Nearly five years on from the end of their affair, Katherine could perhaps view the prospect of John leaving England for a long period with equanimity. After all, it would not be forever - there is some evidence to suggest that he never intended to take up permanent residence in Castile, but anticipated that England would remain his chief base.
Inwardly, she might have worried about John, for he was no longer young. Fernao Lopes, whose description of him as he appeared in Portugal in may derive from the reminiscences of Philippa of Lancaster and other contemporaries, says he was still tall, lean and upright, but estimated him to be 'about sixty years old, with fewer white hairs than is normal for one of his age' - unsurprisingly, as he was still only forty-six.
It does appear, though, that a lifetime of care and campaigning had prematurely aged him, and his experiences in Spain would doubtless leave their mark as well.
The Duke spent the months prior to his departure putting his affairs in order, and his provision extended to Katherine's family. He took Thomas Chaucer into his service. John was there to attend an impressive ceremony in the chapter house of Lincoln Cathedral, in which, in the presence of nine canons, 'the Lord Henry, Earl of Derby, son of the Lord John, the most high Prince, King of Castile and Duke of Lancaster' was to be admitted by Bishop Buckingham to the cathedral's confraternity, just as John himself had been admitted at the age of three.
Sir Thomas Swynford, in company with another Lincolnshire knight, Sir William Hauley, was officially in attendance on the Duke that day. Admission to the cathedral's 'order of the brotherhood' — which it claimed had been founded 'when the Bible was written', but which in fact dated from c. His visit to Lincoln Cathedral would have afforded him the opportunity to pray at the three altars where his name-saints were worshipped, and to the Holy Virgin, to whom the church was dedicated.
