Anybody who was anybody in medieval England had an impressive array of heraldic devices at their disposal. Animals and plants, colours and patterns, objects and astrological symbols; all formed a visual shorthand for the identification of rank and family, for loyalty, allegiance and service. The Lancastrian dynasty is a prime example of this: through the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, it was represented by the red rose, the crowned eagle or panther, the ermine (gennet) flanked by yellow broom flowers for the Plantagenet name, the columbine or aquilegia flower, the antelope, tree trunk, fox’s tail or the plume of ostrich feathers adopted by the Black Prince. Marriages and alliances brought a swathe of further connections, traceable through their banners and coats of arms, embroidered upon their liveries or carved above their hearths, trickling through the branches of the family tree. The Lancastrians were patrons of poets, knights in battle, riding the wheel of fortune through its full compass, and immortalised in the plays of William Shakespeare.
The most famous of all these Lancastrian symbols is the red rose, associated with the county itself and reputedly adopted by Edmund Crouchback, the first earl, following his marriage to Blanche of Artois in 1276. This was the genus of the dynasty, although the rose symbol lay fallow for a century until John of Gaunt adopted it again on his marriage to Blanche, Edmund’s great-granddaughter. Today, the red rose of Lancaster has come to possess an inviolable quality, a metonymic for an entire dynasty and its struggles to gain and retain the throne, taking on a life of its own centuries after its use. It is a cultural shorthand, an historian’s handle, a neat visual juxtaposition with the white rose of York. It represents the interface of fact and fiction, history and romance. Nowhere is this more clearly represented than in Henry Payne’s painting Choosing the Red and White Roses in the Old Temple Gardens, now displayed in the Commons East Corridor of the Palace of Westminster and familiar from the front cover of many books dedicated to what we now refer to, anachronistically, as the Wars of the Roses. Completed around 1908–10 in the Arts and Crafts style, Choosing the Red and White Roses in the Old Temple Gardens infuses the flowers with a profound political significance, representing the moment hostilities broke out and allegiances were declared. But this scene comes from fiction; more specifically, from drama. It is an illustration of Act II, Scene IV in Shakespeare’s Henry VI Part I, in which the characters of Richard of York (Richard Plantagenet) and Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset select their colours. Yet this gentle symbol, the red damask rose, is essentially martial and masculine. While writing this book, I was searching for another symbol that could stand for the collective biographies of dozens of women, very different in role, character and fate, overlapping across a span of 150 years. I wanted something that would represent the very different way in which women experienced life as members of this famous, much-defined dynasty.
It would not be easy. The range was vast. The women in this book were born into a variety of circumstances, in a number of different countries: England, France, Castile in modern Spain, The Hague in the Netherlands and what is now the Czech Republic. Nor were their destinies clear at birth; some, such as Blanche of Lancaster, Joan, Queen of Scots and Margaret Beaufort, were daughters of Lancastrian parents, destined to become ambassadors for the family, while others joined it through marriage. Some of those marriages seemed full of promise but were cut remarkably short by rapidly changing events. French princess Catherine of Valois was Henry V’s queen for just over two years, while Margaret Beaufort’s marriage to Edmund Tudor lasted a brief twelve months, though both were tied closely to Lancastrian fortunes by the life of a single, precious son. Others bore no children but contributed as consorts, wives or queens, though often their status was not enough to protect them when their enemies closed in, as Eleanor Cobham and Margaret of Anjou discovered. Some were happily married, even for love, while others were selected as brides for political reasons and, like Constance of Castile, won their husbands’ respect if not their love. Cecily Neville was born to, and Jacquetta of Luxembourg married, a Lancastrian but both changed sides to follow the fortunes of their husbands and children. The primary contribution of a few was to reproduce, like Blanche of Gaunt and Mary de Bohun, but the distinct phases of the dynasty meant that they never saw their children live to claim the throne or reap the rewards of their labours. A handful of later Lancastrian wives did become queens. Joan of Navarre, Catherine of Valois and Margaret of Anjou all married kings, whilst one of the two Joan Beauforts gained a crown through marriage. A couple of women who were close to the throne came within a hair’s breadth of becoming queen; Cecily Neville is considered by some to have been queen by rights, although such proximity proved to be the undoing of Eleanor Cobham. Later still, a few were forced to fight to defend their rights as the dynasty began to wane, taking far more political positions than they might have anticipated. Finding a suitable symbol for them all, to balance the masculine red rose, to demarcate their unique experiences from each other and from those of their men, would not be simple.
Room 40 of the British Museum is dedicated to items from medieval Europe. It houses a small white swan badge standing 3.3cm tall by 3.5cm wide, with additional length provided by a gold chain attached to a collar around the bird’s neck. It was made in Paris at the end of the fourteenth century, from gold overlaid with opaque white enamel, and has minute traces of pink enamel on the beak and black on the legs and feet. Known as the Dunstable Swan Jewel since its discovery at the priory of that town in 1965, it was probably a livery badge made to represent Lancaster, either owned by a member of the family or someone who wished to display their allegiance. The swan sounds very much like the one listed in Richard II’s treasure roll: ‘item, i cigne d’or amiell blanc ove i petit cheine d’or pendant entour le cool, pois ii unc, pris xlvis viiid,’ or ‘item, a gold swan enamelled with white with a little gold chain hanging around the neck, weighing 2oz, value 46s 8d.’1 It is very likely that it found its way into the royal treasury after the goods of Richard’s uncle, Thomas, Duke of Gloucester, were seized in 1397, which included a book embroidered with swans from the family of his wife. The Dunstable jewel has become an important medieval symbol, a rare survival drawing the attention of the museum’s visitors with its delicate beauty and its mysterious past.
