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Lancaster (Name of a royal English house)

the name of a royal English house, which flourished in two lines. The first commences with ED- MUND, son of Henry III. and Eleonora of Provence, and brother of Edward I., employed by the latter as ambassador to Philip of France, and afterward as commander in the expedition for the recovery of Guienne. Born in London, 1245; died in Bayonne, in 1296. THOMAS, his son and successor in the earldom, cousingerman to Edward II., headed the confederacy of barons against Piers Gaveston, and finally shared the responsibility of his death with Hereford and Arundel.

He was at length taken in arms against the sovereign, and beheaded at Pomfret, in 1322. HENRY (previously Earl of Leicester), brother and heir of Thomas, joined the conspiracy of Isabella and Mortimer against Edward II., and received the king into his custody at Kenilworth. He was subsequently appointed guardian and protector of the person of his son, Edward III. He died in 1345.

LANCASTER SOUND HENRY, his son (previously Earl of Derby), after vainly endeavoring to make peace with John, King of France, under the mediation of the Pope at Avignon, was sent with an army into Normandy, and took part in the victory of Poitiers, and the subsequent French wars. About this time his title was changed to Duke of Lancaster. He died in 1362. The next Duke of Lancaster commences a new lineage, that of the princes opposed to the house of York.

The first in the line was JOHN OF GAUNT, or GHENT, third son of Edward III.; born in 1339. He was married successively to the daughter of Henry, the last duke, and to the daughter of Peter, King of Castile. His name is one of the most celebrated in English history, and in the chivalry of the Middle Ages. He died in 1399. HENRY OF HEREFORD, the successor of John of Gaunt in the dukedom, was son to him by his first wife. He claimed the crown by descent, by the mother's side, from Edmund the first earl, who was popularly supposed to be the elder brother of Edward I. He became king by deposing Richard II., 1399. He reigned as Henry IV. till his death in 1422, and was succeeded by his son, HENRY V. The son of the latter also inherited the crown as HENRY VI., and in his reign the feuds of York and Lancaster broke out, which ended in the union of the two houses in the person of HENRY VII.