John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster.

Chaucer married the sister of John of Gaunt's third wife. Chaucer's Book of the Duchess commmorates the death of John of Gaunt's first wife, Blanche, and he actually appears in it as her mourning widower. John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, also figures prominently in Shakespeare's Richard II as critic of that king, and his son, Bolingbroke, overthrows Richard while purporting to reclaim his royally sequestered inheritance after his father dies. Both authors are sympathetic to the Duke, who seems much more appealing in their accounts than he was historically. The painting is ascribed to Luca Cornelli, in the possession of Duke of Beaufort, but some scholars consider it to be a Renaissance copy at best. Published: Armitage-Smith, Sydney (1905) John of Gaunt: King of Castile and Leon, Duke of Aquitaine and Lancaster, Earl of Derby, Lincoln, and Leicester, Seneschal of England Archibald Constable, p. 100. Courtesy of the Yorck Project, under GNU Free Document License.