opening mines in Tyndale and Derbyshire, providing opportunity and industry for local communities, and even prompting the English to use their wool to manufacture their own garments – where cloth was previously bought in from Flanders. In 1341 she also enhanced the growth of Oxford University by supporting the foundation of The Queen’s College, Oxford.¹⁷ The chronicler Jean Froissart worked for the Queen as her secretary from 1361 to her death in 1369, and described her as ‘courteous, humble, devout . . . and tall’.

Where Philippa of Hainault was humble, caring, loyal and dutiful, Edward III was confident, ambitious and hot-headed. He was a leader with exemplary military capabilities – a reckless spender, but adept at war. During the war, the King led destructive chevauchées through France, destroying the countryside. Yet, through such an aggressive military policy, he managed to expand Plantagenet lands in a manner not achieved since the reign of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine.

Like most Plantagenet Kings before him, a superior military force was the priority of Edward’s kingship. He offered paid military service, an idea that had been initiated by his grandfather, Edward I. This resulted in the most powerful English army assembled for two centuries. Rather than calling on an army of farmers and serfs to do their feudal duty, all men were paid for their skills, from the foot soldier at 2d per day – around six pounds by today’s standards – to the Black Prince who earned the far greater sum of one pound per day – around £750. As his sons grew older, Edward was keen to involve them in his campaigns, both overseas and through domestic military propaganda and ceremony. The intention was clear: Edward III and his sons would be accepted throughout Europe as a powerful military and political family.

The firstborn son of Edward III and Philippa of Hainault was Edward of Woodstock, later known as the Black Prince – either due to the colour of his armour or his ruthless reputation on the battlefield. The Black Prince became a respected military leader and the most inspirational and revered Plantagenet Prince in England. To John of Gaunt he was a friend, a mentor, a brother in arms, and, for the first part of Gaunt’s life, an inspiration.

The Queen chose Woodstock Palace, her favourite countryside retreat, for the royal nursery – a place only formally established after John of Gaunt’s birth.¹⁸ Traditionally, medieval childhood lasted from birth until around seven years of age, at which stage the child would leave the nurse and be placed under the care of women in the nursery. The children’s household – and the care of John of Gaunt – was overseen by the ‘chief maistresce’, Isabella de la Mote, who assigned women to each child. John of Gaunt shared Margery de Monceaux with his slightly older brother Lionel, as well as Margery la Laundere who managed the napiery (linen nappies) and the ewery (washing the princes). As they were still both nursing, however, they had separate wet nurses. As Prince John grew older, he was assigned a page, a valet and a tailor. Education began early; he was allocated a tutor and received a pious education, introduced into the religious community through ceremony and prayer. In total, the royal nursery employed sixty-seven people to serve the children. When John of Gaunt was around eight years old, he was placed in the care of the Black Prince.

Childhood being relatively short meant that girls were expected to marry and bear children of their own by the ages of around twelve to fourteen, while boys were expected to begin military service, which is why Gaunt was soon placed under the supervision of his more experienced older brother.

The Black Prince had received the best education available. He was taught by the scholar and astrologer Dr Walter Burghley, and was expected to excel as the future King of England. This served him well for he gleaned a sense of his own majesty from an early age: at seven he was even accoutred with his own suit of armour. Whilst his parents were in Flanders, the year before John of Gaunt’s birth, the Prince opened Parliament on behalf of the King.¹⁹ Before he was ten, the Prince led an elite entourage, greeting the envoys of the Pope at the gates of the City of London (in the fourteenth century London was still encased inside a large defensive wall, with around seven gates that allowed access from north to south of the City). Aged ten, the Prince represented his father as the head of state, and even served as head of the realm whilst Edward III was in Antwerp around the time of John of Gaunt’s birth. Thrust onto centre stage, the Black Prince’s ability to work the crowd came from ample experience at a young age in the public eye. Alongside his glittering public image, the Black Prince managed extensive land and property in Cheshire and Cornwall, overseeing local administration, and cultivating loyalty from his tenants. When John of Gaunt lived with his brother he was expected to learn the skills required for leadership – military and domestic. This period of fraternal bonding forged an enduring closeness between the two boys, despite the ten-year age difference between them.

The military victories of Prince Edward were legendary. He went on to be the hero of Poitiers, and his reputation was that of a chivalrous prince, albeit an arrogant one. During the Battle of Poitiers, the Black Prince captured the French King, John II. That night, he served his royal captive on bended knee as a page.

Isabella Plantagenet, born two years after the Black Prince and named after the dowager Queen, was equally as indulged by Edward III as her older brother. She ran up vast debts due to her extravagant lifestyle and remained unmarried until she was thirty-three, having jilted her fiancé, the Count of Gascony, moments before she was to board the vessel which would carry her to France. Her would-be husband retired to a monastery and she was allowed to keep her expensive trousseau. She eventually fell in love with, and married, one of the King’s hostages from Poitiers, Enguerrand de Coucy, a French aristocrat. During the war, de Coucy sat comfortably on the fence between the conflicting countries and refused to fight for either England or France.

Princess Joan was five years older than John of Gaunt, followed by William of Hatfield who died in infancy, and was subsequently buried in York. His death was followed by the birth of another prince, Lionel, who would grow to be the giant of the Plantagenet family, an improbable seven feet tall according to chronicler John Hardyng.²⁰ After John, came four younger surviving siblings: Edmund, Mary, Margaret and Thomas, filling the royal nursery.

