Joan of Kent: The First Princess of Wales

by Penny Lawne

  At court, in terms of precedence, Joan as Princess of Wales was senior even to her childhood companion, Princess Isabella. With Edward III’s decline court life by 1375 had become greatly subdued, and Joan made no attempt to change this, perhaps having no wish to do so bearing in mind her husband’s precarious state of health and the king’s deterioration. Whereas some women in her position might have taken advantage of the situation to pursue their own interests, Joan manifestly did not. Her Holand family, and her friends, remained very much in the background, while Joan conducted herself with quiet dignity, loyally supporting her husband and his family. She was naturally regarded as having influence with her husband and his father, and she was expected to adopt, and did assume, the role of intercessor, requesting pardons for individual servants and retainers such as Peter Bigg of Tokeby, Leicestershire, for the death of Robert Bailiff.31 The Pope took advantage of this in May 1375, when he requested Joan to use her influence with the king and the prince to improve the position of his captive nephews by ‘procuring’ for them ‘some consolation and relaxation’.32 But her intercessory role remained strictly non-political. By behaving with modest restraint Joan consolidated her reputation and increased the respect with which she was regarded among the court circle. A poignant, though romanticised, picture of the family is represented in Ford Maddox Brown’s painting exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1851, of the Prince’s forty-fifth birthday, with Chaucer reading his works to the prince and the court.33

  Political affairs reached a crisis in the parliament called in April 1376, known as the Good Parliament. The prince was carried from Kennington to Westminster so that he could attend its opening on 29 April by the chancellor, Sir John Knyvet, with his father, but he was too ill to remain, returning almost immediately to his apartments in the palace at Westminster. Similarly, Edward III retired, and with the tacit support and endorsement of his father and brother it was Gaunt, having returned from the Bruges conference at the end of January, who took the leading role in protecting the Crown’s interests.34 It was to be a poisoned chalice for Gaunt. Almost immediately the commons attacked Edward III’s administration, expressing considerable discontent with the state of affairs, demanding that a council of senior churchmen and peers be appointed to advise the king; four bishops, four earls and four barons were duly suggested and accepted, including the earls of Arundel, March, Stafford and Suffolk, bishops Courtenay of London, Despenser of Norwich and the prince’s friends William Wykeham and John Harewell of Bath and Wells. The knight elected to be their speaker by the Commons, Sir Peter de la Mare, accused several of the king’s servants of corruption and mismanagement, naming the king’s chamberlain, William Lord Latimer, and the London merchant Richard Lyons, demanding their arrest. It was not long before the Commons demanded the removal of Alice Perrers as well. In the ensuing debate the Commons brought charges of corrupt practices against several other royal servants and, disregarding the king’s request for funds, pursued their prosecution of these men. A desperate Lyons tried to persuade the prince to help him, sending him a barrel with £1,000 in gold inside, a bribe which the prince promptly returned.35 Although the Commons protested their loyalty to the king, they made no secret of their dislike for Gaunt, and the clear personal antipathy that developed between Gaunt and the speaker, Sir Peter de la Mare, coloured the whole tone of the parliament. As Sir Peter de la Mare was steward to Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March, who was married to Lionel’s daughter Philippa, it also threatened harmony in the royal circle. Philippa was arguably senior to her uncle Gaunt in terms of the line of succession to the throne because her father was his elder brother, but her sex meant that her claim was not clear-cut. 36 It was an exceptional crisis, with Parliament comprehensively indicting the royal government, and the proceedings were, quite simply, a disaster for the Crown, with none of the desired concessions in terms of raising finance to support royal policy. It was also a personal disaster for Gaunt, as his handling of the crisis won him few plaudits and merely exacerbated his growing unpopularity. It heightened suspicion of his own ambitions, mainly because he was not either the king or the heir, and his strong sense of family loyalty was misread as evidence of his self-aggrandisement. It is possible that neither Edward III nor the prince, faced with the mood of Parliament in the spring of 1376, would have made a better job of it, but in the event it was Gaunt’s reputation which suffered.

  Contemporary commentators were confused about the role played by the prince, whom the Chronicon Angliae described as being ‘the hope of the Commons’, while Walsingham went further, suggesting that the prince played a leading political role in the parliament and was in conflict with Gaunt.37 Certainly, the prince’s potential influence cannot be doubted, and his position ensured that he had a close link to many in Parliament.38 His military successes had earned him an enviable reputation both abroad and at home, ensuring him huge popularity, and like his father the prince had deliberately courted and built up around him a strong and loyal group of friends and allies. Many of these would have looked to the prince for his guidance, but there is no evidence that the prince sought to direct his friends to influence the proceedings of the Good Parliament, and historians generally are dubious about the extent of his interest, let alone his influence. The prince resembled his father in many ways, having a strong sense of his royal status, with the will and ability to command, and it is probable that had he enjoyed better health the prince would have taken a far more prominent role in Parliament. Rather than being in disagreement with Gaunt, this would simply have resulted in the prince, rather than Gaunt, being the major royal representative. But the fact was that he was a very sick man, and far too ill to do more than lend a notional presence, leaving Gaunt on his own with the thankless task of placating Parliament.

