Joan of Kent: The First Princess of Wales

by Penny Lawne

  Joan’s life changed completely when she became the prince’s wife. She now ranked as first lady in the land after her mother-in-law, Queen Philippa, and just as it was anticipated that the prince would succeed his father so Joan was expected to one day become queen. She was the first Princess of Wales. The title Prince of Wales had only been in existence for two generations, since Joan and the prince’s shared grandfather, Edward I, had created his son Edward of Carnarvon Prince of Wales. Both Edward II and Edward III had married after they succeeded to the throne and thus there had not previously been a Princess of Wales. Joan was also Duchess of Cornwall and Countess of Chester, and retained her own title of Countess of Kent. Her enhanced status was reflected in a new coat of arms and seal denoting her as Princess of Wales, Duchess of Cornwall and countess of both Chester and Kent. There is only one known seal in existence, dating from 1380, and this shows a shield in half, with her father’s arms on the right, emphasising her lineage and status as an heiress. Joan’s arms can be seen impaled with those of the prince on the north side of Queen Philippa’s tomb in Westminster Abbey.78 A personal badge was created for her, probably under the guiding hands of the prince, of a white hart, sitting on the ground and tethered by a gold chain with a crown for a collar.79 This badge was later used by her son, Richard II.

  As soon as Joan agreed to marry the prince she, and all her affairs, were immediately subsumed within the prince’s sphere of influence. Months before their wedding the prince took charge of Joan’s household, making arrangements for several of Joan’s retinue to join his service, including John Holand, Thomas’ nephew, who became the prince’s yeoman in May 1361, as did William Harpele, one of Joan’s own clerks.80 Joan already had her own household before she married the prince and it is likely that she retained many of her servants, acquiring additional staff she needed as a result of her newly enhanced status from among the prince’s entourage, such as William Fulbourne, a clerk of the prince’s who became Joan’s chaplain and would remain in her service until her death. Having taken over Joan’s personal income, after their marriage the prince arranged for his wife to have an annual allowance of 2,000 marks to cover her personal expenses and the cost of maintaining her daughters and her own household. This was initially paid to her in cash at regular intervals and delivered to her by the prince’s servants, usually John Carleton and John Stene, the former becoming Joan’s clerk.81 Joan did not forget those staff who had given her and Thomas loyal and faithful service, and she ensured that the grants they had received during Thomas’ lifetime were confirmed after she married the prince. These ranged from the £20 annuity for Thomas’ falconer, John Sale, and his wife Hawise, to the 50 marks annuity given to Donald and Joan Heselrigg in Yorkshire.82 Similarly the prince honoured the annuities granted to Thomas’ comrades in arms Sir John Chandos, Sir Richard Pembridge (fellow Garter knights with Thomas) and Sir Henry Hay.83 These gifts were unremarkable in size and there is no evidence that Joan was inclined to add to the grants after she became Princess of Wales. In view of the prince’s own extravagant tendencies, it seems probable that the notable restraint exercised by Joan was her personal decision, rather than her being constrained by her husband. It certainly ensured that she did not invite criticism for undue generosity.

  The transfer of management of Joan’s estates was left until after the wedding. The prince naturally anticipated that these would be a valuable additional resource, and he was anxious to ensure that his wife’s stewards understood this. By the end of October 1361 he had sent out orders to each steward to ‘labour diligently about the said office and … the speedy levying of moneys due to the prince’ so that ‘those parts may be ordered and governed to the best of his ability for the prince’s honour and profit’.84 On 24 October 1361 the prince appointed four of his trusted staff, John Carleton, Richard Stokes, William Spridlington and John Stene, to carry out a survey of his wife’s estates and gave them authority to appoint new receivers and stewards.85 John Carleton and Richard Stokes between them covered Joan’s northern estates in Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire, Lincoln, Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Rutland, Northamptonshire and Huntingdonshire, while William Spridlington and John Stene took Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridge, Essex, Hertfordshire, Kent and Sussex. The prince showed some sensitivity in handling his wife’s affairs by being careful to ensure his staff spent time with Joan to discuss the arrangement of her estates, and carried out orders she had made during her widowhood to reward those who had served her and Thomas faithfully over the years. Her views were obviously valued, and the prince’s staff clearly satisfied with the Holand stewards, as they confirmed the existing subdivision of Kent estates into six areas of responsibility, and kept each of Joan’s stewards in post, merely imposing a new obligation to account to the prince’s council in London. The prince’s prime concern appears to have been to maximise his wife’s income and assets and he was happy to achieve this by obtaining the cooperation of her local retainers. Having the Prince of Wales as their new lord may have given the Holand stewards increased self-esteem but they were not rewarded by a rise in pay, while the prince and his staff issued a continuous stream of orders prior to his departure for Aquitaine reminding them to collect the rent and to sell assets such as wardships and crops with as much profit as possible.86

