prince john
 

John was born 20 June 1389.  He was the third son of Henry IV and Mary Bohun and the younger brother of King Henry V.  John was a prominent man in England, holding the titles of Knight of the Garter, Duke of Lancaster and Bedford, and Earl of Kendel, but there is no evidence that he fought at the Battle of Shrewsbury in 1403 as Shakespeare depicts; he would, in fact, have been only 14 years old at the time.

John was first married to Anne of Valois (a member of the same family line as Henry's wife, Catherine), and they had one child who died at childbirth.  He later married Jacquetta of Luxemburg, who would become the mother of Queen Elizabeth Woodville, the wife of Edward IV, but she and John had no children together, and so he was left without an heir.

After the death of King Henry V in 1422, John was made Lord Protector of England and Regent of France, and so basically ruled in the stead of the infant king, his nephew Henry VI.  Leaving his duties in England to his younger brother Humphrey, John dedicated himself mostly to the maintenance of France.  He was quite a skilled and competent leader, but he also gained a reputation for harshness.  During his regency, he presided over the trial and execution of Joan of Arc, an act that made him extremely unpopular at the time and later in history. 

John died of natural causes at the age of 46.  His death occurred on 15 September 1435, just after Philip and King Charles of France had made peace with each other, thus considerably weakening the English hold on France.  In the absence of John's capable management, the kingdom essentially fell apart, launching the Wars of the Roses. 

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