John of Gaunt III's rule was becoming unpopular due to high taxation and his affair with Alice Perrers, political opinion closely associated the Duke of Lancaster with the failing government of the 1370s. Furthermore, while King Edward and the Prince of Wales were popular heroes due to their successes on the battlefield, John of Gaunt had not won equivalent military renown that could have bolstered his reputation. Although he fought in the Battle of Nájera (1367), for example, his later military projects proved unsuccessful. When Edward III died in 1377 and John's ten-year-old nephew succeeded as Richard II of England, John's influence strengthened.
John of Gaunt a British race for Thoroughbred horses run annually in June. Fakenham in Norfolk has the full name of Fakenham Lancaster as a tribute to him as Duke of Lancaster. Anya Seton's best-selling 1954 novel "Katherine" depicts John's long-term affair with and eventual marriage to Katherine Swynford. John of Gaunt is a major character in Garry O'Connor's "Chaucer's Triumph: Including the Case of Cecilia Chaumpaigne, the Seduction of Katherine Swynford, the Murder of Her Husband, the Interment of John of Gaunt and Other Offices of the Flesh in the Year 1399" (2007). John of Gaunt is a recurring character in Jeri