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.⁵On 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 Salisbury 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).

The other intriguing aspect of the affair is what role, if any, the king and queen played in it. Joan had been living under their protection, and arguably the whole Holand marriage debacle was the result of their failure to provide her with sufficient chaperonage and protection. Margaret may well have felt strongly that Edward III had once again let her family down. It is difficult to believe that Edward III and Philippa were not made aware of the whole sorry story once it came out, if not by Margaret and Thomas Wake then by the Earl of Salisbury. Salisbury was the king’s closest friend, and at the time he was arranging his son’s marriage to Joan he was also acting for the king in a matter of considerable importance. When Edward III returned from France in November 1340 he had been furious with the council which he had left to handle affairs in his absence, blaming them for the lack of funds which had caused his allies to withdraw their support, and he had summarily dismissed the council members, including Thomas Wake. The head of the council, Archbishop Stratford, who enjoyed powerful support in the City of London, refused to be intimidated, and launched a sustained attack on the king. Edward III found himself without support and faced by a constitutional crisis which paralysed the government. As before, when in trouble, the king turned to his friends for help. He asked Salisbury to be his intermediary and negotiate with Stratford along with the Earl of Northampton.¹⁹ Their successful intervention in April 1341 restored the equilibrium and enabled domestic harmony to be restored. The relationship between the king and Salisbury was one of great trust as well as friendship, and it would be natural for the earl to discuss the problem over his son’s marriage with Edward III. As the king was overwhelmed by the distractions of the political crisis he was more than happy to leave his friend to sort out the problem. His agreement to Salisbury’s grant of land to William and Joan was a clear endorsement of his friend’s actions.

It is hard not to feel considerable sympathy for Joan, still no more than a child. She had first been flattered and cajoled by an attractive and strong man into agreeing to a secret marriage, then bullied and persuaded by her family to enter into a bigamous marriage. Thomas’ behaviour towards Joan can hardly be regarded as chivalrous, as he took advantage of her youth and her lack of protection to rush her ruthlessly into a clandestine marriage without the approval or knowledge of her family. Yet it is striking that when the Montague marriage was proposed and Joan’s secret marriage was revealed, she received no support or assistance from anyone. She might at least have expected sympathy from her mother, but Margaret forced her to enter into the marriage with William despite her objections, suggesting a lack of empathy between mother and daughter. Perhaps the separation in early childhood with Joan living in the royal household and Margaret attending to family affairs meant they had never enjoyed a close or particularly affectionate relationship. Certainly their separation while Joan was in Ghent had not helped. Joan might also have looked to the queen for support, as she had, after all, been under her protection, and it is indeed curious that Philippa, so notable for her willingness to intervene on behalf of others, did not become involved. The most obvious explanation is that, however sympathetic Philippa was towards Joan, the queen felt obliged to support the stance taken by her husband, albeit against her own wishes. It is difficult to see how Joan, on her own, could have withstood the pressure on her to marry William, and with no one apparently on her side it is remarkable that she still tried so hard to convince her family that she was not free to marry. The attitude taken by all concerned showed both a lack of concern for Joan as an individual, and ambivalence towards the institution of marriage. Joan was treated simply as a rich matrimonial prize, and her secret marriage to Thomas Holand perceived as a surmountable hurdle. Had he been killed in Prussia it is doubtful that their marriage would ever have become known. However, he survived.

It is not clear when Thomas returned from Prussia to England, but it was probably sometime between the summer of 1341, when the campaign ended, and the spring of 1342. Certainly by May 1342 he was back in the king’s service and, according to Froissart, guarding the border at Bayonne in France with John Darvel.²⁰ On his return to England he was immediately faced with a situation he had not anticipated. Instead of being able to present his case to the king and obtain royal approval, he was confronted with Joan’s marriage to William Montague as a fait accompli. He may not even have been able to see Joan, as it is not known if she was staying with her mother or had remained with princesses Isabella and Joan in the royal household. Undaunted, Thomas presented himself to Margaret and asserted his claim to Joan. However unwelcome his declaration, it did not come as a surprise to Margaret and Thomas Wake as his return had been envisaged as a possibility. On the other hand, they had assumed that the Earl of Salisbury would be on hand to deal with Thomas, and unfortunately he was not. The earl had returned to France to complete the arrangements for the payment of his ransom, a process which dragged on for some months. One of the conditions was that he would promise not to bear arms against the French king, a not unusual requirement but one for which the earl needed the king’s permission and this was granted in May 1342.²¹ Salisbury’s absence, albeit unavoidable, was regrettable. Had the earl been present when Thomas made his declaration it is likely that an agreement could have been reached to satisfy all concerned (except perhaps Joan, but her views had not been considered important by anyone anyway), probably resulting in Thomas’ withdrawal in exchange for a cash payment and promise of advancement.

In the earl’s absence, Margaret, Thomas Wake and William Montague stalled for time, refusing to admit that Thomas had any right to Joan. It is clear that Joan continued to refuse to repudiate her marriage to Thomas. Had she been persuaded to do so, then Margaret and Thomas Wake would have been able to initiate the requisite proceedings for Joan to secure an annulment, and clear the way to validate the Montague marriage. But this was not an option while Joan remained steadfast in her support of Thomas. William was far too young to be able to make any decisions without his father’s guidance. Having agreed on a course of action with the earl, Margaret and Thomas Wake no doubt hoped that the matter could be shelved until the earl returned, and that he would then be able to persuade Thomas to drop his claim. Faced with their opposition, there was little that Thomas could do without irrefutable proof of his marriage, and this he did not have. He could have appealed directly to Edward III, and requested his involvement, but as it was apparent that the Montague match had been arranged with the king’s blessing the chances of finding the king sympathetic to his situation were slim. Thomas probably preferred the prospect of dealing with the earl, realising that this would be to his advantage. What none of them were prepared to do was to relinquish their respective claims to Joan, and so they were effectively in stalemate, waiting for the earl. But Thomas could not afford to wait indefinitely as he was under the command of the king. His military duties took priority and by May 1342 he had left England again. It is doubtful if Margaret would have given him the opportunity to see her daughter, depriving Joan of any comfort she may have derived from seeing Thomas again.

