The Red Prince: The Life of John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster by Helen Carr
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This was a book of great interest for me as John of Gaunt is purportedly my 17th great grandfather with a descent going through a number of ancestors I’m intimately familiar with as I have hundreds, or probably thousands, of ancestors traveling down this line. I’m not a professional genealogist, but my family has been researching and recording for generations and with access and use of numerous sources these days, it’s easier to be fairly certain and accurate than in decades past.
I’ve used and invested in thousands of resources for family tree research, but I often use Ancestry.com’s generational lineage descent tracings to most easily (and quickly) see lines of descent, though some have been wrong and for potential ancestors I’m interested in, I try to confirm, etc., with as many resources as possible.
That said, I’m going to list the descent from Gaunt to me as most commonly presented. Incidentally, this is through my mother’s maternal side. My mother’s paternal family was the Lipscomb family (connected to the Todd and Madison families as well as going very far back to the McGregor clan and related clans). My mother came from the Page family of Virginia, with affiliated families including the Carlisle, Carter, Isham, Worthington, Harrison, Bolling, Washington, Cary and Randolph families, and further back in time, the Percy, Arundel, Beaufort, Neville, Boleyn, von Sachsen, Dudley families, etc. (A lot of beheadings among my ancestors…)
– John of Gaunt Plantagenet, the Red Prince, Duke of Lancaster (son of King Edward III Plantagenet, King of England and brother of Edward the Black Prince, Duke of Cornwall, Prince of Wales)
> Joan Beaufort Plantagenet, Countess of Westmoreland
> Edward de Neville
> Katherine de Neville
> William Tanfield
> Francis of Gayton Tanfield
> Anne Tanfield
> Elizabeth Lane
> Dorothy Lane (always a key ancestor, as she married William I Randolph)
> Sir Richard I Randolph
> Col. William Randolph of Turkey Island, House of Burgesses [Father of the Randolph family in America]
> Col. Richard Randolph, House of Burgesses
> Mary Amelia Randolph
> Mary “Polly” Cary Page
> Mann Page
> Carter Henry Page Sr
> Carter H Page Jr
> Kathryn Page Lipscomb
> Nancy Elizabeth Page Lipscomb Holstad
> Scott Cameron Holstad
The point? Well, I got off topic-this book. I think I found the most value in bringing Lancaster to life for me because with most of these old ancestors, it’s often just names, dates, families, titles, but ultimately with so many, little else. Books like this can make these names and data “human,” ideally not only providing details and context lacking with so many, but a better understanding of both big and small issues, events, topics, etc. As in this case, the Wars of the Roses have held people’s fascination for centuries, with the drama of the Houses of Lancaster and York, both branches of the Plantagenet dynasty, which basically slaughtered each other over many years, gutting the Plantagenet power, thus allowing for the start of the Tudor dynasty that also intrigues so many people.
And what of Gaunt? Duke of Lancaster and founder of the royal House of Lancaster. Which means not only did he fight in the Hundred Years’ War, but was friend and patron of Geoffrey Chaucer, father of King Henry IV (allegedly all English monarchs from Henry IV onwards descend from John of Gaunt) and founder of the Plantagenet branch (Lancaster) which would go on to lay the country to waste in the Civil Wars, as the Wars of the Roses were then known.
Cool, eh? Helen Carr does a pretty good job at what had to be a challenging person to write about, if for no other reason then the sheer massive scale of complexities John of Gaunt presents. For anyone interested in such topics, or even anyone at all, this book is certainly recommended.
hankrules2011 