Joan of Kent: The First Princess of Wales

by Penny Lawne

  It is generally considered that the panegyric written about the prince by the herald of Sir John Chandos was composed during 1385. Several copies of the work survive, and it is elaborately and expensively decorated, indicating a wealthy patron arranging its publication.134 John Chandos had been a close companion of the prince and had predeceased him by some years, while the prince himself had been dead for nine years. It may just be coincidence that the work was written during the last year of Joan’s life, but it is possible that it was done at her behest, or that she was influential in encouraging its composition and accomplishment. The literary tribute to the prince is a chronicle of his life, written in French verse, primarily commemorating his feats of arms, though biographical details of his life are included. The poem describes the Battle of Crécy and the siege of Calais, gives details of the Poitiers campaign and an eyewitness account of the Nájera campaign, with an overview of the government in Aquitaine, and describes the prince’s last years, listing his chief officers and a copy of the epitaph on his tomb. The composition is elaborately decorated with a frontispiece comprising a full-length miniature of the prince in gold and colours, one part of Trinity and second of the prince kneeling in adoration on a red cushion, clad in armour wearing leather jupon without sleeves, emblazoned with the arms of England and France, with sword and dagger, golden elbow, kneecaps and spurs, large silver ostrich feather and his motto, ‘Ich dene’. The prince’s victories and achievements are admired and celebrated, while the prince himself is described in terms which leave no doubt that the writer considered the prince to be the premier chivalric knight of his generation. The poem is a magnificent literary tribute, possibly intended for presentation to Richard, although the fact that more than one copy survives suggests it was intended for wide distribution. It had clear propaganda value for Richard as the prince’s son. Joan is only mentioned in the poem eight times, although she is described in complimentary terms. In the words of Chandos Herald Joan was ‘une dame de grant pris, Qe belle fuist, plesante et sage’ (a lady of great worth, beautiful, pleasant and wise). It was also during 1385 that Richard commissioned a series of thirteen sculptures of the kings of England to adorn the Great Hall at Westminster, probably from Edward the Confessor to himself 135 This was a grand project and clearly designed to be a display of royal lineage, with an emphasis on Richard’s paternal ancestry. Richard may well have discussed it with his mother, and certainly she would have heartily endorsed it.

  Early in June, meeting in Reading, the king’s council agreed that, following the renewal of hostilities between Scotland and England after the arrival of a French force in Scotland, Richard should lead an expedition into Scotland. He would be accompanied by most of the leading nobility, including his uncle Gaunt. The duke was by this time back on good terms with his nephew, and with his peers. This was Richard’s first military campaign and in honour of the momentous occasion, as was customary, there were noble promotions. The king created his uncles Edmund and Thomas dukes of York and Clarence respectively, and Michael de la Pole, the chancellor (and a friend of Gaunt’s), Earl of Suffolk. Richard and Anne visited Joan at Wallingford before he left, the occasion recorded for posterity by a contemporary depiction of Chaucer (in a picture on the frontispiece of an original copy of his work Troilus and Criseyde) reading his works to the royal family at Wallingford.136 Taking leave of his mother, Richard was mindful of earlier dangers and careful to leave her well attended, ordering a number of her favourite knights to ‘assist continually about the person of the king’s mother for her comfort and security wherever she shall abide within the realm, rendering other services so befitting the estate of so great a lady’. The men ordered to stay with Joan were her knights Lewis Clifford, Richard Stury, Philip la Vache, Thomas Latimer, her steward John Worthe, her clerks William Harpele, Lawrence Sebroke and Henry Norton, and Thomas Morwell, William Fitzrauf, Gilbert Wace, Garnius Arnaud and Richard Mewes.137

