Katherine and John are ancestors to King Henry VII and to the current royal family. Since I don’t know much British history, I looked up these two names.

It would never have been used in 14th century England.Īpart from this one I’ve only read her Green Darkness.Katherine, first published in 1954, is the story of Katherine Swynford, mistress and then wife of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster.

But at the heart of it is a three way marriage and I couldn’t help thinking about the Charles/Diana/Camilla episode which was a very similar situation.Īnya Seton was steeped in English history it would seem and was obvioulsy an Anglophile, but there was one very jarring Americanism in that she uses the phrase ‘New Year’s’ It’s a US expression and I always want to say – New Year’s what?! I must say that it drives me nuts so it really jumped out at me. French wars, plague, rioting, Lollards, Geoffrey Chaucer and all sorts come into the tale, including quite a lot of the old religion as you would expect. This is such an entertaining and painless way of learning about the history of the period, Anya Seton seems really to have done her research into the period, a time of upheaval and misery for the ordinary people, most of whom were serfs, so were not free to move away if they wanted to as the landowner owned them. But it’s the Duke that she’s going to be involved with for most of her life. When she’s suffering from the unwanted attention of a man that Katherine first meets, the Duke of Lancaster/John of Gaunt, he saves her from Hugh Swynford, the man that she eventually marries for some sort of security. It was the Queen who had ordered that Katherine be brought to court, and it’s really only then that Katherine realises that she’s attractive with her long auburn hair. It’s a long journey and a real eye-opener fot the young girl. At the beginning Katherine is a young girl, leaving the very secluded Sheppey priory that she has grown up in for the hurly burly of Windsor. Katherine is written in six parts which range from 1366 to 1396. I’ve been meaning to get around to reading it for years, so I put it on my new third Classics Club list, just to remind me to get on with it.

Katherine by the American author Anya Seton was first published in 1954.

Katherine seton