Joan of Kent: The First Princess of Wales

by Penny Lawne

  There is little doubt about the prince’s relief, as his generosity in complying with the penance imposed by Archbishop Islip far exceeded the stipulated price. The prince chose to endow Canterbury Cathedral, for which he had a particular fondness. He had been on pilgrimage to Thomas à Becket’s tomb on several occasions, notably in 1356 with his royal prisoner, John II, en route for London. Shortly after his wedding the prince paid for the construction of a chantry in the crypt to contain two altars, dedicated to the Holy Trinity and the Virgin Mary, with a priest at each, endowing the cathedral with the substantial and valuable manor of Vauxhall, comprising over thirty-one acres, with his father’s formal consent being granted on 29 August 1362.46 The Vauxhall revenue would more than cover the cost of maintaining the chapel, with income left to spare. At the prince’s expense the Romanesque chapel in the crypt of the south-west transept was completely refurbished under the guidance of Prior Robert Hathbrand to a design agreed with the prince. The high standard of the work carried out, using the latest architectural style and creating the first major Perpendicular interior in a cathedral, included a ribbed, vaulted roof decorated with bosses on the intersections, and indicates that a highly skilled architect, possibly Henry Yevele, was used.47 The remnants of the prince’s generosity are still visible in the cathedral in the Huguenot chapel, used by the French Protestant congregation since the sixteenth century, although the masonry and decoration has gone and the pillars, bosses and roof are whitewashed. The bosses show the coats of arms of the prince and his father, and one features a woman’s head, with her hair dressed in the style fashionable in the 1360s, held in a square-framed net close to her face. This may well be a representation of Joan but there is no evidence to suggest it was executed on the prince’s orders and may well have been placed there some time after the initial work was completed. In fact, Joan is noticeably absent from the prince’s gift, which is curious. In the charter document the prince requested prayers for his parents, his siblings and himself, without mentioning Joan, plainly implying that the gift, while fulfilling the penance, also expressed the relief and thanks of both the king and his son.48 The lack of any reference to Joan herself was clearly deliberate, and this suggests the prince wanted this endowment to be very personal to him. The prince did not forget to reward his squire Nicholas Bond for his part in the affair. In October 1360 the prince had granted Nicholas the manors of Vauxhall and Kennington for life in return for a daily rental; in October 1362 the prince replaced this with an annuity of £76 6s 4d to come from Mere manor in Wiltshire and in May 1365 the prince granted Mere to Nicholas for life, free of rent.49

  In spite of the elaborate care taken by all concerned, one important legal detail was overlooked. The dispensation regarding the prince’s relationship with Joan only covered two of the three ecclesiastical prohibitions on their union. The prince’s status as godfather to Joan’s eldest son was a straightforward obstacle, but there were a confusing mix of blood relationship ties between them. Their obvious kinship came through Joan’s father, Edmund, giving Joan and the prince a common grandfather in Edward I, but through her mother, Margaret, Joan could also trace ancestry to Eleanor of Castile, the prince’s grandmother. It was probably this more distant relationship which escaped the notice of those preparing the dispensation. The king and the prince knew they could not afford to miss any legal nicety, and as soon as they realised Edward III swiftly applied to the Pope to rectify the omission. Unfortunately, by this time nearly a year had passed and Innocent VI had died. The king once again adopted a belt-and-braces approach, reiterating his original request, and in response the new pope, Urban V, issued his own bull on 6 December 1362, which not only supplied the missing part of the dispensation but also confirmed in full the terms of Innocent VI’s bull.50 Four different popes had now pronounced on the validity of Joan’s marriage to Thomas Holand, and two had declared the prince’s marriage to Joan lawful. This unanimity of papal opinion should have provided Edward III and the prince with the security they had sought.

