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Birth:          29 Sep 1328 of Woodstock, Kent, England
Death:          8 Aug 1385 Wallingford Castle, Wallingford, Buckinghamshire, England
Burial:         29 Jan 1386 Grey Friars Church, Stamford, Lincolnshire, England

Notes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_of_Kent
Joan, LG, 4th Countess of Kent, 5th Baroness Wake of Liddell (29 September 1328 – 7 
August 1385), known to history as The Fair Maid of Kent, was the mother of King 
Richard II of England, whom she bore with her husband, Edward, the Black Prince, 
son and heir of King Edward III. Although the French chronicler Jean Froissart called 
her "the most beautiful woman in all the realm of England, and the most loving", the 
appellation "Fair Maid of Kent" does not appear to be contemporary.[1] Joan assumed 
the title of 4th Countess of Kent and 5th Baroness Wake of Liddell after the death of 
her brother, John, in 1352.
Lineage[edit]

Joan was the daughter of Edmund of Woodstock, 1st Earl of Kent, and Margaret 
Wake, 3rd Baroness Wake of Liddell.[2] Her father Edmund was the son of King 
Edward I and his second wife, Margaret of France, daughter of Philip III of France. 
Edmund's support of his older half-brother, King Edward II of England, placed him in 
conflict with the queen, Isabella of France, and her lover Roger Mortimer, 1st Earl of 
March. Edmund was executed after Edward II's deposition, and Joan's mother, along 
with her children, was placed under house arrest in Arundel Castle when Joan was 
only two years old.

Early life[edit]

The Earl's widow, Margaret, was left with four children for whom to care. Joan's first 
cousin, the new King Edward III, took on the responsibility for the family, and looked 
after them well. His wife, Queen Philippa, was Joan's second cousin.

Marriages[edit]

In 1340, at the age of twelve, Joan secretly married Thomas Holland of Upholland, 
Lancashire, without first gaining the royal consent necessary for couples of their 
rank.[3] The following winter (1340 or 1341), while Holland was overseas, her family 
forced her to marry William Montacute, son and heir of the first Earl of Salisbury. Joan 
later averred that she did not disclose her existing marriage with Thomas Holland 
because she had been afraid that disclosing it would lead to Thomas's execution for 
treason upon his return. She may also have become convinced that the earlier 
marriage was invalid.[4]

Several years later, Thomas Holland returned from the Crusades, having made his 
fortune and the full story of his relationship with Joan came out. He appealed to the 
Pope for the return of his wife and confessed the secret marriage to the king. When 
the Earl of Salisbury discovered that Joan supported Holland’s case, he kept her a 
prisoner in her own home.[5] In 1349, Pope Clement VI annulled Joan’s marriage to 
the Earl and sent her back to Thomas Holland, with whom she lived for the next 
eleven years. They had five children before Holland died in 1360.[6][7]

Their children were:
1.Thomas Holland, 2nd Earl of Kent
2.John Holland, 1st Duke of Exeter
3.Lady Joan Holland (1356–1384), who married John IV, Duke of Brittany (1339–1399).
4.Lady Maud Holland (1359–1391), who married firstly to Hugh Courtenay and secondly 
to Waleran III of Luxembourg, Count of Ligny (1355–1415).
5.Edmund Holland (c. 1354), who died young. He was buried in the church of Austin 
Friars, London.[8]

When the last of Joan's siblings died in 1352, she became the 4th Countess of Kent 
and 5th Lady Wake of Liddell.

Descendants of Joan of Kent through her children Lady Joan and Thomas Holland 
include Lady Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond and Derby (mother of King 
Henry VII) and queens consort Anne Neville, Elizabeth of York, and Catherine Parr.[9]

Marriage into the royal family[edit]

Evidence of the desire held by Edward, the Black Prince (who was her first cousin 
once removed) for Joan may be found in the record of his presenting her with a silver 
cup, part of the booty from one of his early military campaigns. Edward's parents did 
not, however, favour a marriage between their son and their former ward. Queen 
Philippa had made a favourite of Joan at first, but both she and the king seem to have 
been concerned about Joan's reputation. English law was such that Joan's living ex-
husband, Salisbury, might have claimed any children of her subsequent marriages as 
his own. In addition, Edward and Joan were within the prohibited degrees of 
consanguinity. The secret marriage they allegedly contracted in 1360[10] would have 
been invalid because of the consanguinity prohibition. At the King's request, the Pope 
granted a dispensation allowing the two to be legally married. The official ceremony 
occurred on 10 October 1361, at Windsor Castle with the King and Queen in 
attendance. The Archbishop of Canterbury presided.[citation needed]

