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Joan of Kent – referred to posthumously as the ‘fair maid of Kent’ by chronicler Jean Froissart¹ – was an influential female figure in the history of Kent. Froissart is thought to be an unreliable narrator. Nonetheless, ‘according to the writer known as the Chandos Herald, Joan was “a lady of great worth … very beautiful, pleasing and wise”…Not everyone was so kind’² primarily because of the scandal of her first two marriages. Joan’s life is not extensively recorded in history. Even the exact year of her birth is unknown, although 1328 seems most likely. However, Joan is thought to be depicted in two ceiling bosses in Canterbury Cathedral. She is shown in both with a fashionable headdress which is either a goffered veil (also known as a nebule) or a caul.³ Joan inherited the titles of the fourth Countess of Kent and the fifth Baroness Wake of Liddell through her brother in 1352.

Joan was the daughter of Prince Edmund of Woodstock, the first Earl of Kent, and his wife Margaret Wake. Edmund was the sixth son of King Edward I of England. The world Joan was born into was one of scheming and changes in power and treachery. In 1327, Edward II was overthrown. Edmund, who had been an unreliable supporter of the deposition of his half-brother, Edward II, became a target of Edward’s widow, Queen Isabella, and her lover Roger Mortimer. Edmund was arrested for treason during the parliament held in Winchester, in March of 1330, and rapidly executed. After this, Froissart tells us that Joan was brought up in the royal nursery, alongside Edward the Black Prince and John of Gaunt, under the guidance of Queen Phillipa, wife of Edward III.⁴

Joan of Kent’s three marriages had one thing in common – scandal. In 1339-1340, when Joan was in her early teens, she married the knight Sir Thomas Holland. The couple were married privately, and without the blessing of the King, who, while Joan’s older brother John was a minor, had the right to arrange her marriage. Holland was not a bridegroom that Joan’s guardians would have selected themselves; he was landless, without political benefits, and unlikely to inherit any titles. In February 1341, when Holland was away on crusade, Joan was betrothed to William Montagu, the first earl of Salisbury, and they were married soon after. In 1347, Holland petitioned to the papal court, asking that the marriage between Joan and Montague be declared invalid, on the grounds that Holland and Joan had been lawfully married and had consummated the union. On the 13th of November, 1349 a papal bull was issued declaring the marriage between Joan and Montague null and void.

Joan’s third marriage, after the death of Holland, was to Edward, the Black Prince. For a second time, Joan married privately and without the blessing of the king. By all accounts, this union was a love match, ‘she already had 5 children by Sir Thomas Holland, and her first husband, the Earl of Salisbury, was still alive’.⁵ Joan’s marriage to the Black Prince made her the first Princess of Wales and the Princess of Aquitaine. Joan inherited the titles of the fourth Countess of Kent and the fifth Baroness Wake of Liddell through her brother. With Edward, Joan had two sons, one of whom would later become King Richard II of England. The Black Prince died of dysentery in 1376 and is buried in Canterbury Cathedral. Consequently Joan’s son, Richard, became king at the passing of King Edward III in June 1377. Joan was known to visit her husband’s tomb with its elaborate tomb effigy every year on the anniversary of his death, probably staying in a manor she owned in Wickhambreaux.

The Anonimalle Chronicle is thought to be the most accurate source of the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 and it documents that some of the rebels came face to face with Joan on her return journey from visiting her husband’s tomb in the first week of June.⁶ Froissart ‘recounts that the Princess was startled and, although they did not harm her, they treated her rudely.’⁷ On 14th June, Richard met with the leading rebels at Mile End. Richard rode in a great royal procession with Joan following in a whirligig.⁸ But the crowd of rebels turned into a baying mob and Joan, in fear of her life, fled to the safety of the London Tower.⁹

Joan was known to have been a calming influence on Richard and a loyal ally to his uncle, John of Gaunt. However, as she aged she became ‘overweight and immobile’ and died in 1385 leaving Richard and his uncle to continue their constant bickering.¹⁰

This article was published: 6 January 2023.

Bibliography

Banner image credit: Canterbury Cathedral Heraldic bosses on ceiling of South Porch (1422) Mattana, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Carr, H., The Red Prince: The Life of John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster (Oneworld Publications, 2021).
Colette, C.P., ‘Joan of Kent and Noble Women’s Roles in Chaucer’s World’, The Chaucer Review 33: 4 (1999). 350-362. Accessed 18/3/22 http;/www.jstor.org/stable/25096063.
Goodman, A., Joan,The Fair Maid of Kent: A Fourteenth Century Princess and Her World. Boydell Press, 2017.
Jones, D. The Plantagenets: The Kings Who Made England.Williams Collins, 2013.
Rosalie’s Medieval Woman - Medieval Headdresses (rosaliegilbert.com). Accessed 16/12/22.
Rosalie’s Medieval Woman - Veils and Wimples (rosaliegilbert.com). Accessed 16/12/22.
Tait, J. Dictionary of National Biography. Joan (1328-1385). 29 (1885-1900). Accessed https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Dictionary_of_National_Biography,1885-1900/Joan(1328-1385) on 25 November 2022.
Warner, K. Richard II: A True King’s Fall. Amberley Publishing, 2019.
Woman’s Headdress, Medieval, Replica | Object Lessons - Clothes & Accessories: Medieval. Accessed 16/12/22.

References