John (Lancaster) of Lancaster KG KB (abt. 1389 - 1435)

Born about 20 Jun 1389 in Kenilworth, Warwickshire, England

Ancestors

Husband of Anne (Bourgogne) de Bourgogne — married before 15 May 1423 in Troyes, Aube, France

Husband of Jacquette (Luxembourg) Wydeville — married 22 Apr 1433 in Therouanne, Artois, France

Died 14 Sep 1435 at about age 46 in Rouen Castle, Normandy, France

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Biography

John (Lancaster) of Lancaster KG KB is a member of the House of Lancaster.

John of Lancaster, 1st Duke of Bedford

Titles of John of Lancaster: (Royal Ancestry)

Duke of Bedford and Anjou

Earl of Richmond, Harcourt and Kendal

Count of Maine

Privy Councillor

Warden of East Marches

Captain of Berwick

Constable of England

Captain and lord of the Channel Islands - Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney, and Sark

Lieutenant of the king at sea

Guardian and Lieutenant of England

deputy and president of Order of Garter

Governor and Lieutenant of Normandy

Regent of France 1422

Admiral of England, Ireland and Aquitaine

Captain of Calais and Lieutenant of Marches of Picardy

Captain of Alencon, Meulan and Tower of Falaise

Warden of the Forest of Dean and Constbale of St. Briavels Castle 1399-1435

1414: Duke of Bedford^[1]

b. June 20, 1389 Kenilworth, Warwickshire

d. Sept. 14, 1435, Rouen

Burial: Rouen Cathedral, Rouen^[2]

Burnt Joan of Arc; Regent of France

commanded England's army during a critical period in the Hundred Years' War (1337-1453) with France. Despite his military and administrative talent, England's position in France had irreversibly deteriorated by the time he died.

The third son of King Henry IV of England (ruled 1399-1413)

• 1415 - 1422: lieutenant three times while Henry was campaigning in France. Bedford helped relieve Harfleur in 1416, and he and the King were both in France at the time of Henry's death in 1422.

• regent for Henry's son, the infant Henry VI, and it was agreed during his absence from England his brother Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, was to take over.

• 1423: By allying with Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy, gained control over northwestern France, then opened offensive against Charles VII.

Aug. 17, 1424: won important victory at Verneuil. But throughout this period he struggled to maintain the Anglo-Burgundian alliance, threatened by hostility between Gloucester and Duke Philip. Furthermore, Bedford was recalled to England in 1426 to arrange a reconciliation between the warring factions led by Gloucester on the one side and the chancellor, Henry Beaufort, on the other.

Returning to France in 1427, Bedford had success until forced by Joan of Arc to raise his siege of Orléans in April 1429. This setback was the turning point of the war. Thereafter, Bedford's energy and judgment could not keep England's hold on France from weakening.

1433: discovered England was too insolvent to prosecute conflict. Bedford's death came as Burgundy was in the process of abandoning the English cause and making a separate peace with France.

Copyright © 1994-2001 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

Death and burial of John, Duke of Bedford

(Royal Tombs of Medieval England) He was the third son of Henry IV and Mary de Bohun. John, Duke of Bedford was made Protector England in 1415 and Regent of France in 1422. The duke died at Rouen Castle on 14 September 1435 and was buried at Rouen Cathedral in accordance with his will dated four days before his death. An earlier will made in 1429 had instructed burial in Amiens Cathedral. The duke was clearly a skilled administrator who left nothing to chance. The 1435 will gave three burial locations depending on the lace of death: Rouen in Normandy, Waltham Abbey in England or Morivele in Picardy. On 30 September the duke was interred north of the Rouen high altar in the bay east of the tomb of Henry the Young King, who died in 1182. The funeral was under the control of Westminster. Work on the duke's tomb seems to have been well along by 1436 and must have been completed by 1446 and appears in Rouen records in 1449 being described as 'celebre monumentum ac speciosa sepultura artificiossime composita.' The tomb had an effigy of the duke but it was not recorded whether it was alabaster or metal, but probably metal, and if so, was most likely striped by Huguenots in the 1560s. Bedford's first wife, Anne of Burgundy (d.1432) had a white marble effigy and black marble slab more typical of French royal monuments. Bedford's will provided for daily masses for Anne of Burgundy and himself to be administered by the Rouen Clementines. Bedford's tomb was replaced in the seventeenth century by a plain, black marble tomb-chest, in turn displaced during the remodeling of the Rouen Sanctuary in the 1730s. His grave was opened in 1866 revealing a lead coffin containing the bones of what was thought to be a tall, powerful male. There were no traces of regalia. Objects taken from the grave are kept in the Rouen Musee d' Antiquites. The site of the grave of John, Duke of Bedford is marked today by an inscribed stone slab.

Research Notes

• Incorrect daughter: This profile previously had a daughter Isabel as a daughter of John Lancaster and Jacquette. They had no such daughter and she has been disconnected.

Sources

1. ↑ by Henry V
2. ↑ Source: #S4

• Royal Ancestry D. Richardson 2013 Vol. III p. 505-508

• Royal Ancestry D. Richardson 2013 Vol. V page 424

• Royal Tombs of Medieval England M. Duffy 2003 p. 218-221

• Hope, Sir William Henry St. John. The Stall Plates of the Knights of the Order of the Garter, 1348-1485 (A. Constable and Co., ltd., Westminster, 1901) Plate XLIV

• "Henry VI: July 1433," in Parliament Rolls of Medieval England, ed. Chris Given-Wilson, Paul Brand, Seymour Phillips, Mark Ormrod, Geoffrey Martin, Anne Curry and Rosemary Horrox (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2005), British History Online, accessed June 12, 2022, http://www.british-history.ac.uk/no-series/parliament-rolls-medieval/july-1433.

Acknowledgments:

• Katherine Wall Luiz Sergio Heinzelmann.