  The royal army set out late in June and made its way slowly north. Accompanying Richard were Thomas and John Holand. Unfortunately the campaign got off to a disastrous start. John Holand, whose charismatic personality seems to have endeared him more to Richard than his older and steadier brother, had already shown a regrettable tendency towards thoughtless and uncontrolled violence. As the army neared York a quarrel broke out between John’s retainers and those of Ralph Stafford, son of the Earl of Stafford and one of Queen Anne’s household knights. One of John Holand’s squires was killed, and Stafford’s men fled to sanctuary at Beverley. Shortly afterwards, and it appears by chance, John Holand met Ralph Stafford near York. Unluckily it seems that neither were able to restrain themselves from making the quarrel personal, and in the ensuing fight, John killed Stafford. This was appalling behaviour for which there could be little excuse. Once news of Ralph Stafford’s death reached Richard, the king had no choice but to react immediately. Richard ordered John’s arrest and confiscated his property, swearing that John would have to face the full rigour of the law. According to the chroniclers, Richard was absolutely furious with his half-brother, as well he might be. John’s intemperance, his failure to make any attempt to explain his actions or apologise for them, amounted to a personal affront, and the king was not going to leave this unchallenged. Thomas suffered indirectly for his brother’s heinous crime, being replaced as earl marshal on 30 June by the Earl of Nottingham.138 Yet, despite Richard’s fury, he does not seem to have suggested that John should be tried for murder and executed for his crime. When the news reached Joan, she was aghast. Desperately afraid of the consequences for both her sons, she tried to intervene. The distances were too great for her to take to the road and talk to Richard in person, and she had to rely on messengers instead, sending them to beg Richard, according to Walsingham, ‘not to reject so small a request of his mother, but to pity his brother, to pity his mother, and as a brother to show greater pity because he was his brother’. Her messengers included Lewis Clifford and reached the army before it left Carlisle.139 Richard was too angry to listen and Lewis Clifford returned to Joan empty-handed. For once Joan was unable to deal with this crisis. She was too ill. Her health failed her, and she collapsed. According to Walsingham, ‘it may be that because she was weighed down by too much grief she collapsed on her bed, and after four or five days she died’.140 Conscious that she was dying, on 7 August Joan made her will, and she died the following day, on 8 August 1385.

  Richard’s reaction, when he heard of his mother’s death, can only be imagined. The chroniclers were firmly of the view that the row had caused Joan’s death, and that she had died of grief. More prosaically, Joan had probably been unwell for several months, and this fresh disaster had simply exacerbated her condition. Joan had experienced many difficult situations in her life, and she would surely have felt confident of her ability to manage this one if she had been fit enough to do so. At her bedside in her last hour, perhaps she was comforted by the presence of her daughter Maud and her good friend Eleanor. Although Joan died very quickly after her collapse, she was able to put her affairs in order and make her arrangements. She remained concerned with her children and their affairs to the last, as the provisions of her will showed. Her principal beneficiaries were her three sons, and if she had any doubts about John’s future, she sought to dispel them by making equal provision for him in her will, a clear sign to Richard that she expected the king to find a way to forgive and rehabilitate his errant brother.

