23RD GENERATION

7867566. Henry Plantagenet 1st Duke of Lancaster⁽⁷⁹⁹⁾ was born about 1300. He died on Mar 24 1361 in Leicestershire. Henry, 1st Duke of Lancaster, was the greatest nobleman of his day and one of Edward III's most trusted lieutenants. He inherited from his father four earldoms and lands in twenty-six counties that yielded an income of 8,380 pounds a year.

Lancaster served his king as soldier, diplomat, and administrator. He served in fifteen expeditions to Scotland, Flanders, Brittany, and Aquitaine between 1333 and 1360. He was in command on six of these expeditions, and the King's lieutenant on another seven. He also served on six diplomatic missions and participated in twelve truce conferences. Further, he took part in two crusades, one against the Moors in Algeciras, and another with the Teutonic Knights against the Slavs in Prussia.

So highly did the King value him that in 1337 he created him Earl of Derby and in 1351 Duke of Lancaster, the first English Dukedom to be created, excepting only the Duchy of Cornwall, created for the King's heir, Edward, the Black Prince. Further, Lancaster was a founder Kinght of the Garter.

His life is known in unusual detail for the period, because Lancaster was the author of The Book of the Holy Doctors, a sort of autobiography apparently written as a form of pennance. From its pages he emerges as a complex but likeable man.

Lancaster and his duchess had no sons and he expected his inheritance to be divided between his daughters. But only Blanche survived, carrying her father's lands and titles to her husband, John of Gaunt, whose son Henry IV founded of the Royal House of Lancaster. The great Lancastrian inheritance remains to this day a separately administered part of the Crown Lands and the title Duke of Lancaster is the only title, other than Duke of Cornwall, that does not merge with the Crown, and the Queen is Duke (not Duchess) of Lancaster.

The best modern biography of him is by K. Fowler, The King's Lieutenant: Henry of Grosmont, First Duke of Lancaster 1310-1361 (1969). He was married to Isabel Beaumont about 1334.

7867567. Isabel Beaumont died after 1355. Children were:

3933783 i. Blanche Plantagenet.

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