by Susan Flantzer
© Unofficial Royalty 2022

Joan Beaufort was the only daughter and the youngest of the four children of John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster and his mistress Katherine Swynford, whom he later married in 1396. Joan was born circa 1379, possibly at Kettlethorpe Hall in Kettlethorpe, Lincolnshire, England, a property that had belonged to the first husband of Joan’s mother, Sir Hugh Swynford who had died in 1371.

Joan Beaufort’s paternal grandparents were King Edward III of England and Philippa of Hainault, Queen of England. Her maternal grandmother is unknown but her maternal grandfather was Paon de Roet, a knight from the County of Hainault (now part of Belgium and France) who first came to England in 1328 when Philippa of Hainault married King Edward III of England.

All British monarchs since King Henry IV are descended from John of Gaunt. In fact, most European monarchies are descended from John. The Houses of Lancaster, York, and Tudor were all descended from John of Gaunt’s children:

• King Henry IV (Lancaster: father of King Henry V, grandfather of King Henry VI)
• Joan Beaufort (York: grandmother of King Edward IV and King Richard III)
• John Beaufort (Tudor: great-grandfather of King Henry VII)

During the Wars of the Roses, the battle for the English throne pitted the House of Lancaster and the House of York against each other. Note in the lists of descendants below, the several family members who were killed in battle or executed during the Wars of the Roses.

Joan had three elder brothers:

• John Beaufort, 1st Earl of Somerset (circa 1373 – 1410), married Margaret Holland, had at least six children
• Henry, Cardinal Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester (circa 1375 – 1447), unmarried
• Thomas Beaufort, Duke of Exeter (circa 1377–1426), married Margaret Neville of Horneby, one son who died young

Joan had three half-siblings from her mother’s first marriage to Sir Hugh Swynford (circa 1340 – 1371), a knight in service to John of Gaunt:

• Blanche Swynford (1367 – circa 1374), died in childhood
• Sir Thomas Swynford (1368 – 1432), married (1) Jane Crophill, had three children (2) Margaret Grey, no children
• Margaret Swynford (born c. 1369), became a nun at Barking Abbey in 1377 with help from her future stepfather John of Gaunt, where she lived the religious life with her cousin Elizabeth Chaucer, daughter of the poet Geoffrey Chaucer and Katherine’s sister Philippa de Roet

Joan had seven half-siblings from her father’s first marriage to the wealthy heiress Blanche of Lancaster:

• Philippa of Lancaster, Queen of Portugal (1360 – 1415), married King João I of Portugal, had nine children
• John of Lancaster (c.1362/1364), died in infancy
• Elizabeth of Lancaster (1364 – 1426), married (1) John Hastings, 3rd Earl of Pembroke  (2) John Holland, 1st Duke of Exeter, had six children  (3) John Cornwall, 1st Baron Fanhope, had two children
• Edward of Lancaster (born and died 1365)
• John (born and died 1366), died in early infancy
• King Henry IV of England (1367 – 1413), married (1) Mary de Bohun, had six children including King Henry V of England  (2)  Joanna of Navarre, no children
• Isabella of Lancaster (born 1368), died young

Joan had two half-siblings from her father’s second marriage to Infanta Constance of Castile:

• Catherine of Lancaster, Queen of Castile (1372 – 1418), married King Enrique III of Castile and León, had three children. Through their son Juan II of Castile, Catherine and Enrique III are the grandparents of Isabella I, Queen of Castile and great-grandparents of Catherine of Aragon (daughter of Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon), the first wife of King Henry VIII of England.
• John of Lancaster (1374 – 1375), died in infancy

Joan and her siblings likely spent their early years at Kettlethorpe Hall in Kettlethorpe, Lincolnshire, England, a property that had belonged to the first husband of John’s mother, Sir Hugh Swynford who had died in 1371. Kettlethorpe was a small, quiet village, close to the city of Lincoln but 150 miles from London. It would have been a perfect place for John of Gaunt to carry on a discreet affair and have his illegitimate children raised as he had made a second marriage in 1371 and Katherine was a recent widow.

