Joan of Kent: The First Princess of Wales

by Penny Lawne

  Unfortunately for Thomas’ plans circumstances prevented him from presenting his case to the king and obtaining that vital approval. Having returned Joan to the royal household, asking her to keep their secret, Thomas waited for his chance to get the king’s ear. But when he returned from England Edward III was completely preoccupied with preparations for his campaign against France, and the mood at court was tense and nervous. Thomas hesitated, perhaps fearing that he might annoy the king, and failed to present his case, fatally losing his opportunity. Instead, he was swept up in the new venture, and resumed active military service, taking part in the naval battle held off the coast at Sluys on the mouth of the River Zwyn on 24 June 1340. Afterwards he stayed with the army as it invaded France, and took part in the siege at Tournai. When the siege ended unsuccessfully in September, Thomas was released from his military duties. This, surely, was the moment for him to seek his audience with Edward III, present his suit and secure royal approval for his marriage to Joan. But it was not a propitious time for an impecunious suitor to present himself to the king. The failed campaign had left Edward III greatly in debt and in considerable embarrassment, and he was probably in a bitter mood. The king was not even able to pay his daily living expenses in Ghent and found it difficult to get credit.42 Thomas would not have known the extent of the king’s difficulties, but he would have had no difficulty in deciding that the king’s mood was not right for his approach. Thomas reasoned that he could afford to delay, and determined that he needed to distinguish himself further before declaring himself. Although the hostilities with France had temporarily ceased, another opportunity offered. In August 1340 Pope Benedict XII had proclaimed a Crusade against the Tartars, who had invaded from Asia and threatened the Teutonic knights. From France and England many ambitious and adventurous young knights responded to the Pope’s call and set off for Prussia on crusade. In the autumn of 1340 Thomas obtained the king’s warrant to travel abroad and embarked, getting his permission extended for a further six months in January 1341.43 Probably he saw Joan before he left and explained his intentions, reassuring her that he would claim her on his return, but nevertheless, after his whirlwind courtship and clandestine marriage, abandoning his young bride to embark on crusade seems extraordinarily callous behaviour even for such an ambitious and bold young man. Joan was left on her own in the queen’s household, harbouring her secret.

  5

  A Bigamous Marriage

  1341–1349

  The most beautiful lady in all the kingdom of England and the most loved.

  Froissart

  In agreeing to marry Thomas without the knowledge or consent of the king and queen or her family, Joan had effectively disobeyed them. The king had already made it clear that he considered her marriage to be within his gift as her guardian, as the d’Albret proposal showed. When this proposal was abandoned, another match would be arranged for her, if not by the king as a means of securing a diplomatic alliance, then certainly a match to advantage her family. For Joan the crucial question was therefore whether her guardians, and her mother and uncle, Thomas Wake, would accept her marriage when they were told about it. They would not be happy with her choice, but if the king approved it then her family would also. Did Joan understand the vulnerability of her marriage with Thomas? The clandestine nature of the marriage was not a bar to its validity, nor the fact that she did not have the consent of her family. Although the Church preferred and encouraged marriages to be public, the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 having laid down specific procedures to be followed for marriages, nevertheless the only requirement in canon law for a valid marriage was that it was made with free consent by both parties who were of an age to fully understand what they were doing, and could consummate the union.1 However, the secrecy, Joan’s age and the issue of consent made it vulnerable, and open to challenge. If Joan’s family did not approve of her choice, and she was persuaded that she had not given her consent, they could apply to the ecclesiastical courts for an annulment on the grounds that she was coerced. Unfortunately for Joan, not only did her family not approve her marriage but they did not even recognise it. Within a few months of her return to England, in January or February 1341, Joan was forced into an arranged marriage with William Montague, the son of the Earl of Salisbury.2 Now married secretly to Thomas Holand and openly to William Montague, inevitably, Joan’s bigamous status became a problem. Remarkably, this was not resolved until the pronouncement of the papal court in favour of Thomas in November 1349. This was a completely unsatisfactory state of affairs for all concerned, and left Joan’s marital status effectively in limbo for eight years. How did this debacle come about?