Aged fourteen, Edward’s ‘dearest daughter’ Joan left England to marry Pedro of Castile, cementing an Anglo-Castilian alliance crucial to Edward’s military agenda. As her ship drew into the harbour at Bordeaux, her retinue were unaware of the horror they were about to face: the relentless and devastating Black Death now spreading quickly throughout Europe. The royal party fled to Loremo, a small village in Bordeaux, but the Princess could not outrun the disease. Joan died unwed on 1 July 1348, with no family around her. His sister’s death had a lasting impact on John of Gaunt; in 1389 he endowed an obit – an intimate religious service – for her at the Cathedral of St André at Bordeaux, where she was buried.²¹

In the autumn of 1348, the Black Death crept into England from a ship that landed in Southampton. The deadly disease reached London around 1 November 1348, and by 2 February 1349 around 200 people were being buried daily in mass graves outside the City. Henry Knighton, an Augustinian monk, witnessed the devastation of the Black Death in England: ‘there was a general mortality throughout the world . . . in the same year there was a great murrain of sheep everywhere in the realm . . . in one place more than 5,000 sheep died in a single pasture . . . sheep and oxen strayed through the fields and among the crops and there was none to drive them off or collect them, but they perished in uncounted numbers . . . for lack of shepherds . . . After the Pestilence many buildings fell into total ruin for lack of inhabitants; similarly many small villages and hamlets became desolate and no homes were left in them, for all those who had dwelt in them were dead’. The Black Death – widely considered to have been bubonic plague – caused a painful and often-gruesome end. First came the shivering and fever, along with extreme fatigue and muscle aches. The illness was named for its characteristic formation of ‘buboes’: blackened and swollen lymph nodes. Appearing on the armpit, groin or neck, these painful swellings could be as large as apples or eggs. Depending on the development of the infection, a person could then go on to have vomiting, bleeding from the mouth, nose and rectum, and even tissue loss in extremities such as the fingers and nose. Death came swiftly, with the disease usually taking only three to five days to kill eighty per cent of its victims.

As the Black Death gripped the western world, Europe was forced to pause conflicting politics and come to terms with an epidemic of an apocalyptic nature. The visitation would drastically change the landscape of society.

Before the Black Death arrived in 1348, the country and the Crown were riding high on military victory, following success at the Battle of Crécy in 1346. Such celebrations incentivised Edward III to keep war as his national priority. He had proved himself on the battlefield, but as a new foreign enemy silently crept into England, he was faced with an invisible force, a challenge of a different magnitude altogether. The 1349 January Parliament was postponed until Easter, for both Lords and Commons feared gathering together. The nobility and Parliamentary officials fled to their homes in the country and Sheriffs refused to conduct their business for fear of their lives. The King’s response was rational, following the belief that poor public hygiene was responsible for the epidemic. He opposed the idea of digging a burial pit for the plague victims in East Smithfield, in close proximity to the Tower of London, and ordered the closure of all of the London ports.²²

In 1349, John of Gaunt was in York with the Black Prince. The brothers likely sought refuge in St Mary’s Abbey from the Black Death, which had now reached the North of England, tearing through York at a terrifying rate. For John of Gaunt the Abbey was both a spiritual and physical sanctuary, because the natural and most common response to the horror of the plague was extreme levels of piety, demonstrated across England and throughout Europe. People believed the pestilence raging across the country was divine punishment – they blamed themselves. According to Henry Knighton, the Scots gathered in Selkirk to plan an invasion of England, for they also believed ‘God’s dreadful judgement to have descended upon the English’. Their invasion never took place; the Black Death soon arrived in Scotland, claiming ‘a monstrous death upon the Scots’.²³

The King requested that the clergy perform rites calling on the grace of God to help protect the realm from the terrors of the Black Death. Around the end of September 1349, 600 Flagellants arrived in England from Flanders. The Flagellants marched and whipped themselves, drawing blood, before they formed into the shape of a cross and continued to beat each other, chanting all the while. According to Thomas Walsingham, they processed through the streets twice daily, barefoot and wearing only a piece of linen from their waist to their feet. On their heads they wore a hood painted with a red cross – front and back. These men were ‘noble men of foreign birth, who lashed themselves viciously on their naked bodies until the blood flowed, now weeping, now singing’.²⁴ Even above military might, territorial power, wealth and posterity, the medieval community firmly believed in God: their maker, and their destroyer.

Around the year 1300 the population of England had stood at roughly five million; by 1377 this had dropped to around two and half million.²⁵ Plague had claimed half of the population, wiping out entire families, villages and even towns such as Bristol.²⁶ Rich or poor, man, woman or child, every person felt the effects of the Black Death. The first crushing wave in 1348 was not a one-off: it would return almost yearly thereafter.

The sudden loss of labourers threatened the feudal system – where landholders provided property to tenants in exchange for their services, as labourers or in war – as survivors began to negotiate their wages, suddenly aware of their enhanced value. In 1349 Edward introduced the Ordinance of Labourers, passed with the intention of keeping the working classes in the same pay bracket as they had been before the epidemic. All able-bodied and ‘sturdy beggars’ were charged with the task of bringing in the harvest, and those who sought to shirk responsibility were publicly humiliated in the town stocks, which were reintroduced for this very reason. Retailers and manufactures were prevented from exploiting the change in the social economy and Church wages were also regulated. Citizens of England, for a time, were banned from leaving the country for war or for pilgrimage. Over the course of the following decade, however, wages continuously rose and the Ordinance proved unsuccessful. The resulting tension between the governing and the labouring classes would grow into a battle over social and economic order that would endure throughout the second half of the fourteenth century.

The decade following John of Gaunt’s birth in 1340 was a period of fluctuation between victory and disaster. The early economic strain on the country in pursuit of an expensive war had been followed by the greatest military victories of the age: battles such as Sluys and Crécy. Then, as the country celebrated a golden age of war, the Black Death tore through the continent. The first ten years of John of Gaunt’s life were lived in a polarised world of war and chivalry, poverty and plague. He grew up amid the harsh and uncontrollable reality of the medieval world.