Thomas Holland, 1st Earl of Kent

Thomas Holland, 1st Earl of Kent (c. 1314 – 26 December, 1360) was an English nobleman and military commander during the Hundred Years' War.

He was from a gentry family in Holland, Lancashire. He was a son of Robert Holland and Maud De La Zouche.

In his early military career, he fought in Flanders. He was engaged, in 1340, in the English expedition into Flanders and sent, two years later, with Sir John D'Artevelle to Bayonne, to defend the Gascon frontier against the French. In 1343, he was again on service in France; and, in the following year, had the honour of being chosen one of the founders of the Most Noble Order of the Garter. In 1346, he attended King Edward III into Normandy in the immediate retinue of the Earl of Warwick; and, at the taking of Caen, the Count of Eu and Guînes, Constable of France, and the Count De Tancarville surrendered themselves to him as prisoners. At the Battle of Crécy, he was one of the principal commanders in the van under the Prince of Wales and he, afterwards, served at the Siege of Calais in 1346-7.

Around the same time as, or before, his first expedition, he secretly married the 12-year-old Joan of Kent, daughter of Edmund of Woodstock, 1st Earl of Kent and Margaret Wake, granddaughter of Edward I and Marguerite of France. However, during his absence on foreign service, Joan, under pressure from her family, contracted another marriage with William Montacute, 2nd Earl of Salisbury (of whose household Holland had been seneschal). This second marriage was annulled in 1349, when Joan's previous marriage with Holland was proved to the satisfaction of the papal commissioners. Joan was ordered by the Pope to return to her husband and live with him as his lawful wife; this she did, thus producing 4 children by him.

Between 1353 and 1356 he was summoned to Parliament as Baron de Holland.

In 1354 Holland was the king's lieutenant in Brittany during the minority of the Duke of Brittany, and in 1359 co-captain-general for all the English continental possessions.

His brother-in-law John, Earl of Kent, died in 1360, and Holland became Earl of Kent in right of his wife.

He was succeeded as baron by his son Thomas, the earldom still being held by his wife (though the son later became Earl in his own right). Another son, John became Earl of Huntingdon and Duke of Exeter.

Children

Thomas and Joan of Kent had four children:

* Thomas Holland, 2nd Earl of Kent
* John Holland, 1st Duke of Exeter
* Joan Holland, who married John V, Duke of Brittany
* Maud Holland, married Waleran III of Luxembourg, Count of Ligny

External links

* [http://www.britannia.com/bios/lords/kentth.html His profile in Britannia Biographies]
* [http://www.peterwestern.f9.co.uk/maximilia/pafg51.htm His entry in Maximilian Genealogy]