  After the Christmas break at Berkhamsted the newly-weds returned to London for the tournaments held at Smithfield in March and April 1362, possibly staying in the prince’s apartments in Westminster. Joan continued to work on her clothing, and presumably on her daughters’ wardrobe, spending £7 10s on a quantity of cloth while at Smithfield, and paying 66s 8d to the prince’s tailor.87 Subsequently they spent most of the summer at the prince’s palace at Kennington. Berkhamsted and Kennington were only two of the prince’s many residences, but they seem to have been the main ones used after his marriage. Before his marriage he had favoured his manor at Byfleet, used extensively throughout his childhood, but he rarely stayed there after his marriage, possibly for the simple practical reason that being smaller it was less easily able to accommodate the increased household. It is quite possible that before their wedding Joan had never visited either Berkhamsted Castle or Kennington Palace. She would quickly become familiar with both. Berkhamsted was originally a moated Norman castle, built by William the Conqueror’s brother Robert, Count of Mortmain, and reverted to the Crown on the death of Edmund, Earl of Cornwall, in 1300. A year later Edward I gave the castle to his second wife, Joan’s grandmother, Queen Margaret, and when she died in 1317 it passed to the prince’s grandmother, Queen Isabella. Briefly owned by Edward III’s brother, John of Eltham, the castle was given by the king to his eldest son with the remainder of the Cornwall estates in 1337.88 As the prince grew to adulthood he discovered that the castle had been neglected by his predecessors, and gave his council instructions to put it back into good repair, ensuring that the castle was in sufficiently good condition to be used to house a royal prisoner (John II of France) in 1360.89 Berkhamsted became one of the prince’s favourite residences and he was frequently there for Christmas. In residence over Christmas 1361 with Joan and his parents, the prince found cause for concern, and further urgent repairs were ordered in January and February 1362.90 Today the castle is a ruin, but enough of it remains to give an indication of what it would have been like in Joan’s lifetime. The castle was never greatly expanded in size from its Norman origins, and, set on a gentle hill, surrounded by the remnants of its outer ramparts, it was one of the more modest royal residences. Despite the prince’s fondness for Berkhamsted, Joan herself later favoured Wallingford Castle. Like Berkhamsted, Wallingford had also been the subject of much expenditure by the prince over the years, including the building of a new bakehouse, sixty feet long and twenty-eight feet wide, in 1358.91 Planning his wedding, the prince made sure that Wallingford could also accommodate his new household, ensuring that the dean of the castle chapel increased his staff to six chaplains, six clerks and four choristers in July 1361.92 Unfortunately today
little of the castle remains, having been more or less demolished after a long siege during the English Civil War on the orders of Oliver Cromwell in 1652.