Joan’s continuing loyalty to Thomas is notable. William Montague was not a stranger to her; they had shared childhood experiences and probably many happy memories. Their marriage could have been a most successful and contented one, had Thomas Holand never noticed Joan. But he had, and Joan had fallen in love and married him, and now she was prepared to oppose her family’s wishes, and wait for him. In the meantime, as her family and the Montagues hoped to resolve her marital status with Thomas Holand, it was in no one’s interest for the problem to be made generally known. Very few people would have been aware of Thomas Holand’s claim. Joan’s marriage to William Montague was a very public affair, and to all intents and purposes Joan would have been treated afterwards as if she was William Montague’s wife. Although the grant to William and Joan of Mold manor in North Wales in February 1341 might suggest an intention for them to live together, this is unlikely. William was thirteen in 1341 and training for knighthood in Prince Edward’s household. There was no reason for his marriage to change this, especially as their families did not anticipate the marriage being consummated until they were older, after the complication of the Holand marriage had been resolved. William’s and Joan’s ages made it perfectly natural and normal that they did not live together. Margaret could hardly have been happy with the situation, and relations between mother and daughter were probably strained. It seems likely that Joan remained with the royal household. There she would have the company of the princesses, now under the supervision of Isabella de la Mote. This would have the advantage for all concerned that it was suitable for Joan to remain under royal protection where she would continue to be educated.

The campaign on which Thomas had embarked this time was in Brittany. The Duke of Brittany, John Montfort, had succeeded his half-brother in April 1341 with Edward III’s support, but had been defeated and imprisoned by Philip VI in September 1341, in favour of his nephew, Charles of Blois. Brittany, with its maritime outlets, was strategically far too important for either king to want to see it in the hands of a duke favourable to the other. Two separate expeditions, the first commanded by Sir Walter Mauny, and the second and larger by the Earl of Northampton and Robert of Artois, were being sent in response to the plea made by John Montfort’s wife for aid. At the beginning of May 1342 Thomas and his brothers Otto and Alan were placed under the command of the Earl of Northampton, who assembled his troops at Southampton and Portsmouth. The late arrival of the ships and adverse winds delayed departure, and the army did not set sail for Brittany until August 1342.²² Northampton landed at Brest, which was being besieged by the French, and then advanced with the objective of securing a harbour further north. By September they were besieging the French-held harbour of Morlaix, and in early October Edward III reached Brittany. The main objective of the campaign became the recapture of Vannes. In November the main Anglo-Breton army settled down to besiege Vannes, while Northampton attacked Nantes in December. By this time Thomas had been promoted and had become one of the commanders.²³ The Earl of Salisbury was also on the Brittany expedition (paid for service between 8 September 1342 and 7 February 1343), and in December commanded a raiding party in the north-east corner of Brittany.²⁴ It is possible that Thomas encountered Salisbury while in Brittany, but neither would have wished to discuss domestic affairs in such an environment.

By January 1343, with no significant engagement between the English and French armies, a truce was concluded at Malestroit, and the army was disbanded. Thomas’ pay ended on 15 February, and he probably returned to England with the king in February or March 1343. Joan would have heard the news that the army was returning, and must have hoped that surely now her future would be resolved. Thomas and the Earl of Salisbury should have had the opportunity once back in England to sit down together and reach agreement over Joan. But curiously they did not. Instead, they both departed almost immediately on crusade – the second time for Thomas. In March 1343 a military expedition, headed by the Earl of Derby accompanied by the Earl of Salisbury, left for Granada on a crusade against the Moors.²⁵ Thomas appointed attorneys in March and in May appointed John Holand and Henry Fitz Roger to act until the following Easter.²⁶ It is not known if he saw Joan, or made any attempt to contact her. He left England shortly after Easter with Sir John Hardeshull’s small force of 200 men-at-arms and 300 archers.²⁷ For Thomas, participation in the crusade in Granada undoubtedly furthered his career, enhancing his military reputation. Although it is possible that the earl and Thomas were not in England at the same time before leaving for Spain and so did not encounter one another, it is nevertheless extraordinary that both should have been willing to allow the crusade to take priority over sorting out the issue of Joan’s marital status.

Joan was forced to wait another six months until the autumn of 1343 when the campaign in Spain ended and the crusading knights returned to England. The earl did not immediately return to England as he was sent by the king to treat with Alfonso of Castile with Henry, Earl of Derby.²⁸ However, once this had been accomplished and the ambassadors returned to England, Thomas and the earl would at last have both been in England and in a position to meet with one another and discuss Joan. It was now more than two years since Thomas had returned to find Joan married to William Montague and almost certainly the first time that all the interested parties had been together with no immediate military expeditions planned. Despite the delays and Thomas’ absence, it is evident that Joan had still not been persuaded by her family to withdraw her support for Thomas. This again ruled out the obvious route of getting a decision from the ecclesiastical courts. So, as Thomas had not withdrawn his claim, some accommodation would have to be reached, though the fact that he had not pressed it either indicates he was amenable to a settlement. With the king available to arbitrate if necessary, everyone involved had every incentive to resolve the matter once and for all. The earl’s seniority and wealth, coupled with his familiarity with Thomas and their shared experiences, probably ensured that their meeting was fairly amicable. Providing Thomas would accept a price which the earl and Joan’s family were prepared to pay a mutually satisfactory solution could confidently be expected. Margaret and Thomas Wake had been happy to leave matters in the earl’s hands, expecting the earl to inform them of the outcome. Joan’s views were not considered of importance and she would not have been consulted. As Joan’s position remained unaltered it seems probable that the earl offered sufficiently attractive terms for Thomas to agree to release his claim. Unfortunately for all concerned, at the beginning of 1344 the earl unexpectedly died after being wounded in a tournament held at Windsor, ending any chance of completing the agreement he had reached with Thomas.

