Joan of Kent: The First Princess of Wales

by Penny Lawne

  8

  A Royal Bride

  1361–1363

  The gentle prince married … a lady of great renown, who enkindled love in him, in that she was beauteous, charming and discreet.

  Chandos Herald

  Joan was now a widow. Left bereft with four young children (Thomas was the eldest, aged ten), she was still comparatively young at thirty-two. On 20 February 1361 Edward III confirmed Joan in possession of her inheritance.1 As an extremely wealthy and beautiful widow she would attract many suitors, despite the drawback of her unfortunate marital history and her four children, but she was also free to choose her own lifestyle and she did not have to marry again. Several of her contemporaries in similar circumstances had chosen to remain single, such as her cousins Elizabeth de Burgh and Margaret Brotherton, and enjoyed the freedom which their new position brought. Joan’s own experience of marriage had been attended by considerable difficulties and she might have relished the lack of constraint conferred by widowhood. She had genuinely loved Thomas and grieved his loss. She could, like her mother, devote her life to her children and her estates, and she need never again leave England. As Countess of Kent she could take her place as one of the ladies of the court, strengthen her ties with the king and queen, build up her contacts, become a patron of note, enriching her own and her family’s reputation. But the freedom widowhood brought Joan had to be balanced against the possible disadvantages. Whatever her own personal inclinations, she had the future of her children to consider. Although her royal connections might help to further her children’s interests, as a widow Joan would have limited influence in securing their future, and she had few close relations who would have an interest in helping her do this. The possibility of a challenge to the validity of her marriage to Thomas, while unlikely, could not be discounted, and this would jeopardise her children’s’ position. In contrast, marriage to the right man could bring protection, security and influence, which would benefit her children. What would Joan choose to do?

  In the event, Joan made her decision very quickly. Wooed almost immediately by Prince Edward, after a whirlwind courtship they were secretly espoused in the spring of 1361 and they were married in October 1361, just ten months after Thomas’ death. The prince was deeply in love and Joan appears to have been swept off her feet, just as she had been with Thomas Holand. Once again, Joan made a completely unexpected and surprising marriage; once again she entered into a secret espousal. This time, though, it was Joan who was the surprising choice. The prince was thirty-one years old, and the most eligible bachelor in Europe. A widow of dubious marital history, with four children and no obvious diplomatic, political or economic attractions, was not the bride anyone would have suggested as suitable for the heir to the throne. It is hardly surprising that many subsequent commentators assumed that the secret espousal meant the marriage was conducted without Edward III’s consent, and that the king and queen disapproved of the marriage. But, as a closer examination of the circumstances surrounding their marriage reveals, this was not the case.

  Created Prince of Wales when he was thirteen in 1343, the prince was also Earl of Chester and Earl of Cornwall, and he owned extensive estates in Wales, Chester and Cornwall. An idea of his physical appearance can be obtained from the surviving contemporary representations of him: the effigy on his tomb at Canterbury Cathedral, and the image of him kneeling before his father to receive the principality of Aquitaine.2 These are conventional representations and depict the prince as tall, lean, and good-looking, with his father’s long face, high forehead and straight nose, and as was common at the time he is shown with a moustache and beard. As a formidable fighter he would also have been physically strong and muscular, and there was no doubting his bravery. He was fond of hunting and gambling, he was an excellent jouster and a gifted military commander, and he was also intelligent and well educated.3 He also had a more than conventional interest in religion. Born on 15 June 1330, the prince had a lifelong devotion to the Trinity, celebrating the festival every year in his household. His favoured pilgrimage was to Canterbury Cathedral, a church dedicated to the Trinity, where he would worship at the site of Thomas à Becket. The prince has come to be known as the Black Prince, but this description was never used during his lifetime and did not come into common usage until the sixteenth century, when it was used by Holinshed in his Chronicles, and by Leland in his Itinerary.4 It is not known how or why the epithet was bestowed, and there is no evidence that his armour was black, as has been alleged, or that the French gave him this name for his deeds during the Hundred Years War. During his lifetime he was known as Prince Edward, or occasionally referred to as Edward of Woodstock (his birthplace), and later as Edward IV, in anticipation of succeeding his father (used, for example, by the Anonimalle chronicler).

  At the age of sixteen Prince Edward had fought at Crécy, and his crucial role in the battle together with his great personal bravery had established his reputation as a soldier. His badge of a white ostrich feather (later to become three feathers) and the motto ‘Ich dene’ appears to have come into use around this time, and according to John Arderne, writing at the time of the prince’s death, the feather was obtained from the King of Bohemia, killed at Crécy.5 The prince is known to have signed letters ‘Houmont ich dene’.6 When his father founded the Order of the Garter the king and the prince were the two leading members. The prince had become a commander of distinction, showing a real gift for leadership and a flair for tactical and strategic planning, with the success of his chevauchée through Brittany in 1355 culminating in his dramatic (and unexpected) victory at Poitiers, confirming his military genius. He came to share overall command of the military operations against France with his father and the Duke of Lancaster, discussing and planning operations including the most recent Rheims campaign, and he was a leading participant in the peace negotiations, individually ratifying the Treaty of Brétigny before he left France in May 1360.