  Notwithstanding the apparent success of their plan, Edward III and the prince knew that there would always be a query over the legality of the prince’s marriage. Archbishop Islip harboured his own private doubts, which he shared with the prince two days before the formal wedding ceremony, warning him of the risk of scandal because of Joan’s marital history.51 Edward III and the prince could only hope that the elaborate care they had taken to ensure that any legal loophole had been filled would be sufficient, and deter any potential challenge to the legitimacy of any children Joan bore the prince. Their concern to obtain the Pope’s cooperation to resolve the legal complexities of the marriage proved well founded. Only three years later, in December 1364, the Pope denied Edward III’s request for a dispensation to enable the prince’s younger brother, Edmund of Langley, to marry Margaret of Flanders.52 As this effectively prevented a diplomatic alliance which would favour England, the pontiff’s refusal was a blatantly political act barely disguised by being worded as a general prohibition against any of Edward III’s children marrying within the third and fourth degrees of consanguinity. Needless to say, the effect would have been to prevent the prince’s marriage to Joan had it not already taken place. Then, in 1370, the Pope threatened to have Joan and the prince’s son Richard (later to become King Richard II) declared illegitimate.53 The importance of the documentation so painstakingly collected to prove the legality of the prince’s marriage was deeply impressed on his heir. More than thirty years later, before he sailed to Ireland in November 1394, Richard II ordered his chancellor, the Archbishop of York, to take custody of a small chest which contained personal documents and to place them for safekeeping with the abbot and convent of Westminster. Richard considered these documents so important that he habitually kept them at his side in his own personal safe deposit box, and parted with them only on this sole sojourn abroad.54 Apart from his will the majority of the documents, including eleven papal bulls, related to his parents’ marriage, and collectively and comprehensively comprised written verification of the legality of Joan’s marriage to Thomas Holand, the annulment of her marriage to William Montague, and the validity of her marriage to his father.55 When Richard II was deposed in 1399, the chronicler Adam Usk commented that ‘concerning whose birth many unsavoury things were commonly said, namely that he was not born of a father of the royal line, but of a mother given to slippery ways – to say nothing of many other things I have heard’.56 Written many years after her death, Usk’s remark confirms the effect Joan’s marital past had on her reputation.

  Prince Edward’s wedding to his Jeanette on 10 October 1361 in the chapel at Windsor was the social event of the year. The chapel would have been packed. The service was conducted by Archbishop Islip in the presence of all the most prominent members of the nobility and the clergy.57 Heading the guest list was the prince’s own family – his parents Edward III and Queen Philippa, his sister Princess Isabella, his brothers John of Gaunt, Edmund of Langley and Thomas of Woodstock (Lionel and Princess Margaret were absent), his aunt Queen Joan of Scotland (Edward III’s sister) – along with the bishops of Winchester, Salisbury, Lincoln and Worcester, the Abbot of Westminster and many more unnamed individuals.58 Lady Blanche Wake would have been present, and probably Joan’s sister-in-law Elizabeth, with her new husband Eustace d’Aubrichecourt. Among the guests also would have been Joan’s erstwhile husband William Montague, Earl of Salisbury, and his countess, Elizabeth. The prince and his bride must have made a magnificently handsome couple, with Joan wearing a rich red dress with cloth of gold decorated with a variety of birds.59 Joan’s dress would have been in the prevailing fashionable style with a tightly fitting upper bodice and buttoned sleeves from which hung long decorative pieces, with a low waist and a flowing lower skirt. No list of gifts survives but no doubt these were plentiful, with presents of plate and jewellery for Joan. Eighteen months earlier, on John of Gaunt’s wedding, the royal family had given gifts to his wife Blanche valued at £670 5s
.60

