Joan of Kent: The First Princess of Wales
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5. Queen Philippa took Joan and her brothers, Edmund and John, into her household six months after their father’s execution in 1330. This effigy was commissioned by Philippa before her death. (© Dean and Chapter of Westminster)
6. This shows the king as he would have been in later life. Edward III was a young man of eighteen when Joan and her brothers came to live in his wife’s household. (Ripon Cathedral)
7. The Garter Book was commissioned by William Bruges, accredited as being the first Garter King of Arms, and was probably made between 1430 and 1440. The book has twenty-seven full-page miniatures showing the twenty-six Garter knights in their Garter stalls at St George’s chapel, Windsor, each holding a panel with heraldic shields of their successors. (British Library)
8. Otto Holand was Thomas Holand’s younger brother and trusted lieutenant. John Chandos was one of Prince Edward’s closest friends and a renowned and formidable fighter and commander. Both were founder members of the Order of the Garter. (British Library)
9. The church of St Edward, King and Martyr, Castle Donington, Leicestershire. Originally built in the thirteenth century, and extended in the fourteenth. Joan would have been familiar with this parish church. (LeicesterPhoto Ltd)
10. The Bible Historiale of John the Good, King of France. This Bible was owned by King John II of France, captured at the Battle of Poitiers in 1356, and the book was subsequently purchased by William Montague, 2nd Earl of Salisbury, for his wife Elizabeth, for 100 marks. (British Library)
11. The founding chapel of the Order of the Garter, Windsor Castle’s St George’s chapel contains a stall for each of the twenty-six knights of the Garter, and an annual service is held in the chapel on St George’s day, 23 April. Joan and Prince Edward were married in the chapel in October 1361. (Royal Collections Trust/ © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2014)
12. Windsor Castle, Berkshire. One of the many royal palaces Joan lived in as a child and where she would have stayed the night after her wedding to Prince Edward. (Royal Collections Trust/ © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2014)
13. Originally a Norman castle, in 1337 Edward III granted Berkhamsted to Prince Edward as part of the duchy of Cornwall. It was the prince’s favourite castle, and became Joan’s first home with the prince after their wedding in October 1361. Prince Edward and Joan hosted Christmas here for Edward III and Queen Philippa in 1361. (© Skyscan Balloon Photography)
14. A reconstruction drawing of Berkhamsted Castle as it would have appeared in the twelfth century. Prince Edward paid for major renovation work to the castle before his marriage to Joan, and continued improvements to it afterwards. (© English Heritage)
15. The Bohun Psalter was made for either the 6th or 7th Earl of Hereford, both named Humphrey Bohun (d. 1361 and d. 1373, respectively). In 1362 Prince Edward purchased three psalters from the executors of the sixth earl, Humphrey de Bohun, and gave them to Joan and her two daughters, Maud and Joan Holand. The gifted psalters are likely to have been of similar quality to this psalter. (British Library)
16. Detail of a historiated initial ‘E’(dwardus) of Edward III, enthroned, giving a charter to the kneeling Prince Edward, at the beginning of a collection of documents relating to the principality of Aquitaine. (British Library)
17. Prince Edward’s tomb in Canterbury Cathedral, Kent, to which Joan made annual pilgrimages after his death. The prince left careful instructions for its design. The tomb chest is decorated with six shields of peace and six of war, and above it, facing downwards towards his effigy, is a painting of the Holy Trinity, which the prince gave the cathedral in his lifetime. On the opposite side of the choir lies Henry IV, the prince’s nephew and the man who deposed the prince’s son Richard II. (Reproduced with permission from Canterbury Cathedral Archives)
18. Hanging above the tomb are replicas of the prince’s helmet, surcoat, shield, gauntlets and the scabbard of his sword. The originals are displayed in a glass cabinet. (Reproduced with permission from Canterbury Cathedral Archives)
19. The copper gilt effigy shows the Prince Edward as the consummate warrior. In the nineteenth century it was carefully blackened (presumably taking his posthumous appellation of the ‘Black Prince’ literally), and remained under layers of paint until it was uncovered in the early 1930s. (Peter Lawne, taken by kind permission of the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury Cathedral)
20. Carved stone ceiling boss, reputedly representing Joan, in the chantry chapel beside the chapel of Our Lady Undercroft in Canterbury Cathedral. Prince Edward paid for the Chapel of Our Lady Undercroft to be redesigned, in fulfilment of the papal dispensation granted to enable him to marry Joan, and he left instructions in his will to be interred in the chapel. However, when he died, it was decided that his tomb should be placed in a more prominent position on the south side of the Trinity chapel. The chantry chapel is decorated with ceiling bosses; this carved stone boss is the largest human face and clearly represents Joan. Her hair is in a netted fret, a popular fashion at the time. However, there is no evidence that the prince ordered this and it is not known who carved it. (Peter Lawne, taken by kind permission of the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury Cathedral and the Trustees of the French Walloon Church)
21. St Albans Abbey kept a book listing their benefactors; Joan was obviously considered one of their more important ones as her image is pictured in the book. The abbot (from 1349 to 1396), Thomas de la Mare, was on friendly terms with Prince Edward, who, with his parents, Edward III and Queen Philippa, were also benefactors. (© The British Library Board. All rights reserved. Cotton Nero DVII f.7v.)
