Remarkable Lady

I would like to gather a few thoughts on Katherine Swynford after reading Alison Weir's biography of her relationship with John of Gaunt (pictured).  I plan to read the Anya Seton novel at some point, but now I am so into Plaidy's historical fictive style it may be awhile.

Hers is a very impressive story - upwardly mobile - to come from such humble ancestry to the attention of a maternally sympathetic Queen Philippa (to Edward III) to a hardscrabble first marriage to a knight to a lush affair with several children to that most prominent Duke.   Next came calumny and furtive living as a byproduct of the Peasant's Revolt.  The cap on her life was marriage to that prominent Duke and legitimization of her children.  It is a story that spans decades of faithfulness to a scandalous relationship, turning mores upside down.  

She is the ancestress of Margaret Beaufort, and thus the Tudor kings.  She is also ancestress of the House of Stuart through her granddaughter Joan.  So the Tudors are descended from two misalliances involving initially illegitimate children (better check my facts here).