Two years after the death of his second wife Constance of Castile, John of Gaunt married his mistress Katherine Swynford, Joan Beaufort’s mother, on January 13, 1396, at Lincoln Cathedral in England. After the marriage of Katherine and John, their four children were legitimized by both John of Gaunt’s nephew King Richard II of England and Pope Boniface IX. After Henry Bolingbroke, John of Gaunt’s eldest son by his first wife Blanche of Lancaster, deposed his first cousin King Richard II in 1399, and became King Henry IV, he inserted the Latin phrase excepta regali dignitate (except royal status) in the documents that had legitimized his Beaufort half-siblings and supposedly that phrase barred them from the throne. However, many disputed and still dispute the authority of a monarch to alter an existing parliamentary statute on his or her own authority, without the further approval of Parliament.

John of Gaunt treated his Beaufort children as cherished members of the family but he was careful that the provisions he made for them would not interfere with the Lancaster inheritance reserved for his legitimate children. Instead, he found other forms of income for them through marriages and for his second son Henry, through the church. Because of John of Gaunt’s cautions, his Beaufort children were held in great affection by their half-siblings.

When Joan was seven-years-old, she was betrothed to 13-year-old Robert Ferrers of Wem (circa 1373 – 1396), the heir of his mother Elizabeth Boteler, 4th Baroness Boteler of Wem. Joan and Robert were married in 1391 or 1392, and the couple remained in the household of John of Gaunt. Robert predeceased his mother, dying sometime between May 1395 and November 1396.

Joan and Robert had two daughters:

• Elizabeth Ferrers (1393 – 1474), married John de Greystoke, 4th Baron Greystoke, had twelve children
• Mary Ferrers (1394 – 1458), married her stepbrother Sir Ralph Neville, had two children

In November 1396, Joan married the recently widowed Ralph Neville, then 4th Baron Neville de Raby, after 1397, 1st Earl of Westmorland. Ralph was the son of John Neville, 3th Baron Neville de Raby and Maud Percy, daughter of Henry de Percy, 2nd Baron Percy of Alnwick. The seventeen-year-old Joan immediately became the stepmother to Neville’s eight children by his first wife Margaret Stafford who died on June 9, 1396. Joan and Ralph lived primarily at Raby Castle near Staindrop in County Durham, England.

Joan’s eight stepchildren, the children of her second husband Ralph Neville:

• Maud Neville (circa 1383 – 1438), married Peter Mauley, 5th Baron Mauley, had two daughters
• Alice Neville (circa 1384 – circa 1434), married (1) Sir Thomas Grey, had nine children, beheaded for his part in the Southampton Plot (2) Sir Gilbert Lancaster, had one son
• Philippa Neville (1386 – circa 1453) married Thomas Dacre, 6th Baron Dacre of Gilsland, had nin children
• Sir John Neville (circa 1387 – circa 1420), Elizabeth Holland, had three sons and a daughter
• Elizabeth Neville, a nun
• Anne Neville (circa 1384 – 1421), married Sir Gilbert Umfraville (died at the Battle of Baugé in Anjou during the Hundred Years’ War), no children
• Sir Ralph Neville (circa 1392 – 1458), married his step-sister Mary Ferrers, daughter of Robert Ferrers of Wem and Joan Beaufort, had five children
• Margaret Neville (circa 1396 – circa 1463), married (1) Richard Scrope, 3rd Baron Scrope of Bolton, had three children (2) William Cressener, had three sons

Joan and Ralph had fourteen children:

