John of Gaunt :: Essays Papers

John of Gaunt John of Gaunt was Edward III’s fourth and favorite son, brother of the Black Prince, father of two Queens and the ancestor of the dynasties of Portugal and Spain, and the Stuarts, Tudors, and the Georges. John was a key figure in most major developments during the latter part of the fourteenth century, involved in important and dramatic events both in England and Europe and, in his capacity as a soldier, statesman, and diplomat he appears as one of the dominant figures of his time. Evidence of his greatness is found in the work of chroniclers like Chaucer, a good friend and patron, and Troissart. John was born on March 4, 1340, in Ghent (hence Gaunt) in the city of Flanders, England at a turning point in the social and cultural expansion of Europe and England. Gaunt lived nearly sixty years against a background of debilitating war with France, the Hundred Years War, constant and embittered opposition to the power of the Papacy, epidemics of the plague, and the eventual economic exhaustion of England towards the end of century. By the end of his life in 1399, Gaunt’s own daughters were among the first educated women to emerge in literature. As John consistently encouraged, English became the accepted language of the country. Wyclif’s translation of the Bible, which John had defended in Parliament, began to be accepted, and Chaucer’s use of the vernacular was established in literary circles at Court. John of Gaunt’s life was dominated by war. He played an important part in wars between England and France and between England and Spain. From 1359, when he accompanied Edward III on his last great expedition to France, until his return from Gascony in 1395, he was continually employed in the wars against the French and their allies. He helped the Black Prince to establish English rule over most of southern France during the Hundred Years War. In 1367 John defeated the army of Henry II (later Henry II, king of Castile and Leon). John then temporarily laid a claim to the throne of Castile. Nor was he simply an English war-leader but by reason of his marriage to Constance of Castile in 1372, a European prince with pretensions to a throne of his own that had to be secured by force of arms.