  The wedding of the heir to the throne was an occasion of national importance and surely warranted a fanfare of triumphal and celebratory events, particularly as it had been a difficult year in many respects for Edward III. In March, the king had lost one of his most valued family members when Henry, Duke of Lancaster, had died, and in September, just three weeks before the wedding, Princess Mary, who had so recently married John, Duke of Brittany, died aged seventeen.61 Princess Margaret died very shortly after the wedding, and as she is not listed among the guests it seems probable that her illness prevented her from attending the festivities. The year had also been marked by a further outbreak of the plague and a hurricane which had devastated many areas, destroying houses and steeples on churches as well as trees.62 The prince’s marriage was an opportunity to put these catastrophes to one side. At the very least one might have expected a series of splendid tournaments and something special as a public celebration held in Joan’s honour. The prince was as enthusiastic in his love of display as his father, and notably fond of lavish hospitality, most clearly in evidence when he escorted John II back from France after his victory at Poitiers in the celebrations held in London to mark the occasion. It is therefore surprising that nothing of this kind was arranged, in marked contrast to the two weeks of jousting held for John of Gaunt’s wedding to Blanche of Lancaster in Reading in May 1359, including a special event to honour Blanche in London subsequently, or the Dunstable tournaments following Lionel’s wedding to Elizabeth de Burgh in 1343. Nor is there any record that Edward III awarded an annuity to his new daughter-in-law as he had done for Blanche.63 The prince even disguised the simple matter of giving his household staff new livery, waiting until 28 December and then giving orders that new liveries should be provided for New Year’s Day (his livery was white and green, with green on the right), with hats adorned with gold ribbons and camaca for his knights and woollen cloth for his squires and yeomen.64 A possible explanation is that the royal family were in mourning for Princess Mary, and that Princess Margaret was gravely ill. An added incentive for the relatively low-key approach to the prince’s wedding may have been the king and prince’s concern about Joan’s marital history. Edward III was well aware that as Princess of Wales Joan might be regarded by her peers with some suspicion, and he was alert to the possibility that a weakness in his son’s marriage might be exploited. As a consequence, the king wanted his son to be careful to ensure that their nuptials did not draw undue attention or invite criticism. A series of tournaments were indeed held, but because they did not take place until March and April 1362, several months after the prince’s wedding, they were not specifically associated with it. Instead, after the ceremony, the prince and his bride retired to his palace at Kennington, and from there they moved on to his castle at Berkhamsted in Berkshire, where they were joined by Edward III and Queen Philippa for the Christmas festivities. Froissart was among those accompanying Queen Philippa. Joan was now referred to as the ‘king’s daughter’, and she and the queen exchanged gifts, even clothes, with a touchingly intimate entry dated March 1362 recording Joan spending £6 13s 4d on mending a corset given to her by Philippa.65