22. A statue of Edward III near the west door, on the outside of Canterbury Cathedral. He stands beside a statue of the prince. (Peter Lawne, taken by kind permission of the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury Cathedral)
23. Richard was Joan’s youngest child, and heir to Prince Edward. He became king when he was ten. This portrait was probably commissioned by Richard shortly after Joan died, and shows him as a child king. (© Dean and Chapter of Westminster)
24. Detail of a miniature of Vilenie (villainy, abuse, baseness) offering the Lover (l’Amans) a potion. The book was owned by Sir Richard Stury, a cultured and literary man. He was one of the prince’s knights and a friend to Joan, and was appointed as a household knight to Richard II. (British Library)
25. Joan arranged Richard’s marriage to Anne of Bohemia. Richard was very happy with the marriage, and was heartbroken when Anne died in 1394. They had no children. (Jonathan Reeve JR2152b97plate22 13501400)
26, 27, 28. Wallingford Castle, Oxfordshire. This was Joan’s favourite residence after Prince Edward died, and where she retired to from Richard II’s court. Joan died here on 8 August 1385. The castle was demolished on the orders of Oliver Cromwell, and these ruins are all that is left. (Peter Lawne, taken by kind permission of South Oxfordshire District Council and the Earth Trust)
29. Wallingford Bridge, Oxfordshire. This bridge over the River Thames is beside the castle grounds. Joan travelled to Westminster by barge down the river. (Peter Lawne, taken by kind permission of Wallingford Town Council)
30. St Andrews church, Wickhambreaux, Kent. Wickhambreaux was the only manor in Kent owned by Joan. It is probable that she visited and stayed at the manor on her annual pilgrimage to Prince Edward’s tomb every June after he died. The manor no longer exists. The parish church of St Andrews dates from the fourteenth century, and Joan would have known it. (Peter Lawne, taken by kind permission of the parish priest of St Andrews, Wickhambreaux)
31. Joan’s seal, attached to an indenture from 20 April 1380 made between Joan, Princess of Wales, and Richard de Walkington and others of the town of Beverley. The deed was signed at Missenden. This is the only surviving seal of Joan’s. It is circular and two inches in diameter. Around the border edge are the words, in Latin, ‘Joan, Princess of [obscured but probably Aquitaine], Wales, Duchess of Cornwall and Countess of Cheshire and Kent’. The round, ornamental inside panel surrounds a shield with France and England quar
terly, a label of three points for Prince Edward, and a bordure for Edmund, Earl of Kent (her father). The letters around the shield are I, E and P. (© The British Library Board. All rights reserved. Add. Ch. 27703.)
32. The Princess Joan Psalter, so called because at the front of the book is John Somer’s Kalendarium (an astronomical calendar). Somer dedicated his original treatise to Joan in 1380, and it was believed for a long time that this copy was presented to Joan. However, this copy was made some years after her death. (British Library)
33. Image of the Trinity in the Princess Joan Psalter. Prince Edward had an especial connection with the Trinity, and died on the feast of the Trinity. (British Library)
34. The exquisite workmanship of the Princess Joan Psalter indicates that it would have been made for a patron of considerable wealth. (British Library)
35. Wilton Diptych, interior panel. On the left, Richard II is kneeling and behind him are John the Baptist, St Edward (holding a ring) and St Edmund (with the arrow of his martyrdom). On Richard’s cloak is his personal emblem of the white hart, with a gold crown around its neck and pearls decorating its antlers. On the right, the Virgin and Child. Probably painted around 1396–97, when Richard would have been twenty-eight or twenty-nine, the diptych shows Richard as a fresh-faced young boy. (National Gallery)
36. Wilton Diptych, exterior panel. On the left-hand panel, Richard II’s personal heraldic emblems. On the right-hand panel (which would be uppermost when the diptych is closed) is the white hart, Richard’s personal emblem, which he adopted from Joan. (National Gallery)