• Lady Katherine Neville (circa 1397 – circa 1483), married (1) John Mowbray, 2nd Duke of Norfolk, had one son (2) Sir Thomas Strangways, had two daughters (3) John Beaumont, 1st Viscount Beaumont, killed in the Battle of Northampton during the Wars of the Roses, no children (4) Sir John Woodville, brother of Elizabeth Woodville, wife of the Yorkist King Edward IV. The marriage was considered a grab for money and power as Katherine was 65 and John was 19. After the Yorkist defeat at the Battle of Edgecote during the Wars of the Roses in 1469, John and his father were taken prisoners, given a quick trial, and beheaded.
• Lady Eleanor Neville (circa 1398 – 1472), married (1) Richard le Despenser, 4th Baron Burghersh, no children (2) Henry Percy, 2nd Earl of Northumberland, killed during the First Battle of St Albans during the Wars of the Roses, had ten children including four sons who died in battle during the Wars of the Roses
• Richard Neville, 5th Earl of Salisbury (1400 – 1460), married Alice Montagu, 5th Countess of Salisbury in her own right, had twelve children including Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, The Kingmaker, an important figure during the Wars of the Roses. After the defeat of the Yorkists at the Battle of Wakefield during the Wars of the Roses, Richard Neville, 5th Earl of Salisbury escaped the battlefield but was captured, taken to the Lancastrian camp, and beheaded.
• Henry Neville (born and died circa 1402), died in infancy
• Robert Neville, Bishop of Durham (1404 – 1457)
• William Neville, 1st Earl of Kent (circa 1405 – 1463), married Joan de Fauconberg, 6th Baroness Fauconberg in her own right, had five children
• John Neville (born and died circa 1406), died in infancy
• George Neville, 1st Baron Latimer (circa 1407 – 1469), married Lady Elizabeth de Beauchamp, had four children
• Lady Anne Neville (circa 1408 – 1480), married (1) Humphrey Stafford, 1st Duke of Buckingham, killed at the Battle of Northampton during the Wars of the Roses, had twelve children (2) Walter Blount, 1st Baron Mountjoy, no children
• Thomas Neville (born circa 1410), died in childhood
• Cuthbert Neville (born and died circa 1411), died in infancy
• Joan Neville (circa 1412 – 1453), became a nun of the Order of St. Clare
• Edward Neville, 3rd Baron Bergavenny (circa 1414 – 1476), married (1) Elizabeth de Beauchamp, had four children (2) Katherine Howard, had three children
• Lady Cecily Neville (1415 – 1495) married Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York, the Yorkist claimant to the throne during the Wars of the Roses who was killed at the Battle of Wakefield, had twelve children including King Edward IV and King Richard III

Ralph Neville was initially loyal to Joan’s first cousin King Richard II and secured the English northern border with Scotland for him. As a reward, Ralph was created Earl of Westmorland in 1397. However, after Richard II was deposed in 1399 by his first cousin Henry Bolingbroke, Ralph gave his loyalty to the new King Henry IV, Joan’s half-brother. For his support of the new king, Ralph was rewarded with a lifetime appointment as Earl Marshal in 1399, although he resigned the office in 1412.

In 1403, Ralph was created a Knight of the Garter. He was important to his wife’s half-brother King Henry IV and then to Henry IV’s son King Henry V as a reliable ally in the troubled north of England. Because of Joan’s royal connections and dynastic importance, Ralph decided in 1404 to disinherit his children from his first marriage in favor of his children from his second marriage. This created a long dispute called the Neville–Neville Feud that took years to settle.

In 1423, Ralph and Joan took Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York, the orphaned heir of the House of York, into their household as a royal ward. Richard’s mother Anne de Mortimer had died due to childbirth complications shortly after Richard’s birth. It was through his mother, a descendant of Edward III’s second surviving son Lionel of Antwerp that Richard inherited his strongest claim to the throne. Richard’s father Richard of Conisbrough, 3rd Earl of Cambridge, a grandson of King Edward III, died in 1415. Within a few months of his father’s death, Richard’s childless uncle, Edward of Norwich, 2nd Duke of York, was killed at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, and so Richard inherited his uncle’s title and lands, becoming the 3rd Duke of York. From 1415 – 1423, Richard had been the royal ward of Robert Waterton.

Eventually, Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York married Ralph and Joan’s youngest child Cecily, and they were the parents of the Yorkist Kings of England, Edward IV and Richard III. Richard, 3rd Duke of York was the Yorkist claimant to the English throne during the Wars of the Roses until he was killed at the Battle of Wakefield in 1460. Richard and Cecily’s eldest son Edward, Earl of March, the future King Edward IV, then became the leader of the Yorkist faction.

After the early death of thirty-five-year-old King Henry V in 1422, and the accession of his nine-month-old only child as King Henry VI, Ralph served on the regency council of the young king. In addition to his political activities, Ralph built several churches including the Collegiate Church of St. Mary in Staindrop, County Durham, England where his primary home Raby Castle was located. He was buried at the Collegiate Church of St. Mary after his death on October 21, 1425, at the age of about 61. Ralph’s tomb contains effigies of himself and his two wives but neither wife is buried there.

Joan survived her husband Ralph by fifteen years, dying on November 13, 1440, aged 60-61, in Howden, Yorkshire, England. Although Joan had built a chantry in 1437 for her second husband Ralph and herself at the Collegiate Church of St. Mary in Staindrop, she decided that she wanted to be buried near her mother Katherine Swynford, Duchess of Lancaster at Lincoln Cathedral in Lincoln, England.

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Works Cited

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