  The prince also acquired a reputation for chivalry, based on his behaviour on the battlefield, his courteous treatment of his prisoners and his care for his men. Probably the most famous tale regarding his chivalry relates to his actions after the Battle of Poitiers in which he captured the French king, John II. Froissart recorded that after the battle the king was invited to dine with the prince, and that Edward insisted on serving John personally rather than leave it to a servant, while the chronicler Geoffrey Baker wrote that when the prince received word that Sir James Audley had been brought to his tent seriously wounded, he left the table to attend to his friend.7 Although these stories are somewhat contradictory they reflect the contemporary favourable view of the prince as a man who was courteous and considerate to his enemies and cared for his friends. By 1361 he was renowned throughout Europe as the exemplar of the chivalric knight. The Chronique des quatre premiers Valois described him as ‘one of the greatest knights on earth, having renown above all men’, while Froissart dubbed him ‘the flower of chivalry of all the world’.8 His panegyrist, the herald of his close friend Sir John Chandos, described him as a ‘noble prince … [with] no thought but loyalty, nobleness, valour, and goodness, and was endued with prowess’.9 However idealised a portrait these fulsome tributes painted there is no doubt that the prince, like his father, was genuinely popular. He was gifted with the ability to mix easily with his peers and had many close friends among the nobility while enjoying an excellent relationship with his father and mother. By 1355 his entourage included most of the more renowned military nobles, many of them close personal friends, including the earls of Salisbury (William Montague), Suffolk, Warwick, Oxford, Sir Reginald Cobham, Sir John Chandos, Sir John Wingfield (who headed his council), Sir Bartholomew Burghersh (on his council), Sir Nigel Loring (his chamberlain), Sir James Audley and Sir James Lisle. All apart from the Earl of Oxford were fellow members of the Order of the Garter, while William Montague and John Chandos had been friends from his earliest boyhood. Conscious of his status as heir to the throne, in peacetime the prince
copied his father and lived in a fashion intended to impress, entertaining lavishly, and spending large sums of money on jewels and finery. He was also extremely generous to his friends and his retinue, with his household records testifying to the numerous thoughtful gifts he gave year after year to those in his service.

  When Thomas Holand died the prince was still a bachelor, with at least one known illegitimate son, Roger Clarendon.10 His unmarried state was almost accidental. Plans for his marriage had first been mooted when he was barely a year old. As Edward III’s eldest son, and his heir, naturally the prince’s marriage was of national importance and presented a diplomatic and political opportunity. His father, grandfather and great-grandfather had all married foreign princesses in just such a pursuit, and the prince had grown up with the expectation that he would do likewise. When he was no more than a year old, in 1331, his proposed bride was Jeanne, daughter of Philip VI of France, a match which, had it been achieved, might conceivably have averted the outbreak of war. Later, with the advent of the war with France, Edward III entertained various possible brides for his son with the emphasis on their diplomatic potential. In 1339, October 1340 and again in April 1345 a match with Margaret of Brabant was proposed to secure the alliance of Brabant, then in 1347 with Princess Leonora of Portugal, and as late as 1360 the widowed Margaret of Burgundy was being considered.11 Political factors rather than any unwillingness on the prince’s part had prevented their fruition. The most obdurate obstacle was the papacy, as on each occasion the Pope effectively blocked the proposed alliance by refusing the requisite dispensation. Since the Fourth Lateran Council the Church had forbidden marriage within four degrees of relationship, including kindred relationships, marital kin and godparents.12 Relationships between members of different royal families (and indeed between members of the nobility) frequently came within these degrees and in order to facilitate the desired union the accepted way around it was to obtain a papal dispensation. This gave the papacy potential political leverage when it came to marriages between the royalty of different countries. To complicate matters further, since 1308 the Pope had been exiled from Rome and had taken up residence in a palace on the Rhone in Avignon. Geographical location within the French king’s sphere of influence had an inevitable effect on papal politics. From the outset of the war with France the papacy had tacitly, and at times overtly, supported the French king; withholding permission when Edward III applied for a dispensation, and so frustrating his matrimonial plans for his heir, was just part of the running battle between the English Crown and the Pope.13 In December 1344, for example, the Pope had openly stated that he would not grant the dispensation to facilitate the prince’s marriage to Margaret of Brabant because he hoped this would instead promote a match between Brabant and either the French Crown or the Duke of Normandy.14 Nonetheless, had Edward III been particularly determined on any of these matches, it is hard to imagine that his resourcefulness would not have found a way to persuade the Pope. Edward III does not seem to have been determined on forging a diplomatic alliance by means of a marriage or to have been unduly concerned about his son’s continuing bachelor status, and showed no inclination to secure an alternative bride for his son after the proposed match with Margaret of Burgundy foundered.