  In her will, Joan committed her soul to God, the Virgin Mary and the saints, and specifically affirmed her adherence to the Catholic faith, ‘fiden catholicam firmiter proficiendo’. This was a somewhat unusually adamant profession of faith, which might possibly reflect a greater piety than Joan had been willing to show publicly, but it could also have been intended to dispel any lingering doubts there might be about her having heretical Lollard sympathies, as Joan had always been concerned that any slur on her reputation might adversely affect Richard. Her ‘dearest son’ Richard was her principal
beneficiary, and she left him her new red velvet bed embroidered with silver ostrich feathers and heads of leopards in gold with boughs and leaves issuing from their mouths, with all her belongings in her wardrobe in London (‘meum de velvet rubrum novum operat’ in broderieria cum pennies ostric’ argent’ et cum capit’ leopardor, de auro’ cum ramis et foliis argenteis procedentibus et utraquw parte quolibet ore ipso’ cum appartu prout est in custodia garderobe mee London’). He was also to have the residue of her estate. She left Thomas a red camaca bed decorated in red and gold with a canopy quilt decorated with hatchments, and a quantity of rich furnishings.141 John, also described as her ‘dearest son’, was similarly gifted a red camaca bed and canopy with luxurious coverings of silk curtains, tapestry and a scarlet fur cover. Joan only named her three sons as individual beneficiaries and it is evident that she intended them to understand from the gifts and her language that she was regarded them all with equal affection. Joan carefully stipulated that her executors should have a year to pay her debts, and discretion to make payments to her servants, according to their ‘quality and merit’, thus ensuring that her executors would have complete freedom to reward her retainers as they saw fit, probably in accordance with instructions she had already given. Joan made no other individual gifts; significantly, she does not mention either her beloved daughter Maud or her good friend Eleanor, nor did she make any gifts of alms, or to religious houses, or any other endowments. These omissions were clearly quite deliberate. By making her three sons the only named beneficiaries in her will Joan was sending them a message that she could not deliver in person, reminding them of their relationship, stressing the importance of family. She could, and probably did, make provision for Maud and Eleanor and any other family or friends by giving them gifts before her death or by separate instruction to her executors. Similarly, any patronage she chose to make was kept private, and if she made any deathbed provision she was careful to ensure it was sufficiently modest not to be noted. As she lay dying, Joan’s first thoughts were for her family.

  Joan appointed as executors to her will the following: her ‘dear friend’ and cousin Robert Braybrooke; William Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester; John Lord Cobham; William Beauchamp; William Neville; Simon Burley; Lewis Clifford; Richard Abberbury; John Clanvowe; Richard Stury; Philip la Vache (wrongly named ‘John’ Vache); her steward John Worthe; her ‘dear’ chaplains William Fulbourne (who had been with her since she married the prince in 1361) and John Yernmouth; her ‘dear’ squire William Harpele; and William Norton (this was probably meant to be Henry Norton).142 The will was witnessed by the prior of Wallingford and John James, and it was proved on 9 December 1385. Joan’s will was written in Latin; bearing in mind that it was written the day before she died, the choice of language was probably that of her clerk rather than Joan herself, as her own preference would more likely have been French, used by the prince and later John of Gaunt. Joan appointed sixteen executors in her will, a quite extraordinary number. No estate, however complex, would require the appointment of so many executors. The prince, in contrast, had named eight, while even Edward III had been content to appoint only ten. It is obvious that Joan had another motive for nominating so many people to be her executors, and as she had never sought attention for herself it is unlikely that she chose so many to signify her own importance. Therefore the reason had more to do with the individuals she named than with herself, and while it can only be speculative to suggest this, it seems likely that Joan was using the office of executor as a means of protecting, as well as rewarding, those closest to her. It is notable that, although all the knights appointed were loyal and close friends of long standing who had served first the prince and then Joan faithfully over many years, apart from Simon Burley and Richard Adderbury, the others – William Beauchamp, William Neville, Lewis Clifford, John Clanvowe, Richard Stury and Philip la Vache – were all Lollard sympathisers. Joan would have been aware that the Church was becoming more aggressive in its attack on the Lollard heresy, and appointing them as her executors may have been in part an attempt by her to ensure them future royal protection, relying on Richard respecting her wishes and preventing the prosecution of any of his mother’s executors.

