Katherine

Katherine de Roet is the daughter of a minor Flemish herald, raised in a convent and married off young to the rough knight Hugh Swynford. After Hugh's death, Katherine becomes the mistress of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster and the third surviving son of King Edward III, and bears him four children out of wedlock. Their love endures across decades of upheaval in fourteenth-century England, through the age of Chaucer, the Black Death, and the Peasants' Revolt, weathering scandal, separation, and political ruin before the couple finally marry. Their descendants would sit on the English throne, making Katherine an ancestor of kings.