  Parliament was still sitting in June when news reached the Commons that the prince’s condition had worsened, and that he was dying. Although the prince had been ill for so long, it was undoubtedly still a shock for those around him when they realised the end was near. The prince had planned carefully for his last days, doubtless helped by Joan. Foremost on his mind was the future of their son. He knew that Edward III would die while Richard was still a minor, and he remained concerned that his son’s succession might be challenged. As he lay dying he did everything he could to ensure support for Richard, knowing that it would be difficult for anyone to refuse a deathbed request. Walsingham noted that the prince gave orders that the door of his room was to be shut to nobody, not even the lowliest groom, and distributed generous gifts to all his attendants.39 According to Chandos Herald,

  he had the doors opened and all his men summoned who had been his servants and had willing served him. ‘Lords, he said, ‘by my faith, you have served me loyally; I cannot reward you properly myself, but God will do so in heaven’ … he said in a loud voice, ‘I commend my son to you, who is young and small, and ask you to serve him as you have served me’ … then he called for his father, the king and his brother, the Duke of Lancaster; he commended his wife and son, whom he loved greatly, to them, and begged them to help them. They swore on the Bible to do so, and promised to comfort his children and uphold their rights: all the princes and barons did this.40

  He asked the king to allow his debts to be paid without delay from his estate. The prince’s last meeting with his father must have been particularly painful, each no doubt reflecting on their glorious past together. Richard was summoned to see his father as he lay dying, an ordeal for the young prince as the prince’s last words, as recounted by the chroniclers, seem to have been restricted to commanding him to ensure that his servants received the gifts he had designated. It is hard to imagine that Joan was not present, and that the prince did not also bestow his blessing on his son. On 7 June the prince made his will, received the last rights from his friend the Bishop of Bangor, and, at three o’clock on 8 June, he died.41 Dignified and noble to the end, the prince stage-managed his exit superbly, even, by an amazing coincidence, dying on the feast d
ay he most treasured, that of the Holy Trinity.

  The only sour note attached to the last days is Walsingham’s account of Sir Richard Stury’s visit to the prince. Stury had served with the prince, and was one of the king’s chamber knights, and according to Walsingham had alarmed the king by suggesting that there were certain knights in the Commons who planned to depose him, in the same way as his father, Edward II, had been removed from the throne. When investigated the claim proved false and Stury was dismissed by Edward III from his council, only to be almost immediately reinstated by Gaunt. Walsingham records that Stury was admitted to the prince on his deathbed, to beg his forgiveness, and that the prince spurned him, requesting he leave his chamber and never trouble him further.42 The account is not corroborated by any other source, which is surprising, considering the attention given to the prince’s last days, and the veracity of the account is dubious, particularly in view of the fact that Stury was later to be one of the knights closest to Joan, a position he would hardly have won had there been animosity between him and the prince.

  Once again, Joan was a widow. After the prince’s long illness, she too had had plenty of time to prepare for his death, but she undoubtedly grieved for him. Chandos Herald wrote that at his death ‘the lovely and noble princess felt such grief at heart that her heart was nigh breaking. There was such a clamour of sighing, weeping, crying and grieving that anyone alive would have felt pity at it.’43 She was not the only one to lament his loss. The chroniclers make it clear that the prince’s death was generally felt, with apparently sincere public mourning, even in France, where French writers penned eulogies and the king, Charles V, ordered Masses be said for him, attending a requiem Mass for him in Paris, accompanied by all the French nobility. The prince’s renown in his lifetime and at his death was unsurpassed, his popularity having survived the years of illness and the defeat in Aquitaine. Eulogies were fulsome, many echoing the praise given by Thomas Brinton, Bishop of Rochester, preaching shortly after the prince’s death, listing in his sermon the prince’s many virtues and referring to his power, wisdom and goodness, and repeated by the chronicler John of Reading, who credited the prince with having followed wise council, never preferring secular affairs to divine office, for being honourable and having endowed the Church generously and kept his marriage vows. Many felt that their hopes for the future went with him. Walsingham, describing the prince as ‘the comfort of all England’, was quite clear that his death was militarily a disaster, stating that ‘on his death the hopes of the English utterly perished; for while he was alive they feared no enemy invasion, while he was with them they feared no hostile encounter. Never, while he was with them, did they suffer the disgrace of a campaign that had been unsuccessful or abandoned. As is said of Alexander the Great, he attacked no nation which he did not defeat, and besieged no city which he did not capture.’ For Walsingham, ‘the good fortune of England, as if it had been inherent in his person, flourished in his health, languished in his sickness and expired in his death,’ and he lamented, ‘What great grief you cause his country, which believes that now he is gone it is bereft of a protector! … Rise up, O Lord, help and protect us for your name’s sake!’44

