Joan, Countess of Kent, known as the Fair Maid of Kent, was the mother of King Richard II of England, her son by her third husband, Edward the Black Prince, son and heir apparent of King Edward III. Although the French chronicler Jean Froissart called her "the most beautiful woman in all the realm of England, and the most loving", the appellation "Fair Maid of Kent" does not appear to be contemporary. Joan inherited the titles 4th Countess of Kent and 5th Baroness Wake of Liddell after the death of her brother John, 3rd Earl of Kent, in 1352. Joan was made a Lady of the Garter in 1378.
Joan of Kent
Arundel Castle in Sussex, where Joan, her mother and siblings were placed under house arrest
Crypt of Canterbury Cathedral, intended as Joan's burial place. The monument of the Black Prince is above.
Richard II, also known as Richard of Bordeaux, was King of England from 1377 until he was deposed in 1399. He was the son of Edward, Prince of Wales, and Joan, Countess of Kent. Richard's father died in 1376, leaving Richard as heir apparent to his grandfather, King Edward III; upon the latter's death, the 10-year-old Richard succeeded to the throne.
Portrait at Westminster Abbey, mid-1390s
Edward, Prince of Wales, kneeling before his father, King Edward III
Coronation of Richard II aged ten in 1377, from the Recueil des croniques of Jean de Wavrin. British Library, London.
Richard II watches Wat Tyler's death and addresses the peasants in the background: taken from the Gruuthuse manuscript of Froissart's Chroniques (c. 1475)