  After Thomas Holand left Joan in the early summer of 1340 she had no means of knowing when she would see him again. It is evident that Joan did not tell anyone about the marriage at this stage. She must have known that the king and queen and her family would disapprove of her marriage, and she was probably fearful of the consequences when they were told. Several of the king’s knights had gone on the Prussian Crusade and reports of the expedition and their exploits would be sent to the king and circulated among his household. For Joan this was presumably the only means of getting news of Thomas. With no means of contacting her husband or of joining him, the only option open to her was to remain with the royal family in Ghent. On 25 September 1340 Edward III reluctantly agreed a truce with Philip VI at Espléchin, near Tournai. Rejoining Philippa in Ghent at the end of September, Edward III nevertheless kept up appearances, and a tournament was held to celebrate his return, attended by the princes of the coalition. The campaign over, in November 1340 the royal party returned to England.

  Once back in England Joan was reunited with her mother and brother. They had been apart for two and a half years, and had much to catch up on. Joan was burdened with the secret of her marriage, and may have welcomed the prospect of a sympathetic ear. Thomas was many miles away, and Joan did not know when she would see him again. But it was not destined to be a happy homecoming for Joan. Almost immediately she was told by her mother that a marriage had been agreed for her with her erstwhile playmate William Montague, the son and heir of the Earl of Salisbury. Joan’s reaction can only be imagined. Her first instinct would have been to contact Thomas, but this was impossible because of the distance between them. Joan had no alternative but to tell her mother about her marriage. Margaret, delighted to have agreed such a promising match for her daughter, could only have been horrified. Unfortunately, she was also quite unsympathetic. Either she did not believe her daughter, perhaps wondering if Joan was fabricating an implausible excuse to prevent an unwanted match, or she doubted the validity of the marriage itself. Margaret hurriedly consulted her brother, Thomas Wake, and they decided that the marriage to William Montague should go ahead regardless, and on 21 January 1341 they concluded the arrangements with the Earl of Salisbury, agreeing a dowry sum of £3,000.3 Joan protested, but she was helpless. It does not appear that anyone had any sympathy for Joan in her dilemma, and it is understandable that she was unable to withstand the pressure upon her. Possibly her family persuaded her that her marriage to Thomas Holand was invalid, but whatever arguments were used, in the end she capitulated.4 Sometime towards the end of January or early February 1341 Joan and William were married.

  The match between Joan and William Montague was exactly the sort of marriage that Joan might have expected to make had circumstances been different. Unlike her match with Thomas Holand, the wedding to William was publicly celebrated, and had the full approval of the king. On 10 February the Earl of Salisbury was given permission by the king to grant the castle, manor and lordship of Mold in North Wales to his son William and ‘his wife Joan’, together with the reversion of the manor of Marshwood in Dorset.5 On 10 March the Earl of Salisbury proudly confirmed the grant to his son in front of his brother Edward Montague, Joan’s uncle Thomas Wake, the Bishop of Ely and the earls of Arundel, Devon and Huntingdon.6 The initiative for the marriage had come from the Earl of Salisb
ury rather than from Joan’s mother or uncle. William Montague, Earl of Salisbury, was a close friend of Edward III. His loyalty and support for the king had brought him the earldom in 1337, as well as considerable wealth. The earl had a modest background. His grandfather had been the first knight in the family, and his father had been steward of the royal household under Edward II. Salisbury himself had started as a yeoman, before being knighted in 1325.7 After leading the Nottingham Castle coup in 1330 his career had soared, and he used his position to his family’s advantage. In 1337, within days of being created earl, Salisbury’s brother Simon became Bishop of Ely through Edward III’s influence, and by 1338 Salisbury’s youngest brother, Edward, had married Joan’s cousin, Alice Brotherton, daughter and co-heiress of the Earl of Norfolk.8 Salisbury’s efforts to secure advantageous marriages for his own children were similarly impressive. In 1335 he had reached agreement for the marriage of his daughter Agnes to John, heir to Lord Grey of Ruthin, and in 1336 he purchased the wardship and marriage of Roger Mortimer, Earl of March, so securing a husband for his daughter Philippa.9 In March 1340, high in the king’s esteem, Salisbury was granted the manor of Merton in Somerset, given permission to found Bisham Priory and obtained endorsement for his negotiations for the marriage of his daughter Elizabeth to Hugh Despenser, a union which would end a family feud (although it required a papal dispensation in 1341 to secure it).10 During the winter of 1340, while negotiating with the Countess of Kent and Thomas Wake to obtain Joan as a bride for his eldest son William, Salisbury was also securing the marriage of his younger son, John, to an heiress, Margaret, daughter of Thomas of Monthermer.11

