Joan of England (22 July 1210 – 4 March 1238), was Queen of Alba (Scotland) from 1221 until her death as the wife of Alexander II. She was the third child of

John, King of England John (24 December 1166 – 19 October 1216) was King of England from 1199 until his death in 1216. He lost the Duchy of Normandy and most of his other French lands to King Philip II of France, resulting in the collapse of the Angevin Empi ...

and Isabella of Angoulême.

Life

Joan was sought as a bride by Philip II of France for his son. In 1214, however, her father King John promised her in marriage to Hugh X of Lusignan, as compensation for his father Hugh IX of Lusignan being jilted by her mother Isabella. She was promised Saintes, Saintonge and the Isle of Oléron as dowry, and was sent to her future spouse in that year to be brought up at his court until marriage. Hugh X laid claim on her dowry already prior to their marriage, but when this did not succeed, he reportedly became less eager to marry her. On the death of John of England in 1216, queen dowager Isabella decided she should marry Hugh X herself. Hugh X kept Joan with him in an attempt to keep her dowry as well as having the dowry of her mother Isabella released from the English. On 15 May 1220, after an intervention from the

Pope The pope is the bishop of Rome and the Head of the Church#Catholic Church, visible head of the worldwide Catholic Church. He is also known as the supreme pontiff, Roman pontiff, or sovereign pontiff. From the 8th century until 1870, the po ...

and an agreement of the dowry, Joan was sent back to England where negotiations for her hand with Alexander II of Scotland were taking place. Alexander had been in England in 1212, where he had been knighted by her father. It is alleged that King John had promised to give him Joan as a bride and Northumberland as her dowry. On 18 June 1221, Alexander officially settled the lands Jedburgh, Hassendean, Kinghorn and Crail to Joan as her personal income. She and Alexander married on 21 June 1221, at York Minster. Alexander was twenty-three. Joan was almost eleven. They had no children. This fact was a matter of concern, but an annulment of the marriage was regarded as risky as it could provoke war with England. Queen Joan did not have a strong position at the Scottish court, which was dominated by her mother-in-law, queen dowager Ermengarde. Her English connections nevertheless made her important regardless of her personal qualities. Joan accompanied Alexander to England in September 1236 at Newcastle, and in September 1237 at York, during the negotiations with her brother King Henry III over disputed northern territories. At this point, chronicler Matthew Paris suggests that Joan and Alexander had become estranged and that Joan wished to spend more time in England, and her brother King Henry granted her manors in Driffield, Yorkshire and Fen Stanton in Huntingdonshire to reside if needed. In York, Joan and her sister-in-law

Eleanor of Provence Eleanor of Provence ( 1223 – 24/25 June 1291) was a Provence, Provençal noblewoman who became List of English royal consorts, Queen of England as the wife of King Henry III of England, Henry III from 1236 until his death in 1272. She served ...

agreed to make a pilgrimage to

Thomas Becket Thomas Becket (), also known as Saint Thomas of Canterbury, Thomas of London and later Thomas à Becket (21 December 1119 or 1120 – 29 December 1170), served as Lord Chancellor from 1155 to 1162, and then as Archbishop of Canterbury fr ...

's shrine in

Canterbury Canterbury (, ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, in the county of Kent, England; it was a county borough until 1974. It lies on the River Stour, Kent, River Stour. The city has a mild oceanic climat ...

. Joan died in the arms of her brothers King Henry and Richard of Cornwall at Havering-atte-Bower in 1238, and was buried at Tarrant Crawford Abbey in

Dorset Dorset ( ; Archaism, archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by Somerset to the north-west, Wiltshire to the north and the north-east, Hampshire to the east, t ...

in accordance with her wishes.

Homages

Henry III continued to honour Joan's memory for the rest of his life. Most dramatically, in late 1252, almost fourteen years after her death, Henry ordered the production of the image of a queen in marble for Joan's tomb, at a great cost. This was one of the first funerary effigies of a queen in England; the tradition developed in the early thirteenth century, but the tombs of Eleanor of Aquitaine and Berengaria of Navarre were in France. Nothing now remains of the church of the Cistercian nunnery, as the abbey became - the last mention of it is before the

Reformation The Reformation, also known as the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation, was a time of major Theology, theological movement in Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the p ...

. Legend has it that she is buried in a golden coffin located in the graveyard of the current church.

Notes

References

* Rosalind K. Marshall: “Scottish Queens: 1034–1714” * Richard Oram: “The Kings and Queens of Scotland” * Timothy Venning: “The Kings and Queens of Scotland” * Mike Ashley: “British Kings and Queens” * Elizabeth Ewan, Sue Innes and Sian Reynolds: “The Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Women” {{DEFAULTSORT:Joan Of England 1210 births 1238 deaths 13th-century English people 13th-century Scottish people 13th-century English women English princesses Scottish royal consorts House of Plantagenet England–Scotland relations 13th-century Scottish women Children of John, King of England Daughters of kings Daughters of countesses regnant