The colours of Elizabeth of Lancaster

Azure, a semy-de-lis or
in escutcheon gules,
3 leopards or

Elizabeth of Lancaster

Duchess of Exeter

Elizabeth of Lancaster was born at Kenilworth Castle in 1364, the second daughter of John of Gaunt and his cousin, Blanche of Lancaster. John and Blanche had been married 6 years previously at Reading – Blanche was the second daughter (and therefore co-heiress) of Henry Duke of Lancaster. Upon Henry's death in March 1361, John (then Earl of Richmond) was also granted his father-in-law's title.

Elizabeth was 8 years of age when her mother Blanche died in 1369. She was brought up under the governance of Katherine Swynford, mother of John's illegitimate family, the Beauforts, (later legitimised in early 1397 by Richard II as a mark of favour), who later become his third wife.

The Lancasters and the Beaufort children grew up in an atmosphere of an advanced progressive intellectual life, with new ideas being discussed by the eminent poets and philosophers of the day who were part of the Duke’s household at various times. Elizabeth and her elder sister Philippa were, unusually for the time, highly literate. As they grew older, they (along with their half-sister, Joan Beaufort) played leading roles in various poetic and intellectual movements. Elizabeth herself was an accomplished dancer and singer, apparently outshining the young ladies of the Court even into her mid-thirties. There is record of her winning prizes at Court for dancing, in 1398, and two years before then she had been admitted into the Society of the Garter, one of only 16 women to be granted that honour at the time.

Elizabeth was first married at Kenilworth, the place of her birth, in 1380, at the age of sixteen. Her husband was the young Earl of Pembroke, John Hastings. Born in 1372, he had succeeded to the earldom in 1375, upon the death of his father. The elder John Hastings, died in 1375 after much ill-treatment by the Spanish. Wardship of the infant Earl was granted to his mother Anne (daughter of Sir Walter Manny), and her mother. However, Elizabeth ‘disagreed’ with the marriage, and the young Countess of Pembroke was in fact seduced 3 years later by another man before it could be consummated. The rebuffed Earl of Pembroke was placed in the hands of his grandmother, the Countess of Norfolk. He died in 1389, (still in his minority), in a jousting accident, at which point the earldom became extinct.

Elizabeth’s second marriage was to Sir John Holland, Earl of Huntingdon, Duke of Exeter, who had seduced her as a teenage bride. As the two had not waited for a formal marriage, John of Gaunt had to hurriedly arrange one before setting out on his Spanish campaigns! Holland received from the King a considerable grant of lands upon his marriage. Described as ‘dashing and ruthless’, Holland accompanied his father-in-law John of Gaunt on his Spanish campaign as constable of the English army. He apparently performed numerous acts of valour in battle and deeds of skill in tilting, which won him the highest praise from Froissart.

Holland later became embroiled in a conspiracy against Henry IV for the restoration of Richard II, his own half-brother. He was eventually captured and beheaded on the 16th of January 1400 at Pleshey by the Countess of Hereford, and his estates were declared forfeit.

Less than a year after Holland’s execution, Elizabeth married for a third time. He was Sir John Cornewall, another famous jouster, although of much lower social status. She had apparently been captivated by him at a joust in York, in which he worsted two foreign opponents. Again, very little is known of him.

Elizabeth died in 1425 at the age of 61. Her effigy – tall, slender-featured – can be seen on her tomb in Burford Church, Shropshire.