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|title=Katherine Swynford

|author=Alison Weir

|date=September 2007

|isbn=978-0224063210

}}

The name Katherine Swynford may not quite have the historical resonance of the names of other royal mistresses such as Madame de Pompadour or Lily Langtree or Nell Gwynne, but she is perhaps the most significant other woman in royal history. Aside from representing an amazingly anachronistic love affair that spanned thirty years, Katherine Swynford's descendants are both illustrious and widespread - among them our present Queen Elizabeth II, Diana Princess of Wales, almost every European monarch and five American presidents, including George Washington and George W Bush. Her thirteenth century affair with John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, lasted for half their lifetimes and by the end, they were married, she was his Duchess and their bastard children had been legitimised - something which had never happened before in royal circles and has never happened since.