  It may seem surprising that the king appeared content for his heir to remain single, but Edward III was of course in the then enviable position of having several sons, and so no lack of heirs. His attitude towards his children’s nuptials appears to have combined a concern for their financial well-being with a willingness to take their preferences into account. Foreign alliances were often considered, but rarely achieved, and with his sons the prime consideration appears to have been financial. It is hardly coincidental that of Edward III’s five sons who reached adulthood (princes Edward, Lionel, John, Edmund and Thomas) only one did not marry an heiress.15 By 1360 both Lionel and John were married, Lionel in 1341 to Elizabeth de Burgh and John to Blanche of Lancaster in 1359.16 Both brides were considerable heiresses, and their fortunes secured a financial independence for their respective husbands which released their royal father-in-law from any obligation to find estates with which to endow his sons. Edward III failed to secure a similar match for Edmund, whose later marriage to Isabella of Castile was arranged in conjunction with John of Gaunt’s second marriage to her sister. Thomas of Woodstock, the baby of the family, in due course also married another heiress, Eleanor de Bohun. Edward III’s dynastic and political ambitions for his children were never overbearing, and his genuine care and affection for them is particularly evident in his attitude towards his eldest daughter, Princess Isabella. As with Prince Edward, various matches were proposed for her with foreign nobles, each of which foundered, including Pedro of Castile and Louis de Male, son of the Count of Flanders, in 1347 and Charles IV of Bohemia in February 1348.17 Princess Joan was substituted for her sister for the Castilian match, but when she died in 1348 en route to her wedding, Edward III made no attempt to rearrange the match for Isabella. In May 1351 the king arranged a match between Isabella, his ‘very dear eldest daughter whom we have love with special affection’ and the d’Albret heir, resurrecting the prospect of an alliance contemplated some ten years previously (when Joan had been the intended bride).18 But when Isabella refused to embark for Gascony to marry Bernard d’Albret in November Edward III did not attempt to force her.19 He was then apparently content to leave her unmarried until she chose her own groom, which was not until 1365, when she was thirty-three years old. Her choice of husband was unexpected, and arguably unsuitable, as she chose to marry Enguerrand de Coucy, a French knight held hostage and captive in England at the time. In fact, Edward III only completed one foreign match among his sons or daughters, with the marriage of Princess Mary to John of Brittany in 1361; even his youngest daughter, Margaret, married an English nobleman: John Hastings, Earl of Pembroke. Later three of his sons married foreign brides (Lionel wed Violanta of Milan, and John and Edmund married the Castilian princesses Constance and Isabella) but these were arranged by his sons, and were second marriages for Lionel and John, albeit with their father’s blessing. Joan was as well born as any of the heiresses chosen for the prince’s brothers, and she was in fact considerably wealthier than either Elizabeth de Burgh or Eleanor de Bohun. Therefore, although Joan was a surprising choice for the prince, on the grounds of birth and wealth she could have been considered eligible.

  Thus, when Joan became a widow in December 1360, Prince Edward was a bachelor and free to follow his personal inclinations. The couple knew each other well; Joan had grown up with the prince’s sisters, and the prince had remained affectionate towards his cousin throughout her marriage to Thomas Holand. However, according to the French author of the Chronique des quatre premiers Valois, the prince and Joan’s love affair owed much to Joan’s feminine wiles. The chronicler recorded the death of Thomas Holand and described his widow as one of the most beautiful women in the world and the most noble (‘Thomas de Hollande avoit espousée une des plus belles dames du monde et moult noble’).20 According to the chronicler, after Thomas’ death many of the knights who had served the king and his son in their wars came to the prince with a request that he speak on their behalf to the beautiful widow, and one in particular, Sir Bernard Brocas (one of the prince’s own knights), asked the prince to approach his cousin for him and convey his feelings. When the prince did so, addressing Joan as ‘my beautiful cousin’, she became distressed, and maintained she would not marry again. The chronicle continues:

  Thereupon the prince became greatly enamoured of the countess. And the countess commenced to weep like a subtle and far-seeing woman. And then the prince began to comfort her and kiss her passionately, grievously distressed at her tears, and said to her, ‘I have spoken to you on behalf of one of the most chivalrous knights of England and one of the most honourable of men.’ Madame the countess replied in tears to the prince, ‘Ah, Sir, before God do not talk to me thus. For I have given myself to the most chivalrous knight u
nder heaven, and for love of him it is, that before God I will never marry again as long as I live. For it is impossible that I should have him to be my husband, and my love for him parts me from all men; it is my intention never to marry.’ On being pressed by the prince to say whom she meant Joan conceded, ‘My dear and indomitable lord it is you, and for love of you that I will never have any other knight by my side.’ The prince’s feelings apparently then overwhelmed him and he embraced his cousin, insisting that he would marry her and ‘I also vow to God that as long as you live never will I have any other woman save you to be my wife’.21