  After her death, Joan’s body was wrapped in waxed linen cloths and placed in a lead tomb at Wallingford to await Richard’s return from Scotland. In September various members of Richard’s household received cloth to use as liveries for mourning for Joan. These included Clanvowe, Clifford, Philip la Vache and Geoffrey Chaucer, the latter receiving three and a half ells of black cloth.143 In her will Joan requested burial in the chapel at Stamford, next to the memorial to Thomas Holand; this was also where Blanche Wake was buried.144 Joan left no instructions regarding her final journey, and there are no records detailing it. It would not have taken place until after Christmas 1385 as Joan was finally laid to rest in January 1386, in ‘a sumptuous chapel recently built next to the choir’, and Richard ensured that his mother’s burial place was kept in good repair.145 Unfortunately the church in Stamford no longer exists and there is no trace of Joan’s tomb. There is now no way of knowing what kind of tomb or memorial was erected for Joan, as there is no evidence from the royal accounts of any expenditure by Richard which might reveal this. The prince, Edward III and Philippa all had grand and imposing marble tombs with a life-size effigy of themselves made from bronze placed on top, and Richard arranged something similar for himself and Anne (though it was Henry V who ensured that Richard’s wishes were carried out in respect of his own tomb). It seems unlikely that Joan would have wanted this kind of memorial for herself, especially as she had stipulated burial in the chapel at Stamford, which was a far humbler setting than Westminster Abbey and Canterbury Cathedral, and no doubt Richard followed his mother’s wishes in providing her with a far less ostentatious monument.

  Joan’s request that she be buried at Stamford with Thomas Holand, rather than with the prince in Canterbury Cathedral, is intriguing. Having endowed two chantries at Canterbury when they were married, and stipulated in great detail his own burial in the cathedral, there can be little doubt that the prince anticipated that his wife would join him there, but it is clear from Joan’s will that she did not want this. It is possible that even as she lay dying Joan was anxious not to draw attention to herself and wanted to be as unobtrusive in death as she had tried to be in life. The prince had not been buried as he stipulated, in the chapel of Our Lady Undercroft, and his tomb had been placed beside the altar in the main body of Canterbury Cathedral.146 Had Joan been placed beside him she would have occupied a very public and prominent position in the cathedral, and her burial would inevitably have attracted considerable attention. Perhaps as she lay dying Joan felt concern that her death might renew the controversy over the legality of her marriage, with unforeseen consequences for Richard. But the other, and more probable, explanation is that Thomas Holand had been the great love of her life, and she wanted to be with him in death, and that this was in the end more important to her than any possible awkwardness this might cause Richard. It is touching, and to Richard’s credit, that he respected his mother’s wishes and had no hesitation in carrying out her instructions.

  There is no way of knowing how Joan’s Holand children felt when she died. As they all enjoyed a good relationship with their mother, there must have been a genuine sense of loss for all of them, and not just for Richard. Joan had been a stabilising influence in all their lives, and she had worked hard to keep them together as a family. Her Holand sons may well have had mixed feelings. Maybe John Holand was full of remorse, as he would have been aware how much distress his conduct had caused his mother. Perhaps for Thomas there was secret relief, as his mother’s death at last released to him the huge Kent estates. They would both have been conscious of the influence their mother had exercised on Richard in restraining his inclination to advance them in his service, and now that bar had been removed; John in particular was ambitious. But she had died just as John was in disgrace and estranged
from Richard. It would have been natural for him to feel some apprehension, as their mother had always been the one to heal any family rifts, and now she was not there to intercede on his behalf with Richard over the Stafford murder. John could not be sure that Richard would not impose a heavier punishment on him in addition to the forfeiture of his possessions, while Thomas too was conscious that he had fallen out of favour because of his brother’s behaviour. Maud’s grief was less complicated, as she did not gain materially from her mother’s death; instead she lost the companionship of someone she had been very close to and with whom she had lived for most of her life.

  Richard’s grief cannot be gauged. When news of her death reached him, he was on campaign and hardly in a position to abandon everything and return to bury her. Perhaps her death did not come as a surprise, as he may well have been conscious of her poor health when he left her in June. Did he blame John for her death? Did he feel some responsibility for his own part in the quarrel which had caused her such distress? In withdrawing from the daily life of the court, Joan had removed herself from Richard’s side as an everyday influence, and the distancing she had deliberately created would have helped Richard to miss her less than he might have done otherwise, while he also had his beloved Anne to comfort him. Nevertheless Richard was only eighteen when his mother died, and she had been at his side throughout his life, protecting, guiding, supporting and comforting him. Richard must have felt her loss keenly.