Joan of England (1335–1348)

Joan of England
Born	December 19, 1333 or January 28, 1334 Tower of London (perhaps)
Died	July 1, 1348
Burial	Bayonne Cathedral, France
House	House of Plantagenet
Father	Edward III of England
Mother	Philippa of Hainault

Joan of England (December 19, 1333 or January 28, 1334 - July 1, 1348 ) was a daughter of Edward III and his wife, Philippa of Hainault. Joan, also known as Joanna, was born on either December 19, 1333 or January 28, 1334 in the Tower of London. As a child she was placed in the care of Marie de St Pol, wife of Aymer de Valence and foundress of Pembroke College, Cambridge. She grew up together with her sister Isabella, her brother Edward, and their cousin Joan of Kent. Joan died in the Black Death that struck Europe in 1348.

Life

In 1338, Joan was taken on her father's journey to Coblence, where they met Louis IV, Holy Roman Emperor, and were his special guests at the Imperial Diet in the church of Saint Castor. Edward III had formed an alliance with Louis against Philip VI of France, but in 1341 the emperor deserted him.

It is possible that Joan was betrothed to one of the sons Louis had with his wife Margaret of Holland, Philippa's older sister, and actually stayed in their court to be educated there. However, Edward III withdrew her in 1340.

In 1345, she was betrothed to Peter of Castile, son of Alfonso XI of Castile and Maria of Portugal. A few years later, in the summer of 1348, Joan left England with the blessing of her parents. Thanks to a heavily armed retinue she was, perhaps, the most protected woman of Europe at the time, and it is said that her trousseau alone required an entire ship. The travel schedule included a visit to one of her family's castles in Bordeaux.

Travel to Castile

Edward III had spared no expense in the preparations for Joan's journey and marriage, equipping her in the most impressive manner he could. The King loved his daughter, but it's very likely that he also wanted to make a display of power and wealth before his allies in Castile.

The fleet that carried Joan and her retinue consisted of four English ships, which departed from Portsmouth and were received in Bordeaux by the awestruck mayor Raymond de Bisquale. Some say that he immediately warned Joan and her companions of the plague but that they didn't listen and proceeded to settle in the royal castle overlooking the estuary of the Gironde.

Joan's entourage included three leading officials: Robert Bouchier, the former royal chancellor; Andrew Ullford, a diplomatic lawyer; and the cathedral priest of Bordeaux, Gerald de Podio, who was to see to the Princess's spiritual needs. Joan also had a remarkable Castilian minstrel, Gracias de Gyvill, who had been dispatched to England by Prince Pedro in order to entertain her with music and songs of the land of which she was to be queen.

Joan was also escorted by over a hundred formidable English bowmen, some of them veterans of the Battle of Crecy, and she even travelled with a luxurious portable chapel, so that she could enjoy Catholic services without having to use the local churches all along the way to Castile. The chapel featured a couch decorated with fighting dragons and a border of vines, powdered with gold Byzantine coins, while the altar cloth was decorated with dragons and serpents.

Joan's wedding dress was made with more than 150 metres of rakematiz, a thick imported silk, but she also had a suit of red velvet, two sets of twenty four buttons made of silver gilt and enamel, five corsets woven with gold patterns of stars, crescents and diamonds and at least two elaborate dresses with an inbuilt corset. These dresses were also made of rakematiz, one in green and the other in dark brown. The green was embroidered all over with images of rose arbors, wild animals and wild men, while the brown had a base of powdered gold and displayed a pattern of circles, each enclosing a lion as a symbol of monarchy.

Additional items in Joan's trousseau included beds and bed curtains, ceremonial garments, and clothes for everyday wear and for riding. Information concerning these can be found in her wardrobe account of 1347.

Death

As Joan embarked on her journey, the Black Death had not yet appeared in England, and it is unlikely that the party was aware of the danger. Despite the severe outbreak of plague in Bordeaux, at first it did not occur to Joan and her advisors to leave town. Soon, they watched in horror as the members of the entourage began falling sick and dying. Robert Bouchier, the leader of the retinue, died on 20 August.

Joan feared for her life and was moved probably to a small village called Loremo, where she remained for some time. However, she could not escape the disease and became its first victim in the camp, suffering a violent and quick attack and dying on 1 July 1348.

Some accounts document that Joan was buried in Bayonne Cathedral, and her statue, in Westminster Abbey, is on the South Side of her father's tomb.