The week-long tournament held at Windsor in January 1344 had been planned by Edward III for some months and was deliberately intended to be a colourful, lavish and entertaining spectacle. In January the king sent heralds to France, Brabant, Flanders, Burgundy, Hainault and Scotland offering safe conduct to the elite of Europe’s knights to attend. From 1330 Edward III had used tournaments to foster the idea of chivalry and to encourage a sense of camaraderie among the nobility which would draw them together in supporting him. His undoubted success in doing so was reflected in their increasingly favourable response to his call on them to support him in the successive campaigns in Scotland and France. The Windsor tournament was to be the culmination in a series of tournaments with the object of recruiting as many knights as possible to assist him, and the occasion at which, pursuing his Arthurian theme, Edward III announced his plan to found his own round table with a select group of knights. To this end the king embarked in February on a massive building project at Windsor with the construction of a circular building of around 200 feet in diameter, larger than the Pantheon in Rome.²⁹ The intention was for this building to house a round table which would seat 300 knights and act as the headquarters and a meeting place.

Everyone assembled at Windsor for the tournament and it must have been a truly impressive and dazzling display of knights and their entourage, engaged in a succession of exciting and impressive challenges. Everyone who could be there was there. Among the onlookers were the queen and her mother-in-law Queen Isabella, the princesses, nine countesses, including Margaret, Countess of Kent, as well as Prince Edward and among his escorts Joan’s brother John and William Montague. Joan was well chaperoned with both her mother and William’s mother, Catherine, Countess of Salisbury, present. Thomas Holand was doubtless one of the many young knights entering the lists, and the Earl of Salisbury was also among those participating. The earl, as Marshal of England, and Henry, Earl of Derby, as Seneschal of England, played a prominent role in the proceedings. Unfortunately the Earl of Salisbury was wounded in one of the engagements and had to withdraw from the field. His wounds were severe, and he died shortly afterwards.³⁰ This was a personal misfortune for the king as well as the earl’s family, as the earl had been Edward III’s closest friend and mentor since the coup of 1330. Poignantly, the earl remembered his friend in his will, providing that all debts unpaid by the Crown at his death should be cancelled – as these amounted at the time to over £6,000, this was effectively a substantial gift.³¹ Although the earl’s death was not marked by a lavish funeral, it is tempting to wonder whether Edward III’s grief manifested itself in a different way. No one knows why the king never completed his round building, but it would not be surprising if the tragedy of his friend’s untimely death was a contributory factor.³² It was also another four years before the king set up his knightly order.

The Earl of Salisbury’s demise was a catastrophe for Joan, and she was destined to spend another five years trapped between her two marriages. In 1344 William Montague was only sixteen and too young to inherit his father’s dignities or estates. He therefore had no power to fulfil whatever promises his father had made to Thomas Holand. Margaret and Thomas Wake may have had second thoughts about the terms Salisbury had agreed, and probably looked to the king to resolve the situation. Edward III was now drawn directly into the affair as William became his ward.³³ This should have been decisive. Joan was his cousin, and Thomas Holand his household knight. The king had earlier abrogated his responsibility towards Joan when he left the Earl of Salisbury to resolve the matter with Thomas but he now had the opportunity to remedy the situation. Edward III was better placed than anyone else to effect a settlement, and if necessary he could invoke the Pope’s intervention, as he did a year later in February 1345 when he asked the Pope to confirm the dissolution of the Earl of Arundel’s marriage to Hugh Despenser’s daughter to enable Arundel to marry the Earl of Lancaster’s daughter, Eleanor.³⁴ Yet the king appears to have made no attempt to resolve his cousin’s marital dilemma. Instead, he appointed one of the earl’s executors, Sir John Wingfield, to be William Montague’s guardian, and granted William some of his father’s estates in Somerset which brought him an annual income of around £300.³⁵ This was not enough to enable William to offer Thomas a sufficiently generous inducement to relinquish Joan. While his relinquishment of the guardianship of his best friend’s heir could be interpreted as the king’s wish not to be seen to be taking sides, it is hard to explain or understand Edward III’s failure to take any further action. Maybe he had a sneaking sympathy for Thomas and Joan but did not want to offend the Montagues or his aunt and Thomas Wake by supporting them, but whatever his reasons, his lack of action meant that he was effectively washing his hands of the matter.

It was some time before Margaret and Thomas Wake realised that the king was not going to settle the affair. Joan would again have been subjected to pressure to withdraw her support for Thomas, which would have enabled them to get the Holand marriage annulled. But Joan remained steadfast. There remained the possibility of reaching terms with Thomas for him to withdrawn his claim. Although they had hoped the earl would resolve the matter, and assumed the king would, they were both more than capable of taking decisive action themselves. In dealing with the family estates Margaret had proved she could be formidable in pursuing her objectives, and Thomas Wake had many years of experience in command. They knew they had the support of the Montague family. William was not given the opportunity to withdraw. It was now too late for him to reject his marriage under canonical law on the grounds of his age and lack of consummation, and he was too young to institute ecclesiastical proceedings himself unless his guardian undertook them on his behalf. The fact that no deal was reached suggests that Margaret and Thomas Wake were prepared to take a hard line with Thomas Holand, and hoped that if they simply refused to acknowledge his marriage and denied him access to Joan he would have no alternative but to drop his claim eventually. Nevertheless, the impasse was clearly unsatisfactory. Thomas might have been more effectively deterred from persisting in his claim if William and Joan had consummated their marriage, and had children. As they were now both sixteen there was no obvious bar to them doing so, but the fact that Joan did not become pregnant makes it evident they did not (both would later have several children). This was probably due to William. Maybe he hoped that her feelings for Thomas would lessen with time and she would become reconciled to their marriage.

Offered no inducement to relinquish his claim to Joan, and faced with the combined opposition of Joan’s family and the Montagues, Thomas’ choices were limited. It was evident he could not appeal to the king for support, but he could request an ecclesiastical investigation to validate his marriage. This is what Sir John Grey had done in 1333 when his wife Eleanor had been abducted and then married by William la Zouche. Grey first brought proceedings before the Bishop of Lincoln, requesting Eleanor’s return. When the bishop refused to make a ruling despite being ordered to do so by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Grey was forced to appeal. His success, however, was short-lived, as the Pope then ordered the Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield to reconsider the whole affair. The problem for Thomas was that he lacked the funds to mount what would probably be lengthy and expensive proceedings, and he may well have feared that he would not get a fair hearing. As his marriage had taken place abroad it might have been difficult for him to gather the evidence to support it. The alternative was for him to preserve his position by leaving matters as they were, and hope that a future change in either his or William Montague’s circumstances would provide a solution. He probably discussed it with his mother, always someone who had his best interests at heart. In September 1344 he was with her in Sussex, acting as godfather to Thomas FitzRoger, attending his christening at St Bartholomew’s church, Merston.³⁶ In the event, it appears that Thomas decided to do nothing, and turned his attention back to his career.