  The prince’s circumspection regarding his wedding is apparent even in terms of his own personal expenditure. Notably generous in his gifts to others, and liberal in his spending on his own attire, it is hard to find evidence of any particular extravagance towards Joan. Like his father, Prince Edward believed that he should be visibly royal and dressed in fine clothes when not on campaign. Naturally he had decided views on how he wished his wife to appear, and even before their marriage took place he initiated changes in Joan’s clothes, and that of her children, by providing them with apparel in a style he considered suitable. By midsummer 1361 he had ordered his tailor, Henry Daldrington, and a London embroiderer, Giles Davynell, to make new clothes for Joan and her daughters, as well as for himself, paying Daldrington 61/4d a day for each furrier and tailor.66 The list of material to be used gives an indication of the taste: ells of long burnet, long scarlet, brown scarlet, blue and green longcloth, long tawny, long russet, blue azure, taffeta, canvas, furs of miniver, lamb, ermine, Venice ribbon, gold ribbon, gold cloth and cloth of ray.67 Embroidery was used to decorate clothing, and outer garments were often trimmed with fur. Between April and November 1361 the prince spent over £3,000 on jewels, including nearly 9,000 pearls.68 These were presumably for Joan and her daughters. Sleeves were usually buttoned on, with pearls often used as buttons, adding decoration to the garment, and many would have been used to adorn Joan’s new clothes, possibly including her wedding dress.69 These may seem exorbitant sums, but in fact they were relatively modest when judged by the prince’s own standards. In 1353 he had purchased 779 pearls to adorn a single hood, and in 1355 he bought at least twenty-six rings, yet only four are listed for the year of his wedding.70 It is also curious that there is no record of the prince giving any jewellery to Joan. Six months after the wedding, in March 1362, the prince spent £200 on a set of buttons for his wife, and a further £200 on two rubies, two brooches, and a ring with four diamonds, yet even if these were gifts for Joan they are hardly remarkable when compared to the richly jewelled gold brooches he had given his sisters Isabella and Joan in 1352, each set with three rubies, three emeralds, two diamonds and six pearls.71 The restraint is even apparent in Joan’s wedding dress, and it seems likely that the prince had a hand in the design of this. Red was a colour frequently worn by the royal family for public occasions of celebration, and cloth of gold (threads of gold woven on a web of silk) was a favourite splendid material. The decoration with embroidered birds is the only personal touch, an indication of Joan’s own taste and a taste shared by Queen Philippa, whose dark-blue velvet churching suit for the birth of William in 1348 had similarly been embroidered with gold birds.72 It was a sumptuous dress yet relatively modest compared, for example, to Philippa’s churching outfit, which had used 400 large pearls, thirty-eight ounces of small pearls, thirteen pounds of gold plate, eleven pounds of gold thread, seven pounds of embroidery silks, 2,000 miniver bellies for the lining and sixty ermine skins, or Princess Mary’s wedding dress, made from ‘gold racamatiz of Lucca’ covered by ‘cloth of gold baldekyn d’outremer’ with a long train and trimmed with 600 miniver furs given by the King of France.73

  Although the evidence is clear that Joan was accepted and welcomed as a royal bride by the prince’s family, the stigma that she was unsuitable, and disliked – by Queen Philippa at least – remains, and is repeated by many historians. This derives in part from the deliberate restraint exercised by Prince Edward and his father in the wedding arrangements, but also from the way in which the wedding was reported by the chroniclers. As befitted a marriage of such dynastic, social and political importance, all the chroniclers recorded it. Of these, only one, Higden, writing some years after the event, makes a subjective comment, stating that the marriage surprised many people.74 As the prince had been expected to marry a foreign princess, this may have been true, but it is unremarkable given the secrecy with which the king and the prince went about the prince’s affairs in the spring and summer of 1361. The proposal for his marriage was not disclosed until the Pope’s cooperation was secured, and the facts surrounding Joan’s early marriages were known to very few, while the plan for the prince to become ruler of Aquitaine was kept a closely guarded secret until it was publicly announced in July 1362. As Prince Edward was heir to the throne (indeed the Anonimalle Chronicle describes him as ‘Edward de quarte’), when his marriage became public knowledge the chroniclers were in a dilemma, as they were aware that Joan had once been treated as married to William Montague, who was still alive in 1361, so they were naturally concerned to reassure their audience of the validity of the prince’s marriage. In the main the chroniclers sought to stress Joan’s royal ancestry, the Anonimalle Chronicle describing her as ‘la feile le counte de Kente, sire Edmunde de Wodestoke, unkle al dit roy Dengleterre tiercz’ (the daughter of Sir Edmund of Woodstock, Ea
rl of Kent and uncle to Edward III).75 John of Reading refers to Edmund and the circumstances of the papal dispensation needed for the marriage, with Walsingham and Knighton also referring to her father and to her separation from William Montague for the sake of Thomas Holand.76 It is clear that none of the chroniclers fully understood Joan’s marital history and in referring to her antecedents they meant to emphasise her eligibility. The only contemporary commentator not to dwell on her antecedents was Chandos Herald. Writing within ten years of the prince’s death, the herald wrote that ‘the gentle prince married … a lady of great renown, who enkindled love in him, in that she was beauteous, charming and discreet’.77