Fair Maid of Kent | The History Jar

margaret holland.jpg Margaret Holland, duchess of Clarence was born in the later part of the fourteenth century, the daughter of Thomas Holland. He was the fifth earl of Kent and his half-uncle was Edward II through his mother Joan the Fair Maid of Kent, meaning that Margaret Holland was the great granddaughter of Edward I if I’ve counted back right. This is important because Margaret Holland whose family had a bit of a torrid time when Richard II was deposed had married John Beaufort, earl of Somerset, the eldest illegitimate son of John of Gaunt and Katherine Swynford meaning that she was the other more famous Margaret Beaufort’s granny.

Margaret Holland’s husband seems to have been a bit more on the ball that her Holland brother and uncle who managed to get themselves executed in a plot in 1400 to remove Henry IV from the throne. John Beaufort benefited from his half-brother’s rise to power by becoming Constable of England before he died in 1410 leaving his wife a wealthy widow with a royal pedigree and a title.

Margaret now married her husband’s half nephew – Thomas of Lancaster, the second son of Henry IV- just in case the waters weren’t already muddy enough. Thomas, in the way of younger sons, wasn’t terribly well off and there was a fairly complicated dispensation required before the marriage could go ahead because, of course, they were related twice over in that they were both descended from Edward I – i.e. consanguinity and they were related through marriage – i.e. affinity.

Thomas when the marriage finally received papal dispensation became the duke of Clarence. History now enters the glory days of the Hundred Years War with Henry V being all martial thus allowing Shakespeare the opportunity to write dramatic speeches on the subject in the sixteenth century. Unfortunately despite the fact that Henry V ended up married to Katherine of Valois in the aftermath of Agincourt and the Treaty of Troyes he ultimately failed in his bid to rule France successfully because he died leaving his infant son Henry VI on the throne for a lengthy minority and the Wars of the Roses.

Thomas of Lancaster managed to die at the Battle of Baugé on 22 March 1421. As though this wasn’t bad enough Margaret’s sons John and Thomas Beaufort were captured. John Beaufort would remain in captivity for the next seventeen years and when he did get out he was heavily in debt thanks to the ransom he was required to pay. This John Beaufort would become Duke of Somerset and he would also be the father of Margaret Beaufort, the mother of Henry Tudor.

Meanwhile Margaret Holland decided that two husbands were enough for any woman and decided that she wouldn’t marry again. She didn’t need to. She was wealthy in her own right. She spent a lot of time trying to negotiate for her sons’ release. She also, as many wealthy widows did at this time, developed close links with a monastic community. She is particularly associated with Syon. When she died in 1439 she was buried in Canterbury Cathedral.

R. L. J. Shaw, ‘Holland , Margaret, duchess of Clarence (b. in or before 1388, d. 1439)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Oct 2008; online edn, May 2009 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/98133, accessed 22 April 2017]

PS Apologies for lack of posts – wifi is erratic to put it mildly at the moment!

Joan of Kent was the daughter of Prince Edmund of Woodstock, 1st Earl of Kent and his wife Margaret Wake; wife of the Black Prince and mother to King Richard II. She is unusual in that on the death of her brother, the 3rd Earl of Kent and 4th Baron Wake, Joan inherited the titles in her own right.

She may well be named after her maternal grandmother who was Princess Joan, King John’s illegitimate daughter who married Llewelyn the Great of Gwynedd. Just to add to the family tangle, Princess Joan was also cousin to Roger Mortimer, Earl of March. And Roger Mortimer was the man who was Queen Isabella’s lover and the man responsible for the judicial execution of Joan of Kent’s father who had continued to be loyal to the deposed Edward II (Kent’s half brother). Once the usurping Earl of March had been done away with and Edward III assumed control of the throne he arranged for Joan and her sister to come to court. The two girls were raised alongside his own children. So Joan grew up with the Black Prince. Eventually Joan became Edward III’s ward.

Clearly Joan was an important member of the royal family. Whoever won her hand in marriage would gain many points in the medieval power game. Joan had other ideas. She fell in love with Sir Thomas Holland. She was twelve. He was twenty-six. His grandmother was Ela Longespee whose grandfather was the Fist Earl of Salisbury and the illegitimate son of Henry II which puts a whole new meaning on the saying ‘keep it in the family.’ Suffice it to say Thomas Holland wasn’t someone of the make. His ancestry was as illustrious as that of Joan.

The problem was that because the pair had run away to get married it wasn’t strictly legal though very romantic. Joan, and indeed Thomas, required the king’s consent to get married. Her guardians at the time wanted Joan to marry their son, Sir William Montague, who was the second Earl of Salisbury. They didn’t see Joan’s marriage to Thomas as a problem. They simply waited for him to leave the country to go on crusade and then forced Joan to marry their son. In 1341 Holland returned home and wasn’t terribly pleased to discover that his wife was married to another man. Undeterred he set about winning fame in France in what was to become the Hundred Years War as a military commander and then set about regaining Joan. Salisbury put up a fight but in the end Pope Clement VI annulled Joan’s marriage to Salisbury.

Joan’s firstborn son Thomas Holland who became the Earl of Kent was an ancestor of Katherine Parr which is definitely an unexpected connection – though given the medieval penchant for familial marriages it probably shouldn’t be quite such a surprise. Another son married one of John of Gaunt’s daughters. And yet another child was an ancestor of Lady Jane Grey. Sir Thomas died in 1360 leaving Joan a rich widow. She was eventually buried beside her first husband.

As well as being wealthy and well-connected with the royal family Joan was also one of the beauties of her age. She was known as ‘the fair maid of Kent’. Many offers of marriage were made. Joan turned them all down. According to one version of events, one of the Black Prince’s men asked Edward to intercede with Joan on his behalf. Edward found himself falling in love with his childhood companion. They were cousins within the degree prohibited by the church so before they could marry a papal dispensation was required. On her marriage she became the first Princess of Wales.

When she became the Queen Mother her life continued to be the stuff of historical novels and mini-series. She was so loved by the people of England that when she encountered Wat Tyler and his men at Blackheath they let her pass unharmed with an escort (you can’t help wondering who let such an important personage as the king’s mother meander into the path of revolting peasants?). In any event the tale demonstrates that as well as being regarded in the light of national treasure she was also conventionally religious. She was returning from pilgrimage to Canterbury when her path crossed with that of Wat Tyler.