Thomas rejoined the Earl of Northampton’s forces as a fresh campaign was planned in France. In the autumn of 1344 Pope Clement VI had attempted to reconcile the French and English sides but he failed to do so. Edward III had already secured the support of Parliament to mount an expedition, and early in 1345 the king and his closest advisers drew up the first detailed plans for a fresh campaign, with an initial proposal to send two armies in the summer, one led by the king and the other by Henry of Lancaster, Earl of Derby.³⁷ The plans expanded in the spring of 1345 when Edward III secured the allegiance of John Montfort of Brittany and some other noble Frenchmen, and with their support a third army was planned. The exact details of the planned campaign were kept secret. In June 1345 Edward III renounced the truce with France and the first of his armies, commanded by the Earl of Northampton, left Portsmouth in June 1345, landing in Brittany. Thomas and his brothers, having previously served with Northampton, were almost certainly among this first advance party. In July 1345 Northampton’s army laid siege to Quimper in Brittany, and in September and October Henry of Lancaster successfully engaged the French in battle at Bergerac and Auberoche south of Limoges in Périgueux. Meanwhile, the king, who had initially diverted to Sluys to deal with a sudden crisis in Flanders which threatened the Anglo-Flemish alliance, was delayed in England. On his return from Sluys, storms had scattered the fleet, and the ships were forced to make their way back individually to England, each disembarking on finding a safe haven. This made the original intention to re-embark and join Northampton and Henry of Lancaster’s armies in France impractical, and the king dispersed his army. It was clear to Edward III and his council that with the end of the campaigning season in sight the king would not be joining them and that the initiative could not be sustained. The expedition was cancelled, with Northampton and Derby wintering in France before dispersing in the spring of 1346 and Thomas among those who now returned to England.

Joan’s whereabouts between January 1344 and the spring of 1346 are not known. We do not know where Joan was living and with whom during this period. While it is probable that she remained with the queen’s household, she may have accompanied Margaret when she visited the family estates. Joan was still her brother’s heir, and Margaret would have wanted her daughter to have some familiarity with the Kent estates. In addition, publicly at least, Joan was William’s wife and the Montagues would naturally have expected Joan to show an interest in William’s affairs and visit the Montague estates. Unfortunately there is no evidence to confirm or support this. The respite in the hostilities against France did little to change Joan’s position, and it is doubtful if she even saw Thomas Holand when he returned from Brittany. Edward III had been planning a renewed campaign for 1346, which would this time rely primarily on English troops rather than foreign allies. It was a huge expedition, with the army, once assembled, probably numbering between 7,000 and 10,000 men.³⁸ The organisation required to gather such a large army was a complicated and lengthy business which kept those involved occupied for weeks, sometimes stretching into months, even before the start of a campaign. Within days of his return from Brittany in the spring of 1346 Thomas was immediately engaged in supervising arrays in Leicestershire and Warwickshire, under the command of the Earl of Warwick, leaving him little time to spare for Joan. Thomas was paid war wages from 4 June, but money was still a problem for him, for in the same month his mother Maud obtained permission to give him the manors of Halse, Brackley and King’s Sutton in Northamptonshire, boosting his income.³⁹

The new expedition affected Joan even more directly than the previous campaigns, as this time both William Montague and her brother John were involved. On 11 July the fleet of over 600 ships left Portsmouth and set sail for France.⁴⁰ All four Holand brothers were aboard; Thomas’ older brother Robert served with him, while his younger brothers, Otto and Alan, were in the king’s retinue with Robert’s son.⁴¹ Also with the king was the sixteen-year-old Prince Edward, accompanied by William Montague (now aged eighteen) and Joan’s brother, John. The fleet’s destination had been kept a close secret; according to the royal clerk Adam Murimuth, ‘no one could know for certain where he [Edward III] intended to sail, or in what place overseas he meant to land’.⁴² In fact, the destination was Normandy, territory not previously campaigned on, and, as Jean le Bel and Froissart noted, a country ill-equipped to deal with the invading English.⁴³ When Edward III landed at La Hogue his first action was to knight Prince Edward, and several young noblemen, including William Montague and John.⁴⁴ The army was divided into three divisions which were to march separately and come together at night; the vanguard or advance force was commanded by Prince Edward with the earls of Northampton (the constable) and Warwick (the Earl Marshal) to assist him, the rearguard by the Bishop of Durham, Thomas Hatfield, with the main body under the king’s direct control.

The first notable success of the campaign came within weeks at the end of July with the successful siege of Caen, the largest walled town west of Rouen, where the French had planned to halt the English army.⁴⁵ One significant incident in the capture of the town would change Joan’s fortunes completely. Caen’s defences were commanded by the constable of Paris, the Count of Eu, and the chamberlain, the Count of Tancarville. On realising their hopeless position, and in fear of being killed by the attacking English soldiers, the two commanders surrendered themselves individually to two English knights known to them. The Count of Tancarville surrendered to Sir Thomas Daniels, a retainer of Prince Edward, while the Count of Eu surrendered to Thomas Holand, recognising him from the Crusades in Prussia and Granada.⁴⁶ According to Froissart, Thomas was easily recognisable because he wore an eyepatch, shielding his lost eye.⁴⁷ The Count of Eu’s surrender was a significant stroke of fortune for Thomas, as he could expect to be handsomely rewarded by the king for his captive. Such funds would give him the wherewithal to take William Montague to the ecclesiastical courts and reclaim Joan. On Edward III’s orders, the two counts were removed from the field and were taken to England in August by the Earl of Huntingdon, with instructions for them to be kept in captivity until the king had made more progress with his campaign before they were released against ransoms raised by their families or the French king.⁴⁸ After the town surrendered Thomas lived up to his chivalrous reputation, securing the town with his companions and restraining the English troops from raping the women and girls and killing the townsfolk.⁴⁹

