ABSTRACT
The Book of the Duchess (BD) is believed to have been written in honour of Blanche, Duchess of Lancaster, who died in 1368. 1 She was born between 1340 and 1347, the younger daughter of Henry, first Duke of Lancaster (d. 1361) and co-heiress to the vast Lancaster estates. In 1359 she married Edward III’s son, John of Gaunt, Earl of Richmond. After Blanche’s only sister’s death in 1362, he inherited, in right of his wife, the whole of ‘the largest inheritance in England after the crown’. 2 He subsequently became Duke of Lancaster. Blanche had five children of whom three, including the future Henry IV, survived.