  Unlike most of the other brides secured by Salisbury for his family, Joan was not an heiress. Her attraction lay in her royal blood. Salisbury would have preferred wealth and lineage, and had originally set his sights on Joan’s cousin Alice for his heir. In February 1333, when his son William was barely five years old, and four years before Salisbury received his earldom, he had agreed a marriage contract with Joan’s uncle Thomas Brotherton, Earl of Norfolk. Edward III gave his approval. Norfolk and Salisbury agreed a dowry of £1,300, and Norfolk was to assign estates in Ireland and Berkshire to Salisbury which would revert to young William and Alice if Salisbury died within fifteen years.12 When Norfolk’s son died, leaving Alice and her sister Margaret as joint heiresses, Salisbury appears to have had second thoughts about the arrangement. He had plenty of time to find another bride for his son, and meanwhile he had an opportunity to provide his younger brother Edward with an heiress. Salisbury persuaded Norfolk to agree to Alice marrying Edward instead. When Norfolk died in 1338 Edward Montague became a wealthy man through Alice’s inheritance. For Salisbury, the lure of linking himself to the royal family by marriage remained strong, and when the king’s plans for Joan with d’Albret came to nothing, it must have seemed too good an opportunity to miss. His son William was the same age as Joan and they had spent time together as children. Salisbury would have known Margaret fairly well from his regular contact with the royal household, and his duties at Woodstock Palace. His approach to the Countess of Kent and Thomas Wake on returning to England was swift, and an agreement easily arranged. They welcomed the proposal. Salisbury was powerful at court, with money, power and influence, and a marriage to his heir would secure Joan’s future and benefit the rest of her family.

  Yet the fact remains that Joan’s marriage to William Montague in 1341 was bigamous, and the intriguing question is the extent to which the families concerned were aware of the Holand marriage and complicit in ignoring it. It can of course only be speculative to suggest that the Earl of Salisbury was made aware of the Holand marriage, but it is a reasonable conjecture in the circumstances. It is entirely credible that Margaret and Thomas Wake had doubts about the validity of Joan’s marriage to Thomas Holand. As it had been conducted in secret no one else knew about it, and with Thomas abroad they only had Joan’s version of what had happened. But they could not afford to ignore what Joan told them, and they would have wanted to check what had actually taken place. Immediately that presented a problem, as no one in the royal household knew anything about it, and Holand was not available to question. Assuming the marriage was valid, it could be set aside on the grounds that Joan had not consented to it. However, this would take time as it would require an application to the ecclesiastical courts, and success could not be guaranteed, as the crucial factor would be Joan’s willingness to repudiate it. Another possibility that would not have been overlooked was the very real chance that Thomas Holand might not return. He had gone to fight, and he would not be the first young knight to die on crusade. Nevertheless, it is most unlikely that Margaret and Thomas Wake deliberately deceived the Earl of Salisbury. Apart from anything else, Joan’s resistance to the marriage indicates that she would have been prepared to have made the Montagues aware of it. Margaret and her brother would not have wanted to take the risk of proceeding with Joan’s marriage to William Montague without first warning and discussing the matter with the Earl of Salisbury.