Being in the king’s army was not without personal risk for Thomas; he had already lost an eye. Shortly after leaving Caen, Thomas and a steward of the king’s household called Sir Richard Talbot were wounded attacking one of several castles which guarded the various crossings of the Seine.⁵⁰ The wound was not serious and Thomas remained in service. Outmanoeuvring the French, the army crossed the river at Poissy and advanced to within ten miles of Paris, continuing to lay waste to the countryside and burning and pillaging towns. Failing to make contact with the French army, Edward III then turned north and headed towards Calais, hoping to engage Philip VI at a site of his choosing.⁵¹ On 26 August the two armies faced each other at Crécy. Philip VI, commanding an army superior in size and well equipped, was confident of success, but the English won an overwhelming victory, with the French king barely escaping from the battlefield. The French losses were enormous, and included most of the flower of the French nobility as well as King John of Bohemia and the King of Majorca. Thomas fought in Prince Edward’s division in his newly promoted position as a joint commander of the vanguard with the earls of Warwick and Northampton, on an equal footing with Sir John Chandos. The prince’s division was the front line and bore the brunt of the fighting in the battle; at one point it was feared the prince might be captured. William Montague and Joan’s brother John also took part in the battle, John serving with the prince. Many knights apart from Thomas distinguished themselves on the battlefield, none more so than Prince Edward, whose courage and chivalric conduct won him general admiration.

Waiting in England, Joan was aware of the tremendous success of the victory, but there is no evidence that Thomas informed her of the change in his circumstances. Thomas and William Montague, remained in France. With the French in disarray after their crushing defeat at Crécy, the English army advanced to the outskirts of Calais. According to Edward III, Calais was chosen for its location and in order to be within reach of reinforcements and supplies from England, needed because of the long and continuous marches.⁵² However, Calais was well defended and the king made no attempt to assault the town and instead had organised his army to besiege the town. The siege started in September 1346 and did not conclude until August 1347. The defenders were able to obtain fresh supplies which were brought in by sea, and proved equal to withstanding the immense resources thrown at them by the English army. The siege turned into a vast and costly exercise involving around 32,000 English troops, all housed in a purpose-built and fortified camp named Villeneuve-le-Hardi (Bold New Town) by Edward III.⁵³ Eventually, by April 1347 Edward III had been able to ensure Calais was surrounded on all sides and blockaded from the sea so that supplies were no longer able to reach the town. The inhabitants and the garrison began to starve. Philip VI dithered, hoping initially to draw Edward III away from the town by sending an army into Flanders and encouraging the Scots to invade England (where they suffered a devastating defeat at Neville’s Cross). In July 1347 Philip VI finally arrived with his army, hoping to relieve the Calais defenders, but soon abandoned the idea when he realised the strength of the English defences. He departed, having failed to achieve anything. The citizens of Calais, deserted by their king, came to terms with Edward III and on 4 August 1347 the king took possession of the town. The siege had lasted eleven months.

Thomas Holand served with distinction in the Crécy campaign and his outstanding performance dramatically enhanced his reputation and prospects. But, more significantly for Joan, his capture of the Count of Eu at Caen proved incredibly lucrative. It was usual for all the more important prisoners to be purchased from their captors by the king, who then negotiated their release. In April 1347 Edward III formally agreed to pay Thomas the sum of 80,000 florins (£13,333 6s 8d) for the Count of Eu, to be paid in instalments over three years: 12,000 florins (£2,000) in 1347, 41,000 florins (£6,633 13s 4d) in 1348 and the final 27,000 florins (£4,500) in 1349, and as the hide and wool subsidy was being used to provide the cash, each yearly instalment was to be paid in two equal payments at Michaelmas and Easter.⁵⁴ At a stroke, Thomas was promised riches beyond his dreams. It was also a huge and unprecedented sum for the king to pay, and there is no record of any captive, other than crowned heads of state, for whom Edward III was prepared to pay as much.⁵⁵ Thomas Daniels, for example, to whom the Count of Tancarville had surrendered at the same time as the Count of Eu had surrendered to Thomas Holand, received £666 and an annual pension of £26 13s 4d.⁵⁶ Some months later, when Sir Thomas Dagworth captured Charles of Blois, the claimant for the duchy of Brittany supported by the French, he was promised the sum of £4,900.⁵⁷ Ten years later, after the Battle of Poitiers in 1356, the Earl of Warwick received £8,000 for the Archbishop of Sens, and Sir Bartholomew Burghersh secured £6,666 13s 4d for the Count of Ventadour.⁵⁸ The sum Edward III agreed to pay Thomas Holand is disproportionately high in relation to the count’s importance as a political prisoner, and indicates clearly the value he placed on Holand as a military commander and his desire to reward him. Perhaps it also indicated something further.

Edward III would have been well aware that the sum he had agreed to pay for the Count of Eu would enable Thomas to pursue his claim to Joan, and there can be little doubt that Thomas’ courage and exceptional performance had secured him the king’s tacit support. Although the king was still not prepared to intervene in person to resolve Joan’s marital dilemma, he was effectively communicating his message by giving Thomas ample means to take the necessary legal steps required to regain her. It is likely that Edward III was also well aware of his young cousin’s desire to be reunited with Holand. The queen, accompanied by princesses Isabella and Joan, had joined the king outside Calais to celebrate Christmas in 1346, and remained with him until the siege ended. Joan, now eighteen years old, was among their party.⁵⁹ The queen’s sympathies must have been drawn to Joan’s awkward situation, and her continued determined support for Thomas in the face of her family’s opposition. Joan’s presence in Calais also gave Thomas an opportunity to see her again after many months of enforced separation. This was a decisive moment for the couple. Having secured the promise of such a rich reward from the king, Thomas no longer had any reason to surrender his right to Joan in exchange for cash and now had the financial wherewithal to challenge William Montague.