Aftermath

Andrew Ullford, the diplomatic lawyer, was not affected by the plague and traveled to England in October, in order to inform the king of his daughter's death, which shocked the English. Not only was she one of the earliest English victims of the epidemic, which by then had begun attacking England, but her death also seemed to prove that even royalty would not be spared.

On 15 October 1348, Edward III sent a letter to King Alfonso of Castile terminating the marriage arrangements and describing the sorrow that he and his family were suffering after Joan's sudden death. He described her as a martyred angel looking down from Heaven to protect the royal family, and concluded with traditional and formal piety:

"We have placed our trust in God and our life between his hands, where he held it closely through many dangers"

On 25 October, Edward III sent an expedition to Bordeaux to retrieve Joan's body and return it for burial in London. The leader was a northern ecclesiastical lord, the bishop of Carlisle, who was overpaid by the King because of the high risk involved. It is unknown what happened next. There is no record of Joan's remains being returned to England nor any account of a funeral of any kind. According to medievalist Norman Cantor, in his book The Last Knight: The Twilight of the Middle Ages and the Birth of the Modern Era (2004), Joan actually died in Bordeaux, where the mayor, in an effort to arrest the plague, set fire to the port, burning the Plantagenet castle there as well. Joan's body, inside the castle at the time, could not be recovered.

Letter to Alfonso

Here is an excerpt from the letter that King Edward III sent to King Alfonso of Castile (translated by Rosemary Horrox in her book The Black Death):

We are sure that your Magnificence knows how, after much complicated negotiation about the intended marriage of the renowned Prince Pedro, your eldest son, and our most beloved daughter Joan, which was designed to nurture perpetual peace and create an indissoluble union between our Royal Houses, we sent our said daughter to Bordeaux, en route for your territories in Spain. But see, with what intense bitterness of heart we have to tell you this, destructive Death (who seizes young and old alike, sparing no one and reducing rich and poor to the same level) has lamentably snatched from both of us our dearest daughter, whom we loved best of all, as her virtues demanded

No fellow human being could be surprised if we were inwardly desolated by the sting of this bitter grief, for we are humans too. But we, who have placed our trust in God and our Life between his hands, where he has held it closely through many great dangers, we give thanks to him that one of our own family, free of all stain, whom we have loved with our life, has been sent ahead to Heaven to reign among the choirs of virgins, where she can gladly intercede for our offenses before God Himself.

In later Culture

• The History Channel's two-hour Special The Plague depicts Joan's journey to Castille. In the microsite's gallery, picture #8 represents her.
• Joan's story is discussed in another non-fiction book by Norman Cantor, In the Wake of the Plague: The Black Death & the World it Made, in which the author wonders what would have happened had she survived her journey and married her prince.
• Joan's life in the weeks leading up to her death are key to the fictional plot of the graphic novel, Destiny: A Chronicle of Deaths Foretold. However, Joan's story is told in a rather distorted way, and the author presents few historical facts. Joan wasn't going to marry a man but a boy of her own age, and Pedro still had a long way to go to attain his subsequent reputation for cruelty and sadism. Also, Joan spent nearly a month at Bordeaux before she died.
• Joan is a key character in the early chapters of The Lady Royal by Molly Costain Haycraft, a fictionalized biography of her older sister Isabella. The novel depicts the sisters as close friends and confidantes and alleges that Isabella was visiting with Joan and her retinue at the time of the younger princess's death.
• Joan is portrayed by Romy Caton-Jones in the 2012 television miniseries adaptation of Ken Follett's novel World Without End.

Ancestry

Family of Joan of England (1335–1348)

16. Henry III of England               8. Edward I of England                       17. Eleanor of Provence               4. Edward II of England                             18. Ferdinand III of Castile               9. Eleanor of Castile                       19. Jeanne of Dammartin               2. Edward III of England                                   20. Philip III of France               10. Philip IV of France                       21. Isabella of Aragon               5. Isabella of France                             22. Henry I of Navarre               11. Joan I of Navarre                       23. Blanche of Artois               1. Joan of England                                         24. John I, Count of Hainaut and Lord of Avesnes               12. John II, Count of Holland                       25. Adelaide of Holland               6. William I, Count of Hainaut                             26. Henry V, Count of Luxembourg               13. Philippa of Luxembourg                       27. Margaret of Bar               3. Philippa of Hainault                                   28. Philip III of France               14. Charles of Valois                       29. Isabella of Aragon               7. Joan of Valois                             30. Charles II of Naples               15. Marguerite of Anjou and Maine                       31. Maria of Hungary