  Kennington, just across the river from Westminster, was in contrast specifically styled as a palace. The prince acquired Kennington in 1337, the same year as Berkhamsted. The manor of Kennington and Vauxhall had been owned by Joan’s cousin, Elizabeth de Burgh, and in 1337 Elizabeth agreed to exchange the manors for Ilketshall in Suffolk, nearer her other estates.93 The main residence at Kennington, like the castle at Berkhamsted, was in considerable disrepair when acquired by Prince Edward, and was largely rebuilt by the prince between 1342 and 1362, transforming it into a comfortable palace. The prince employed more than one architect, and in 1358 he contracted the services of Henry Yevele, the master mason who also undertook work for the king.94 Most of the old manor was replaced, with Yevele constructing a new hall approximately ninety feet long and fifty feet wide. He installed two new spiral staircases and three chimneys at the end of the hall, and a new house was constructed for the pastry cook.95 The prince’s crests liberally adorned the walls of the stairway and chimneys, and a finishing touch of two babewyns (ugly or demonic creatures) were carved into the two buttresses positioned on the porch leading into the hall.96 Despite these extensive works, some of the chambers within the palace were still in need of attention when the prince married Joan, and shortly after their wedding in October 1361 the prince gave orders that the defects should be given attention as quickly as possible.97 Kennington was intended to be their main home in the capital, and later became Richard II’s childhood home.

  Inevitably, Joan’s marriage had an immense impact on the lives of her four Holand children. Her eldest, Thomas, was only ten or eleven at the time, and the youngest, Joan, was possibly no more than three years old. They gained a new father as well as a generous patron. From the beginning the prince treated them as his own and assumed responsibility for them, even prior to his marriage, ordering clothes for Maud and Joan and giving them each a fine psalter that had belonged to Sir Humphrey de Bohun, also giving one to Joan.98 Thomas and John were soon described as his sons in the prince’s accounts; Thomas joined his stepfather’s retinue and was provided with equipment and a squire, John Pounfreit, a servant of his father’s.99 If the interests of her children had been uppermost in Joan’s thoughts when she agreed to marry her cousin, she was rewarded by the immediate and tremendous interest he showed in them. The prince’s concern for the Holand children was not solely altruistic. As his stepsons and daughters they acquired marriage potential and this was a factor which he and his father had obviously taken into account in their plans. Within a year of his own marriage the prince had arranged marriages for Thomas and Maud, and the baby of the family, Joan, was married within three years. Each made alliances which fostered relationships that were diplomatically important to the king, but they were also prestigious matches which Joan was unlikely to have been able to arrange had she remained a widow.

  Shortly after his marriage the prince entered into discussions with the earls of Devon and Arundel with the suggestion that one of his stepchildren should marry one of their children. The earls were leading members of the nobility, wealthy and influential, and each was ambitious for their family. Both were well aware of Joan’s marital history, having witnessed the Earl of Salisbury’s grant of land to William and Joan in 1341.100 Richard Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel, was a contemporary of Edward III, and owed the restoration of his title and lands to the king. His father had been executed during Edward II’s reign, and his family, like Joan’s, had lost everything. In 1331 Edward III had restored the young Fitzalan to his family estates, in the process depriving Joan’s family of Arundel Castle. The earl had become a stalwart supporter of the king, although he remained careful to safeguard his own interests. In 1354 he had seriously considered an alliance with the Mortimer family, agreeing with Roger Mortimer that his daughter Alice would marry Edmund Mortimer, Roger’s son and heir.101 Tremendously rich, Arundel soon became known as a source to apply to for a loan, and the king and the prince were two of his most notable clients; the prince had yet to complete repayment of the £2,000 he had borrowed from Arundel in July 1359 on the security of a gold jewel-encrusted crown, let alone the further £1,000 borrowed in July 1362 to pay for equipment for himself and his men for the forthcoming trip to Aquitaine.102 An alliance by marriage was in all their interests. Arundel had never completed the Mortimer match, and when approached by the prince, the earl had no hesitation in agreeing to his proposal for a match between Alice and Thomas Holand. Richard Arundel had served on the prince’s council, and he clearly regarded a marriage for his daughter Alice with the prince’s stepson as a considerable coup. Naturally Edward III granted his approval, and the prince applied for the necessary papal dispensation in September 1363 (Thomas and Alice were related in the third and fourth degrees).103 The business was concluded by a formal indenture of agreement between the prince and the earl dated 4 June 1365, recording that the earl would pay the prince 4,000 marks, the first instalment due in July 1365, and in exchange the prince and Joan agreed to endow the young couple with three Yorkshire manors (Kirkby Moorside, Buttercrambe and Cropton), part of Joan’s Wake inheritance.104