With the king’s approval, Thomas took the opportunity during the long-drawn-out siege of Calais to return to England to attend to his personal affairs. Maud Holand must have been extremely relieved to see Thomas, delighted with her son’s newly won royal favour and hopeful that he would restore the family fortunes. Apart from his own marital situation, there were other pressing matters to claim his attention. First, there was his sister Isabella. She was living with the Earl of Surrey, a relationship which the king did not view with favour. The earl had obtained Edward III’s permission to leave property to Isabel, but in December 1346 revoked this at the request of the Earl of Arundel. Then, Thomas’ older brother Robert had incurred the king’s wrath. Edward III had appointed his second son, Lionel, to be keeper of the realm in his absence with Prince Edward. While Prince Lionel and some of the other royal children had been staying at Sir Gerard Lisle’s manor, at Beams in Berkshire, Robert Holand had forced an entry, threatened Sir Gerard and abducted and raped Lisle’s wife, Margery, ‘to the terror of the said keeper [Lionel] and the rest of the king’s children then with him there’.⁶⁰ Thomas also had to decide what to do about Joan. He probably discussed his marriage with his mother and in March 1347 he and Maud obtained permission from the Pope to have portable altars, a sure sign that they envisaged taking a journey together.⁶¹ They may have returned to Ghent to gather the evidence of his marriage, or travelled to the papal court at Avignon to seek advice on how he could resolve the situation. It was probably during this time that Thomas made the decision to pursue his claim to Joan and determined how he would set about doing so. He had no time to do anything further, as in May he was ordered to rejoin the king at Calais, and when the town finally surrendered in August he was one of the English commanders involved in the negotiations.⁶²

After the fall of Calais a large part of the army was released from service, including some of Edward III’s own household retinue and those of Prince Edward. The king and the remainder of the army returned to England in October 1347, and to celebrate the English successes the king embarked on a round of tournaments, held at Bury, Eltham and Windsor, with jousts held at Canterbury, Lichfield and Lincoln, culminating in a tournament at Windsor in June 1348. Thomas lost no time in putting his plan to regain Joan into action. The first payment from the king for the Count of Eu was due in September, and shortly afterwards, instead of applying to an English ecclesiastical court, Thomas submitted a petition to the Pope, requesting that Joan’s marriage to William Montague be annulled on the grounds of his own prior marriage.⁶³ There was to be no more waiting, no more tentative negotiation. His action was clear and unequivocal; he wanted his wife back and could not be bought off, and he was not taking the risk that an English curial court might favour William, as an English peer. It provoked a furious reaction from William Montague. Up to this point, both parties had kept Joan’s marriage to Thomas secret, and few outside their immediate families (and the king and queen) were aware that there was any question of Joan not being legally married to William. She was publicly regarded, and treated, as the Countess of Salisbury. As the news of Thomas’ proceedings circulated, William was humiliated, but although he knew that Joan supported Thomas he was determined not to give her up. He was still under age and did not yet have access to his income, so he fought back in the only way he could, and took the drastic action of seizing Joan, and keeping her prisoner, preventing her from any contact with Thomas.⁶⁴

William’s action was outrageous, but he was neither rebuked nor punished for it by the king. Instead, in November 1347 Edward III sent his old friend Elizabeth Montague, William’s grandmother, to Avignon, probably to ascertain Thomas’ chances of success, and in December, shortly after her return, he granted William a substantial part of his inheritance.⁶⁵ The king could have chosen to grant William the whole of his inheritance outright, and it is odd that he did not do so. The effect of his action was to ensure that publicly, the king stayed aloof, but he had levelled the playing field by granting William sufficient funds to counter the papal proceedings Thomas had initiated, which William duly did. It is sad to note that none of Joan’s family, not her mother Margaret, her uncle Thomas Wake, or her brother John, made any attempt to intervene and indeed Margaret went out of her way to support William. Joan was probably taken to the Montague family seat of Donyatt in Somerset, perhaps accompanied by Margaret, and probably chaperoned by William’s mother, Catherine, and grandmother Elizabeth. Joan was given no opportunity to speak for herself.

Froissart’s later description of Joan as ‘the most beautiful lady in all the kingdom of England and the most loved’ could never have been more apt than at this time. In the series of tournaments held from October 1347 to June 1348 Thomas and William fought on opposite sides (Thomas for the prince and William for the king), and at the same time they were fighting for Joan’s hand through the papal courts. As their rivalry was at its height, Edward III inaugurated his chivalric order, the Order of the Garter, and Thomas and William were both among the founder members. Edward III had been considering an elite fraternity of knights for some time, based on the Arthurian ideal, and had announced his intention at the Windsor tournament in 1344, starting work shortly afterwards on the round tower which he planned would become the headquarters of his foundation. Flushed with the triumph of his victories in France in 1346 and 1347, the king finalised his plans when he returned to England, and put them into effect. The result was the Order of the Garter, which Edward III intended would reflect his ideals of chivalry and link him closely with his greatest knights.

The exact date the order was founded is unknown, but it is generally considered to have been first instituted at the Windsor tournament in June 1348, a fitting finale to the round of celebratory tournaments started on the king’s return from France in October 1347. The first formal meeting of the Knights of the Garter appears to have been held at the chapel of St George at Windsor on St George’s Day, 23 April 1349. The established pattern for the meeting became a Mass followed by a feast. For the ceremony members were expected to wear special robes: a white garter tunic trimmed with ermine and embroidered in blue, with a blue sash garter on which the motto was embroidered in silk and gold letters, worn diagonally across the body from shoulder to waist, a Garter mantle and cap. The king provided garters and robes from his wardrobe for certain favoured knights and in December 1348 Prince Edward paid for twenty-four garters for the knights of the companionship of the Garter.⁶⁶ The early records of the order are incomplete and the derivation of the order’s symbol of the blue garter, and its motto, ‘honi soit qui mal y pense’, remain unclear. The Order of the Garter was deliberately elite and exclusive, comprising only twenty-six knights, including Edward III himself and his eldest son, Prince Edward. Each was allocated a stall in St George’s chapel, identified by a plate displaying their shield. Election as a member was a signal honour bestowed only on the king’s most trusted companions in arms. Apart from Edward III and the prince, the identity of the other twenty-four members suggests they were chosen for their military prowess rather than their status, as along with the king’s great war captains Henry, Earl of Lancaster, and Thomas Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, were ordinary knights such as Sir John Chandos, Sir Nigel Loring and Sir James Audley, all of whom fought with Prince Edward at Crécy. Also among the chosen elite were William Montague, Thomas Holand and his brother Otto Holand.