  The logical solution to the problem would have been to delay the proposed marriage to William and to wait for Thomas Holand’s return so that the validity or otherwise of his marriage to Joan could be established, and it is curious that this did not happen. An agreement could still have been made in principle, and a delay would hardly have mattered as Joan and William were only thirteen years old. It is very unlikely that their families expected or wanted the marriage consummated at this stage. Although the Church regarded the age of puberty for a girl as twelve, it was generally recognised that marital intimacy should be deferred until the girl was at least fifteen, because of the dangers intercourse and pregnancy could pose for someone of that age.13 The Earl of Salisbury’s part in the matter may have been decisive in propelling the parties forward. He had only just been released after several months of captivity in France, having been captured by the French while on an expedition outside Lille in April 1340.14 He was an important prisoner and a high value had been placed on his ransom. Fortunately Edward III had been anxious to secure his release and had raised the ransom sum by securing a levy of wool in October 1340 and agreeing to release one of his Scottish captives, the Earl of Moray, in exchange.15 Salisbury was probably released around the time of the truce at Espléchin in September, returning to England in November or December 1340, and had yet to complete the terms agreed for his release. As Edward III’s most trusted friend he was privy to the king’s plans and knew that it was only a matter of time before campaigning in France resumed. He was ambitious for his son and doubtless anxious to settle his affairs before he returned to France, so was prepared to take a risk in order to secure the king’s cousin as a bride for William. He also had an advantage over Margaret and Thomas Wake in that he knew Thomas Holand well. They had served together several times over the years, probably first in Scotland in 1335 and 1337, when Thomas was just starting his military career, and then latterly in France. In more recent years Thomas’ military abilities had brought him to the attention of the leading commanders. He had fought alongside the earl with Sir Walter Mauny and Sir John Chandos at Brabant in September 1339, and witnessed a grant by Sir Walter Mauny at Valenciennes on 14 September 1339, with Salisbury and the Earl of Northampton.16 The earl’s personal knowledge may well have determined his approach to the problem. Salisbury knew Thomas was ambitious but impecunious, and was well aware of his background and the Lancastrian aversion to the Holand family. He probably believed that Thomas’ clandestine marriage had been a calculated gamble, and assumed that Thomas could be bought off. In many respects they were similar; both were ambitious, bold, had drive and energy, and shared a willingness to take risks. Salisbury was doubtless confident that he could offer sufficient inducement to persuade Holand to agree to his marriage being set aside, and convinced Margaret and Thomas Wake that they could leave this to him.

  No record of the details of what was agreed between Salisbury, Margaret and Thomas Wake survives, but there
would have been a detailed marriage contract, and some idea of the likely terms can be surmised from the detailed agreement reached between Salisbury and Lord Ruthin in June 1335 for Agnes’ marriage to John Grey. Like Joan and William, Agnes and John were still children so had no say in the arrangements. Their parents agreed that a dowry of £1,000 was to be paid by Salisbury (then plain Sir William Montague) to Ruthin in instalments over a five-year period, during which time Agnes would remain living with her parents, and as additional insurance, a penalty was payable of £2,000 if either party defaulted.17 The terms agreed for Joan would have been similar, and it was probably anticipated that she would either remain living in the royal household, or with her mother, until the parties felt the young couple were old enough to live together and consummate their marriage. However, the peculiar complication of the Holand marriage warranted the inclusion of some safeguards. The sum of £3,000 agreed for Joan was a much larger marriage portion than usual, and considerably more than the £1,300 agreed for Alice in 1333, or the £1,000 agreed for Agnes.18 The explanation for this may simply be that Salisbury was a shrewd negotiator, and that in contrast to the Earl of Norfolk Margaret was not in a position to grant the earl any land. But a possible interpretation is that the price was deliberately high to compensate for the risk, and that a large proportion of it would be forfeit if the match failed. Another safeguard was to ensure that the marriage was not consummated until it was certain that the situation over the Holand marriage had been resolved. Non-consummation was a common term in marriage settlements where the principals were very young, as Joan and William were, and it would have been a reasonable provision to include. Salisbury had the additional advantage that William was only thirteen, and under canonical law he could reject the arranged marriage provided he did so before he was fourteen (the recognised age of puberty for boys).