  The prince received an immense state funeral. His body lay in state in Westminster Hall from 8 June to 29 September, then on 30 September both houses of Parliament and the court escorted the hearse, drawn by twelve black horses, down to Canterbury, where the prince had requested he be buried. The funeral procession wound its way from Westminster past St Eleanor’s Cross at Charing, along the Strand past the Savoy Palace, over London Bridge, through Southwark and Blackheath, then down into Kent, finally arriving through the west gate into Canterbury on 5 October. Through Canterbury the cortege was preceded by two warhorses, wearing the arms of war and peace, and was met at the chapel of Holy Cross by two knights dressed as the prince had requested in his will, one with a shield of war and the other with a shield of peace, both displaying the prince’s silver ostrich feathers and motto, ‘Ich dene’. The prince’s coffin was then carried on to a bier in front of the high altar. In his will the prince had directed that he should be buried in the middle of the chapel of Our Lady Undercroft, in a marble tomb, ten feet away from the altar. He instructed that around the tomb there should be twelve escutcheons, six bearing his arms and the other six with ostrich feathers, and ‘Houmont’ was to be written on each escutcheon. He requested a frame around the tomb, with his image in relief of latten gilt, in armour, with folded arms and a meek facial expression, and with his leopard helm placed under the head.45 As instructed, his tomb chest was decorated alternately with six shields of peace (three ostrich feathers on a black ground) and six of war (the quartered arms of England and France).46 The prince was to be remembered in death, as he had been in life, as the consummate warrior.

  The chapel of Our Lady Undercroft was the chapel which the prince had founded in accordance with the Pope’s mandate giving him permission to marry Joan. It was a moving tribute to the love the prince felt for his wife that he wished to be interred in the chapel which commemorated their marriage. In the ceiling of the chantry chapel (now used by the French Walloon church) there can still be seen a carved stone boss of a woman’s head, with her hair in a netted fret, which was a popular fashion at the time. It is the largest human face among the ceiling bosses, and clearly represents Joan, although it is not known when it was placed there. Although the prince’s detailed instructions for his funeral and tomb were largely carried out, he was not buried in the chapel as he had requested, and his tomb was placed in a more prominent position behind the high altar on the south side of the Trinity chapel. The tomb itself was commissioned after his death, during his son’s reign, and the design is usually attributed to Richard II. The location of the prince’s tomb next to Becket’s shrine implies direct royal intervention, and it is similarly notable for being the only tomb of this period other than that of an anointed sovereign which is constructed of marble and bronze (the latter material used for the life-size effigy of the prince placed on top of the tomb), bearing strong similarities to the style of Edward III’s tomb and effigy in Westminster Abbey.47 It seems inconceivable that Joan was not consulted about her husband’s memorial, and as the work was carried out in the early 1380s while Richard was still a child it is highly likely that Joan was closely involved in the design and planning for the tomb. The prince’s tomb is well preserved and can be seen by any visitor to Canterbury Cathedral. Adorning the tomb are the prince’s funeral achievements, his helm, crest, jupon, shield, a pair of gauntlets and the scabbard of his sword, while above his tomb, facing down towards his effigy, is a painting of the Holy Trinity; God the Father enthroned above the world, with the crucified Christ beneath him and the Holy Ghost in the form of a dove. The prince had given the cathedral the painting during his lifetime, intending that it should be placed over his tomb. The originals of these tomb adornments have deteriorated and faded badly, and those now on view are copies made in the 1950s, while the originals have been placed under glass elsewhere. Inscribed around the tomb is the epitaph chosen by the prince, a poem based on the Clericalis Disciplina written by Petrus Alphonus in the eleventh century. Translated into English it reads,

  Thou, who silent passest by,

  Where this corpse interr’d doth lie

  Hear what to thee I now shall show,

  Words that from Experience flow:

  As thou art, once the world saw me;

  As I am, so thou once shalt be.

  I little could my death divine,

  When Life’s bright Lamp did sweetly shine;

  Vast wealth did o’er my Coffers flow,

  Which I as freely did bestow;

  Great Store of Mansions I did hold,

  Land, Wardrobes, Horses, Silver, Gold.

  But now I am all bereft,

  And deep in Ground alone am left:

  My once admir’d Beauty’s gone,

  My flesh is wasted to the Bone.

  A nar
row House doth me contain,

  All that I speak is true and plain;

  And, if you should behold me here,

  You’d hardly think (I justly fear)

  That e’er the World to me, did bow,

  I am so chang’d and alter’d now.

  For God’s sake, pray to Heaven’s high King

  To shade my Soul with Mercy’s Wing,

  All those that try on bended knee

  To reconcile my God and me

  God place them in his Paradise

  Where neither Death can be, nor Vice.48

  The prince had put considerable thought into his funeral and tomb, and the epitaph by which he wished to be remembered. While there is no reason to doubt the sincerity of the emotions expressed, it was also a propaganda exercise par excellence, drawing on his glory days and reminding the country of all that had been the best of him and the promise held in him, while the humility expressed in the epitaph suggested that any pride or arrogance had been humbled during the sufferings of his illness. His reputation, the manner of his passing, and his tomb memorial were the final legacies he left for his son.