  The prince was also discussing his stepdaughter Maud’s future at the same time. By October 1362 the Earl of Devon had agreed that his grandson and heir, Hugh Courtenay, would marry Maud, and had promised that when the marriage took place Maud would be given an annuity of 200 marks and the manors of Sutton Courtenay in Berkshire and Waddesdon in Buckinghamshire.105 The earl’s two younger sons, Edward and William, confirmed the grant. In exchange the prince promised to pay the earl 1,000 marks in four instalments at six-monthly intervals. Again, papal dispensation was required and the prince applied for this at the same time as he did for Thomas, with the king confirming his permission shortly afterwards. By February 1365 the marriage had taken place, as the prince’s register records the earl completing the grant of the manors to Maud.106 The new Lady Courtenay can have been no older than her mother had been at the time of her marriage to Thomas Holand and she may well have remained with Joan until she was a little older, as it was generally appreciated that there were dangers for a young girl attendant on consummation at an early age. In the event Maud and Hugh had no children, and their marriage did not last long. Hugh died before February 1374, within ten years of their marriage, and after his death Maud returned to live with her mother.107

  Joan’s youngest daughter, her namesake Joan, made a prestigious marriage at an even younger age when she married Princess Mary’s widower, John Montfort, Duke of Brittany, in 1365. Montfort was many years older than Joan Holand, and had extremely close ties to the English Crown, having been largely brought up at the English court. He owed his succession as duke to Edward III’s support. Nevertheless Edward III had felt it prudent to secure the alliance with a personal tie, and in 1355 had concluded an agreement with John’s mother about a marriage alliance between the families. Initially the proposal was for John’s sister to marry one of the king’s sons; then it was agreed that John would marry either Princess Margaret or Princess Mary. Princess Mary’s death so shortly after her marriage had been a tragedy for all concerned; nevertheless Edward III had been swift to persuade John Montfort when he came of age in 1362 to enter into a formal alliance with England and to promise that he would not marry without the king’s leave.108 A new marriage to the prince’s stepdaughter would once again provide the personal link. From Joan’s perspective there must have been some comfort in the fact that she knew her new son-in-law well. As a child John Montfort had lived for some years in Queen Philippa’s household, and ten years earlier, in 1355, he had spent nearly a year under Thomas Holand’s protection in Brittany. In any event, as the new young duchess could only have been about seven or eight at the time of her marriage, there was no immediate separation of mother and daughter, as young Joan would remain with her mother until she was old enough to formally
join her husband and consummate their marriage.

  If Joan was motivated to marry the prince to secure a future for her children, then she was completely successful.

  9

  Princess of Aquitaine

  1363–1371

  Prudence teaches the princess or great lady how above all things in this base world she ought to love honour and a good reputation.

  Christine de Pizan1

  By virtue of her marriage Joan became the most important woman at court after Queen Philippa. Her position was unique, as there had never been a Princess of Wales before. As already noted, Edward II was the first Prince of Wales, and both he and his son had married after they became king. As the wife of the heir to the throne, Joan was expected to become queen when the prince became king, and her new position as his wife gave her considerable authority and influence. In addition, she would have substantial additional responsibilities and as queen in waiting would be expected to set an example. Now there was peace with France Joan might reasonably have expected that marriage to the prince would mean she would spend time at court and be able to receive guidance from her mother-in-law on how to conduct herself in her new position. Instead, nine months after their marriage, the prince was created Prince of Aquitaine, and they and their entourage set sail for Bordeaux to set up court. The prince would govern the duchy with Joan at his side. Joan was now both Princess of Wales and Princess of Aquitaine. With no predecessors, and so no precedent, in either role, what was expected of her and how would she cope?