There has been considerable speculation about how and why the order was founded. The most popular and enduring story explaining its origins derives from Polydore Vergil’s History of England, which was written in the late sixteenth century. According to Vergil, Edward III held a ball at Calais to celebrate the fall of the town during which his young and beautiful dance partner, the Countess of Salisbury, dropped her garter. The king gallantly rescued her from embarrassment by picking it up and rebuked the titters of onlookers with the words ‘honi soit qui mal y pense’.⁶⁷ The king then swore to honour the garter, and so set up the Order of the Garter. For most scholars this romantic tale is apocryphal as there is no contemporary evidence to substantiate it, and no subsequent research has been able to verify it; nevertheless it remains an appealing story. There are confused accounts by the chroniclers Jean le Bel and Froissart regarding the king and a love affair with a Countess of Salisbury, but these appear to amount to no more than rumour, with no clear identification of the woman concerned. Joan has become inextricably associated with the story simply because she was, at the time of the siege of Calais, the Countess of Salisbury (as William’s wife), and she was young and beautiful. If there was a ball, it is possible that Edward III danced with her, but it is extremely unlikely that she was wearing a garter, as this was not a usual item of clothing worn by women at that time. On the basis that Joan was his partner, the suggestion that the king was in love with, or desired, his beautiful partner, can be safely discounted. Edward III would never have seriously entertained any such thought in relation to Joan.

Thomas’ initiation of proceedings in the papal courts in October 1347 were the start of a long legal wrangle which dragged on for more than two years, with the court alternately sitting, adjourning and reconvening before two successive cardinals and involving more than five lawyers specialising in canon and civil law. At the start of the proceedings the Pope, Clement VI, appointed his nephew, Cardinal Adhemar Robert, to hear the case. Thomas’ lawyer, Magister Robert Siglesthorne Beverley, who acted for him throughout, had been in service with the queen and had previous experience acting for English litigants before the papal court at Avignon.⁶⁸ Thomas’ argument was reasonably straightforward. He gave the date, place and names of those who had witnessed his marriage to Joan, argued that the contract had been made ‘per verba de praesenti’ (a spousal in front of witnesses), followed by physical consummation.⁶⁹ Under medieval ecclesiastical law this was sufficient to create a valid marriage, even though it had been held in secrecy.⁷⁰ The papal courts in Avignon were notoriously slow, and the requirements for each side to present their case and for witnesses to be heard involved inevitable delays. Cardinal Adhemar, having heard from Thomas, decided he needed to hear from William and Joan, either in person or via their attorney. He considered, but decided against, calling Margaret. William was desperate, and did everything he could to delay the proceedings, hoping against hope that Thomas would give up. He raised more cash by granting a licence to grant Sir John Wingfield and three other knights the reversion of four of his manors in Somerset.⁷¹ Keeping Joan in seclusion could only be a temporary strategy, as Thomas submitted a second petition to the Pope, appealing for papal intervention to free her. In May 1348 the Pope ordered the Archbishop of Canterbury and the bishops of London and Norwich to secure Joan’s release so that she could appoint her own proctor to provide her evidence.⁷² Freed from imprisonment, but isolated from her family by her support of Thomas, Christmas that year with the royal family at Otford must have been a difficult occasion for Joan, perhaps lightened by the gift she received of a silver beaker from Prince Edward, addressed to her using her childhood diminutive of ‘Jeanette’. ⁷³

Joan’s evidence was crucial to the proceedings, for without her confirmation of consent the court could not make a determination. Extraordinarily, even when she was freed to appoint her own attorney and present her evidence, she was unable to do so. Her first attorney, Magister Nicholas Heath, was in the queen’s service, but proved a poor choice as an order was issued for his arrest by Edward III in February 1349 on unrelated charges.⁷⁴ His replacement, Magister David Martyn, inexplicably failed to submit anything on Joan’s behalf to the papal court on two successive occasions. Perhaps he had been persuaded or bribed not to do so, although there is no evidence to support this. The result was to stall the proceedings indefinitely, at which point the Pope intervened again, appointing another cardinal, Bernard d’Albi, to take over from Cardinal Adhemar. A new attorney was secured for Joan, Magister John Vyse, sub-dean of the diocese of Salisbury. On Joan’s instructions, Vyse confirmed that she had voluntarily married Thomas and consummated their marriage. In citing Joan’s evidence, he explained the great pressure Joan had been subjected to by her family to marry William, and that she had submitted out of fear of the consequences. William knew that it was just a matter of time before he lost Joan, but he continued to delay matters by ensuring his lawyer failed to appear at the next sitting of the papal court. Possibly he had lost faith in his representative, as a new attorney, Magister Reginald Bugwell, represented him at the court’s last sitting and heard the final pronouncement. Cardinal d’Albi judged that the marriage between William and Joan was null and void, found the marriage of Thomas and Joan to be valid, and indicated that Joan should be restored to Thomas and their union publicly solemnised.⁷⁵ On 13 November 1349 the Pope confirmed d’Albi’s judgment, and ordered the papal nuncio in England and the bishops of Norwich and London to see that the finding of the papal court was carried out.⁷⁶

As Thomas and William battled through their lawyers for Joan in Avignon a plague epidemic reached England, probably brought aboard two ships sailing from Gascony which arrived in Dorset in the early summer of 1348. The Black Death had already ravaged most of Europe, and its effects in England were devastating. It spread throughout the entire country within twelve months, with an alarmingly high mortality rate. The numbers of people who died are impossible to verify but it is generally accepted that probably between a third and a half of the population of England died. The economic effects of the plague were catastrophic, with whole villages abandoned and an acute shortage of labour which left crops uncollected and fields untilled. The human cost was appalling, with so many dying in some places that there was no one left to bury the dead. No family was immune, although the better housing and living conditions of the better off might explain why there was a lower level of mortality among the aristocracy. The court was plunged into mourning in the late summer of 1348 when it was learnt that Joan’s childhood companion, Princess Joan, had died en route for her marriage to the heir of King Alfonso of Castile, but she was the only member of the royal family to succumb. Thomas, William and Joan all lost relatives to the plague. In the spring of 1349 William’s mother, Catherine, died.⁷⁷ Joan’s uncle Thomas Wake died on 31 May, and he was buried at the priory whose foundation he had financed at Haltemprice in Yorkshire.⁷⁸ By June Thomas had lost his mother, Maud, as well as his sister, Margaret (who had married Sir John de la Warr) and in September Joan’s mother, Margaret, died.⁷⁹ The tragic consequences of the spread of the plague meant that William had lost all his supporters, and with them his appetite for the battle to keep Joan. Indeed, he had accepted that he would lose Joan some months before Cardinal d’Albi made his final decision, and sensibly made alternative plans. As soon as the annulment of his marriage to Joan was publicly pronounced by Pope Clement VI he married Elizabeth, daughter and co-heiress of John, Lord Mohun of Dunster.⁸⁰

