Thomas Holland, 1st Earl of Kent
Thomas Holland, 1st Earl of Kent ( born May 5, 1314 Upholland, Lancashire, England; † December 26, 1360 in Rouen, Seine- Maritime, Haute -Normandie, France ) was an English nobleman and military commander of the Hundred Years War. He was the son of Robert Holland and Maud de La Zouche, daughter of Alan la Zouche, 1st Baron la Zouche of Ashby.
1340 he participated in Flanders at the English campaign; two years later he was sent by Sir John D' Artevelle to Bayonne, to defend the Gascon frontier against the French. In 1346 he accompanied the King Edward III. and belonged to the immediate retinue of Thomas de Beauchamp, 11th Earl of Warwick. With the capture of Caen Raoul II de Brienne, the Constable of France, and the Count of Tancarville gave him as his prisoner. At the Battle of Crécy ( August 28, 1346 ) was one of the supreme commander under the 16 -year-old Prince of Wales Edward of Woodstock; after the Battle of Crécy, he participated in the siege of Calais ( 1346/47 ). Thomas Holland is one of the founding members of the Order of the Garter.
At the time of his first campaign, but maybe even before that, he secretly married the 12 - year-old Princess Joan Plantagenet, " the Fair Maid of Kent " (* 1328, † 1385 ), daughter of Edmund of Woodstock, 1st Earl of Kent and Margaret Wake, thus granddaughter of King Edward I, who later became heiress of the county of Kent. During his campaign in France Joan entered into a second marriage with William Montague, the Earl of Salisbury, had been in the household Thomas Holland Seneschal. This marriage was annulled in 1349, when the first marriage has been demonstrated.
When his brother John, 3rd Earl of Kent, in 1352 died he was Earl of Kent on behalf of his wife. Between 1353 and 1356, he was appointed by Parliament to Baron Holand. 1354 he was governor of the king at John V, Duke of Brittany and 1359 co- captain general of the English possessions on the continent. On November 20, 1360, he was appointed 1st Earl of Kent, but died a few days later, before he could participate as Earl in a meeting of parliament.
His son Thomas inherited the barony first exclusively Holand, as the earldom was still in possession of his wife. Another son, John, later Earl of Huntingdon and Duke of Exeter.
Progeny
Thomas Holland and Joan of Kent had five children:
- Thomas Holland, 2nd Earl of Kent ∞ Lady Alice FitzAlan, Countess of Kent
- Edmund Holland (1352-1353)
- John Holland, 1st Duke of Exeter
- Joan Holland, ∞ John V, Duke of Brittany
- Maud Holland, ∞ Walram III. of Luxembourg, Count of Ligny and Saint-Pol