Before reading this book, I had never heard of Katherine
Swynford and her lifetime lover-turned-husband John of Gaunt, both ancestors of
the Tudors, so I became eager to read it, especially after reading the positive
reviews on Anya Seton’s accurate historical research.
Katherine de Roet was a young girl who grew up in a convent
because her father and mother had passed away during the Black Death and her
sister was taken to live as a lady in waiting to Queen Philippa of Hanualt,
queen of England, because their father was a knight of her retinue. As Katherine became of a marrying age, fifteen,
she too was sent to the court since she didn’t wish to become a nun.
Once there, one of the knights of the court, Sir Hugh
Swynford, became extremely attracted to her and tried to have his way with her without
her consent, but she was saved by one of the Queen’s sons, the Duke of
Lancaster, John of Gaunt, which started the interest she had for him. Unfortunately, the coarse Hugh Swynford asked
for Katherine’s hand in marriage and she had no option but to accept since he
was a knight and she was but base born, thus everyone considered it a remarkable
opportunity for her, regardless of her personal feelings for the man. They married and went to Sir Hugh’s home,
Kettlethorpe, which was quite a distance from London, in Lincolnshire, and
Katherine lived there for about five years, under extreme misery and loneliness
because Hugh was off fighting for the Duke of Lancaster in faraway France and
Spain and she had no one to really be friends with as she was considered an
outsider by her serfs.
Meanwhile, Katherine was also befriended by the Duchess of
Lancaster, who had met Katherine in court and had attended her wedding since
her husband seemed to take a special interest in his knight, though it was
really a repressed interest in Katherine, and Katherine came to adore the
Duchess, so much that she named her first born child, Blanche, after her. Regrettably, the Duchess was taken ill by the
recurring Black Death and Katherine went on to see if she could help her, but
there was nothing much to be done. The
Duchess died and Katherine took care of all the details, including that of
taking her to London so that she might have a proper burial. Once in London,
the Duke came back and was extremely brokenhearted by the death of his Duchess
and wouldn’t see anyone for days except for Katherine, because he needed to
show his gratitude for the last service she performed his wife. Once summoned to him, the Duke finally let go
of his pent up feelings and asked Katherine to be his mistress, which she
refused because of her religious beliefs and of her fidelity to Sir Hugh, even
if she didn’t love him and loved John of Gaunt, which she acknowledged. The Duke was extremely upset, but let her
go. A year later they met again because
she was summoned to nurse her husband who was hurt in battle and to be a lady
in waiting to the woman he was going to marry, Constance the Queen of
Castile. Katherine was reluctant to go,
but did so because Hugh needed her. Once
there, the Duke once again tried to convince her to be his mistress, but she
refused. He was desperate because he
realized he was actually in love with her, not just attracted to her. However, Sir Hugh died under strange
circumstances unknowingly to John and Katherine, but this led the way to the
start of their epic romance.
This story could be easily considered a saga due to the time
span and the development of the characters and the surroundings events. Anya Seton made a superb job developing
Katherine’s character, first building her up and putting her in a type of
pedestal and then having her fall of it with a clang, making the reader feel
angry at her more than human actions, which just shows the ability the writer
had in depicting a true character and not a caricature of a real person. We were drawn into Katherine’s life of sin,
understanding her and her feelings and her actions, but Seton’s superb writing
came after Katherine realized what her sin brought about, how it had affected
others and made an about face which was completely unexpected, yet this is the
climactic moment that made Katherine endearing to the reader once again. And in the middle of all this, there is death,
and war, and political problems, and plotting, and discontented serfs who
destroyed a big part of London and religious uprooting… yes it is indeed an
epic saga that needs to be read with time, savoring all the historical details that
Seton included so masterfully in her storytelling.
It is impossible to mention all the major points of the
story because so many things happen simultaneously, yet the focus of the story,
Katherine and her Duke, are perfectly depicted in their angst for each other,
in their true love, in the way he decided he would finally ignore conventions
and marry a woman so socially beneath him that it caused an uproar in the court
and in society in general, but he did it regardless. Seton should definitely be commended for
taking the time to bring to life such daring characters from the past, for
giving them a voice and a story of their own so many years after their deaths,
for presenting them first to her twentieth century audience with so much
success that it has trickled on to the twenty first century, more than sixty
years after it was first written. The
only criticism I can think of is that at times it did seem to go a bit slow,
but if the fabulous descriptions were shortened, the book’s value would be
lost, so it is well worth the read anyway.
Yes, it is definitely a must read
and I’m glad I did.
Katherine
Reviewed by Romina on May 2 2012
Rating:
Reviewed by Romina on May 2 2012
Rating:
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