John of Gaunt

Martin I of Aragon, who was no friend to John of Gaunt, wrote respectfully on hearing news of his death. The remarks of foreign writers such as Froissart and Wyntoun echo similar reactions in French and Scottish princely circles. But English chroniclers tended to be perfunctory. Gower, for instance, despite his Lancastrian connection, was to say merely that death had resolved everything for the duke. Another contrast with such indifference is provided by the hostility which Gaunt often encountered in England in his lifetime. The most fully informed native chroniclers of the later fourteenth century amply testify to this hostility which, they imply, was sometimes national in scale, sometimes regional (especially concentrated in London and south-east England) and which animated members of elite groups (magnates, courtiers, knights of the shire in parliament, London citizens) or embraced wide sections of the commons as well. The Anonimalle Chronicler reports these reactions in a matter-of-fact way, Henry Knighton sorrowfully, Thomas Walsingham for a number of years with righteous approval, the Westminster Chronicler sometimes approvingly, sometimes not. Their reports have some features in common.

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