Joan of the Tower (5 July 1321 – 7 September 1362)Edward II and Isabella of France second

Joan of the Tower (5 July 1321 – 7 September 1362)Edward II and Isabella of France second daughter Joan was born at the Tower of London on 5 July 1321, when Edward was thirty-seven and Isabella twenty-five or twenty-six, and named after her maternal grandmother Joan (Jeanne) of Navarre. A man named Robert de Staunton was granted a respite of £80 on a debt of £180 he owed the Exchequer for the simple expedient of travelling a couple of miles across London to inform Edward II. Edward arrived at the Tower three days later, and stayed there with his wife and baby daughter for the next six days. The Tower was in a somewhat dilapidated state, and rain came in on Isabella’s bed when she was in labour. A furious Edward dismissed the constable of the Tower, John Cromwell, from his post.Joan of the Tower had a nurse named Matilda Pyrie or Perie, formerly the nurse of her brother John of Eltham, and presumably lived in the same household as her elder siblings, or some of them. In September 1324, Edward II established separate households for his three younger children - Ralph de Monthermer and Isabel Hastings became the guardians of Eleanor of Woodstock and Joan of the Tower, now six and three, who lived with the couple at Marlborough. After Ralph’s death in early 1325, Isabel remained in charge of the royal sisters’ household. In January 1325, Edward II turned his attention to the important question of his daughters’ marriages and went ahead with plans to marry Joan of the Tower to the grandson of the reigning king of Aragon, Jaime II, and sent envoys to discuss the “espousals…of the king’s daughter Joan with the first-born of Alfonso the eldest son of James king of Aragon, and the future heir of Aragon." Because of Edward’s deposition less than two years later this alliance didn’t come to pass.Joan of the Tower married Robert Bruce’s son the future David II of Scotland in 1329, as part of her mother and Mortimer’s detested peace treaty with  was seven years old, he was only four. Their marriage lasted 34 years, but it was childless and apparently loveless.On the demise of the great Robert the Bruce in 1329, David, aged four at the time, was duly proclaimed David II, King of Scots and was crowned at Scone Abbey in in November 1331.Edward Balliol, the son of the exiled King John Balliol siezing the opportunity a minority presented, invaded Scotland. The young King David and his wife Joan were promptly sent to France for their greater safety. They arrived at Boulogne-sur-Mer in May 1334, where they were received by Joan’s cousin, King Philip VI of France, the young couple resided at Château Gaillard at Les Andelys during their stay in France.David II was eventually reinstated as Scotland’s sovereign on the flight of Edward Balliol in 1336. King David was captured at the The Battle of Neville’s Cross on 17 October 1346, and remained a prisoner in England for eleven years, Joan’s brother King Edward III allowed her to visit her husband in the Tower of London on a few occasions. The Scots continued the struggle, recieving French aid. Enraged, Edward III marched north into Scotland with an army. The crushed Scots finally submitted and agreed to pay a ransom of a hundred thousand pounds for the return of their captive king.After David’s release in 1357, Joan decided to remain in her native England. She was close to her mother, Isabella of France, the two women became more attached after Joan left her husband. She nursed her mother during her final days at Castle Rising in Norfolk.Joan died in 1362, aged 41, at Hertford Castle, Hertfordshire. She was buried in Christ Church Greyfriars, London. David later remarried in 1364, to Margaret Drummond, widow of Sir John Logie, and daughter of Sir Malcolm Drummond. XX -- source link

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