It is to be hoped that Joan was reconciled to her mother before she died, for relations between them must have been strained to the utmost during the course of the papal proceedings. They do not seem to have ever had a warm or close relationship, and it is sad to reflect that Joan never had her mother’s blessing for her marriage to Thomas. Margaret’s natural desire to see her daughter safely and securely established as the Countess of Salisbury cannot excuse her forcing Joan into a bigamous marriage and her failure to provide her daughter with moral and emotional support at such a crucial time. The fear and insecurity Margaret endured when Edmund was executed may explain her insistence on the Montague match, with the protection it offered her daughter, but it seems unlikely that Joan ever understood or accepted her mother’s views on her future. Similarly Joan may have had little cause to mourn the death of her uncle Thomas Wake whom she had probably seen very seldom in the last years of his life. Joan’s relationship with her brother John would have been much closer, as they had much in common, having spent their childhood together in the royal household. Being two years younger than Joan, John was hardly in a position to impose his views on his mother or uncle and so could do little to support his sister in her troubles initially. He became free to do so once he obtained independence from his mother, which he achieved in August 1347 when Edward III agreed to grant John his inheritance during his minority.⁸¹ There was no obvious reason for the king to permit his cousin to take his inheritance early, but it may reflect Edward III’s growing lack of patience with his aunt and her intransigence over Joan, at a time when his own sympathies lay with Thomas Holand. Edward III also arranged John’s marriage and in April 1348 papal dispensation was granted for John to marry Elizabeth, daughter of William, Marquess of Juliers, and Queen Philippa’s niece (her mother Joanna was Philippa’s younger sister).⁸² The terms of the dispensation indicated that one aim behind the marriage proposal was an intention to end the strife between Juliers and the Duke of Guelders. The marquess, subsidised by the English Crown, was one of Edward III’s chief allies in Flanders, supplying 1,000 men-at-arms towards the war, and the marriage between John and Elizabeth created a personal connection between the marquess and the king which would cement the alliance.⁸³

The death toll and dreadful effects of the plague had disrupted all normal activities throughout 1349 but it must nevertheless have been a relief to everyone concerned when the papal court made its final determination on Joan’s marital status. Although the outcome had been expected for some months, it was an incredibly important moment for Joan. She had married Thomas when she was twelve and now she was a young woman of twenty. It is striking that throughout the eight-year period Joan had consistently supported Thomas, against all the odds. She had stood virtually alone in her refusal to deny their marriage. While the outcome of the papal proceedings was undoubtedly a victory for Thomas, it was surely a triumph for Joan, a vindication of her unswerving support for a man who had swept her off her feet when she was a child and yet left her unprotected and isolated with the burden of their secret marriage. Joan had hardly known Thomas when they married, and subsequently her meetings with him had been brief and fraught with the difficulties of their situation. She could never have been sure that she would be able to live as Thomas’ wife. He had consistently given his career priority over his duty towards his young wife, and Joan can hardly have been unaware of his ambivalent attitude towards their marriage and of his probable willingness to abandon her if the right price had been offered him by the Earl of Salisbury. In contrast, she knew William very well and he had made it abundantly clear that he cared for her and wanted to keep her as his wife. William, his family and Joan’s family had done everything they could to deter her from supporting Thomas, and it would have been so easy, and so convincing, for Joan to have told the court that she had not really understood what she was doing in the spring of 1340. In acknowledging her marriage to Thomas, and standing by him, she had turned away from her family – and from the life she could have had. The suggestion has been made that Joan was ambitious and chose Thomas because he was a rising star, but although Thomas had indeed gained fame and fortune by 1346, the fact remained that William was far wealthier and as an earl considerably outranked him in status.⁸⁴ Joan’s motives in supporting Thomas over such a long period of time had little to do with ambition and more to do with her own attitude towards the commitment she had made when she exchanged marriage vows with Thomas in the spring of 1340.

Vergil’s story of the founding of the Order of the Garter is a powerful and attractive tale which gave Joan iconic status many years after her death, and in some ways it is fitting given the background of the papal proceedings over her marital status, and her close relationship to four of the order’s founding members. Yet it is also ironic that Joan should have this close association with Edward III’s great symbol of chivalry, for there was nothing chivalrous about the way Joan was treated. The chivalric ideals were of courage, courtesy and respect, and generosity towards the weak and the poor. Women were regarded as deserving special treatment, with knights having a duty to honour and defend them; treatises on knighthood suggested that love for a woman should be an ennobling and inspirational force. However, it is evident from Thomas and William’s behaviour that it was Joan’s value as a matrimonial prize, rather than her beauty and desirability, which was at stake for them. In their legal wrangling for recognition as her husband, they treated her as a means to an end, and in the process gave little thought to her feelings. Consideration for Joan’s general welfare was similarly lacking in two other renowned knights, her uncle Thomas Wake and William Montague, Earl of Salisbury, William’s father. Edward III’s own conduct throughout the marital debacle is hardly edifying, as he allowed his young cousin to be treated shamefully by his household knight, by her family, by his best friend and his best friend’s son and heir. Yet historically it was Joan’s reputation which suffered, enabling the chronicler Adam of Usk in 1399 to suggest that Joan had been guilty of ‘slippery ways’ in her marital affairs, while no hint of disapproval or blame has been attached to the conduct of the male protagonists in the affair.⁸⁵