John of Gaunt :: Essays Papers

deception of Gaunt commode of Gaunt was Edward IIIs fourth and favourite son, brother of the macabre Prince, father of two Queens and the ancestor of the dynasties of Portugal and Spain, and the Stuarts, Tudors, and the Georges. tin was a key figure in most major developments during the latter(prenominal) part of the fourteenth century, involved in important and dramatic events both(prenominal) in England and Europe and, in his capa urban center as a soldier, statesman, and diplomat he appears as one of the dominant figures of his time. Evidence of his greatness is set up in the work of chroniclers like Chaucer, a good fri closure and patron, and Troissart. derriere was born on March 4, 1340, in Ghent (hence Gaunt) in the city of Flanders, England at a turning point in the social and ethnical expansion of Europe and England. Gaunt lived nearly sixty years against a background of debilitating war with France, the one hundred Years War, constant and embittered elect ric resistance to the power of the Papacy, epidemics of the plague, and the eventual economic exhaustion of England towards the end of century. By the end of his life in 1399, Gaunts own daughters were among the first enlightened women to emerge in literature. As John consistently encouraged, English became the accepted language of the country. Wyclifs translation of the Bible, which John had defended in Parliament, began to be accepted, and Chaucers use of the vernacular was established in literary circles at Court. John of Gaunts life was dominated by war. He compete an important part in wars between England and France and between England and Spain. From 1359, when he attended Edward III on his last great expedition to France, until his return from Gascony in 1395, he was continually employed in the wars against the French and their allies. He helped the Black Prince to establish English rule over most of southern France during the Hundred Years War. In 1367 John def eated the army of Henry II (later Henry II, king of Castile and Leon). John then temporarily laid a claim to the toilet of Castile. Nor was he simply an English war-leader but by reason of his marriage to Constance of Castile in 1372, a European prince with pretensions to a throne of his own that had to be secured by force of arms.