The swan symbol came into the Lancastrian dynasty through the marriage of Henry IV, then Henry of Bolingbroke, to the heiress Mary de Bohun in the 1380s. Around the same time, Henry’s uncle, the Duke of Gloucester, married Mary’s elder sister Eleanor, her only surviving sibling, which transferred the entire de Bohun inheritance to the English royal family. Swans had been featured on the de Bohun family seal since earlier that century and may have come to them from their connection with the Mandeville family, the Earls of Essex, whose use of it may have been a reference to their descent from Adam Fitz Swanne. A contemporary of William the Conqueror, Swanne or Sweyn, owned a great deal of land in the north of England, including some properties in Hornby in Lancashire, and the swan device was also used by other families descended from him, including that of Cecily Neville, whose seal featured a swan with the shield of York upon its breast. Yet there may already have been a regal connection, given the daring motto Edward III had painted upon his shield: ‘Hay, hay the white swan, by God’s tout I am thy man.’2
As my research progressed, I found more evidence of the swan being used as a symbol in a way that highlighted the feminine contribution to the dynasty. The first Lancastrian king, Henry IV, married into the de Bohun family two decades before he claimed the throne and the swan forms the centrepiece of the seal used by his wife Mary: a white swan with wings raised but not fully outstretched, head bent forward and one eye visible, chained about the neck with a coronet collar. Her sister Eleanor, who married a son of Edward III, also used the swan, which features on her tomb in Westminster Abbey, while her will bequeathed to her son Humphrey a book and a psalter with white swans enamelled on the clasps, to be passed on from heir to heir. Her great-great-great-grandson, the Duke of Buckingham, was still using the swan well into the reign of Henry VIII.
As a result of this connection, the de Bohun swan became part of the visual culture of the Lancastrians; a constant reminder of the female contribution and what was owed to it: Henry IV rode a horse covered in cloth embroidered with swans and the seal of his son, the future Henry V, featured an ostrich feather in a scroll held by a swan. It was made into jewellery, such as the Dunstable Swan, which may or may not have been one of the New Year’s gifts exchanged by Mary and Henry mentioned in family records. It found its way on to Henry V’s banner, it was used by Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester and made into badges by Margaret of Anjou to distribute on behalf of her son. Not every woman associated with the Lancastrian dynasty employed the device of the swan, they often brought their own personal or family devices to an already crowded visual field, but the qualities embodied by the creature make it a fitting symbol of their varied endeavours.
Apart from the connection with Adam Fitz Swanne, the de Bohuns identified with the popular French story of ‘the Swan Knight’, known to us in its modern form of the myth of Lohengrin, the subject of Wagner’s famous opera first performed in 1850. The story was treasured among the de Bohun family; it was the subject of the book decorated with swan clasps, which Eleanor passed down to her son. It is not possible to know which version of the verse romance the book contained, but it would have been derived from the Crusade Cycle of the Chansons de Geste, from which the Chevalier au Cygne appeared in 1192 and then the late fourteenth-century Chevelere Assigne. The various accounts include a mysterious woman bathing whilst clutching a gold necklace, who captivates a passing man and becomes his wife, and bears septuplets before the jealousy of others drives the family apart for years. The themes are those of beauty and truth, romantic and passionate love, motherhood and fertility, misunderstanding and rivalry, unjust punishment and avenging justice, just as swans are frequently the artistic symbols of elegance and power, poetry and harmony. Not every woman associated with the Lancastrian dynasty used the swan badge, but its qualities could be metonymic for all their contributions. In addition, the chain around the bird’s neck speaks of a limited freedom, of the nature of women’s existence as the possessions of men, bound by their gender, although many of the ladies in this book challenged and defied such restrictions.
I thus elected to use the de Bohun swan as the uniting factor for these women. It provides the perfect foil for the red Lancastrian rose, illustrating the layered nature of history and the human experience: the dominating political masculine sphere which dictated the course of their lives and which has created an overarching metanarrative of the period above the symbiotic quieter, more marginalised feminine strand, less well understood and less well defined by the processes of history, a function of the male world yet also in constant difference and emergence from it, both within and without. The stories of the Lancastrian men have been told many times. They are full of larger-than-life characters, the giants of history, so this book seeks to trace a series of petits récits, or small individual narratives, to illuminate the biographies of the women in their lives. These daughters, wives and mothers did not necessarily live on the margins but have been sidelined by the dominant narrative. In fact, even a cursory glance at their biographies shows that these women played influential roles. This book seeks to ascertain the nature of their contribution and the means by which they influenced their men and historical events. It was largely a question of personality and circumstances.
1 http://www.history.ac.uk/richardII/dunst_swan.html
2 Planché.