In 1362, the Black Prince was invested as Prince of Aquitaine, a region of France 
which belonged to the English Crown since the marriage of Eleanor of Aquitaine and 
Henry II. He and Joan moved to Bordeaux, the capital of the principality, where they 
spent the next nine years. Two sons were born in France to the royal couple. The 
elder son, named Edward (27 January 1365 - 1370) after his father and grandfather, 
died at the age of six. Around the time of the birth of their younger son, Richard, the 
Prince was lured into a war on behalf of King Peter of Castile. The ensuing battle was 
one of the Black Prince’s greatest victories, but King Peter (Spanish: Pedro) was later 
killed, and there was no money to pay the troops. In the meantime, the Princess was 
forced to raise another army, because the Prince’s enemies were threatening 
Aquitaine in his absence.[citation needed]

Transition to Dowager Princess of Wales[edit]

By 1371, the Black Prince was no longer able to perform his duties as Prince of 
Aquitaine, and returned to England, where plague was wreaking havoc. In 1372, he 
forced himself to attempt one final, abortive campaign in the hope of saving his 
father’s French possessions. His health was now completely shattered. On 7 June 
1376, a week before his forty-sixth birthday, he died in his bed at Westminster.

Joan’s son was next in line to succeed King Edward III. Edward III died on 21 June 
1377 and Richard became king. He was crowned Richard II at the age of 10 in the 
following month. Early in his reign, the young king faced the challenge of the 
Peasants' Revolt. The Lollards, religious reformers led by John Wyclif, had enjoyed 
the protection of Joan of Kent, but the violent climax of the popular movement for 
reform reduced the feisty Joan to a state of terror, while leaving the King with an 
improved reputation.[citation needed]

As a power behind the throne, she was well loved for her influence over the young 
king - for example, on her return to London (via her Wickhambreaux estate) from a 
pilgrimage to Becket's shrine at Canterbury Cathedral in 1381, she found her way 
barred by Wat Tyler and his mob of rebels on Blackheath but was not only let through 
unharmed, but saluted with kisses and provided with an escort for the rest of her 
journey.

In 1385, Sir John Holland, an adult son of her first marriage, was campaigning with the 
King in the Kingdom of Scotland, when a quarrel broke out between him and Ralph 
Stafford, son of the 2nd Earl of Stafford, a favourite of the new queen, Anne of 
Bohemia. Stafford was killed, and John Holland sought sanctuary at the shrine of St 
John of Beverley. On the King’s return, Holland was condemned to death. Joan 
pleaded with her son for four days to spare his half-brother. On the fifth day (the exact 
date in August is not known), she died, at Wallingford Castle. Richard relented, and 
pardoned Holland (though he was then sent on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land).[citation 
needed]

Joan was buried, as requested in her will, at the Greyfriars, the site of the present 
hospital, in Stamford in Lincolnshire, beside her first husband. Her third husband, the 
Black Prince, had built a chantry for her in the crypt of Canterbury Cathedral (where 
he was to have been buried), with ceiling bosses of her face. Another boss in the 
north nave aisle is also said to be of her.[11]

Fictional depictions[edit]

Joan of Kent features in several pieces of fiction.

As leading character[edit]
The Life and Death of Jack Straw (1593) An anonymous early modern play about the 
Peasants' Revolt of 1381 (as the queen mother).
Emma Campion - A Triple Knot (2014)
Gordon R. Dickson - The Dragon and the Fair Maid of Kent', the last published book 
in the semi-historical Dragon Knight series .[12]
Juliet Dymoke - Lady of the Garter (The Plantagenets Book 4) (1979)
Karen Harper - Sweet Passion's Pain, republished as The First Princess of Wales.
Molly Costain Haycraft - The Lady Royal: Joan is portrayed as a rival to her cousin, 
Isabella, for the affections of Enguerrand de Coucy.
Susan Howatch - The Wheel of Fortune, a novel that takes the characters of the 
Plantagenet family and recreates them in a modern dimension of the Godwin family of 
Oxmoon (the throne), where she appears as Ginevra (Ginette).
Maureen Peters -Fair Maid of Kent (1985)

As a minor character[edit]
Margaret Campbell Barnes - Within the Hollow Crown (1947)
Emma Campion - The King's Mistress, as a friend of the main character, Alice Perrers.
Virginia Henley - Desired
Madeline Hunter - By Arrangement
Anya Seton - Katherine

Parents
____ Edmund "of Woodstock" (5 Aug 1301 - 19 Mar 1330)
WAKE Margaret (ABT 1297 - 29 Sep 1349)

Siblings
____ Joan "Fair Maid of Kent" (29 Sep 1328 - 8 Aug 1385)

Marriage To DE HOLAND Thomas (1314 - 26 Dec 1360)
    m. 1340 

Notes

Parents
DE HOLAND Robert (ABT 1283 - 7 Oct 1328)
LA ZOUCHE Maud (1290 - 31 May 1349)

Children by DE HOLAND Thomas 1314 - 26 Dec 1360
DE HOLAND Thomas (1354 - 25 Apr 1397)

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