edwardslovelyelizabeth:Joan of Acre (April 1272 – 23 April 1307)Joan of Acre was the seventh or eigh

edwardslovelyelizabeth:Joan of Acre (April 1272 – 23 April 1307)Joan of Acre was the seventh or eighth child of Edward I and Eleanor of Castile, and the second to survive childhood. She was born in Akko in Syria sometime in the spring of 1272, while her parents were on crusade, and was known as ‘Joan of Acre’ to distinguish her from another daughter of Edward and Eleanor named Joan, who was born and died in 1265.In September 1272, Edward and Eleanor left the Holy Land, with Joan, and travelled via Sicily and Rome to France and then Gascony. Her grandfather Henry III had died in November 1272, when she was a few months old, and her father succeeded as king of England. In August 1274, Edward and Eleanor finally returned to England, after an absence of four years, and their coronation took place that month. Joan did not travel to England with her parents, but remained in France with her maternal grandmother, Jeanne de Dammartin, countess of Ponthieu and dowager queen of Castile. After Jeanne’s death in 1279, she set foot in England for the first time, at the age of seven.What can be said about Joan was that she had spirit and willfulness. During her parents’ absence in Gascony, when Joan was  in her early teens, she became involved in a dispute with the treasurer of her household and refused to accept money from him; her father had to pay her debts when he returned to England.On 30 April 1290, around the time of her eighteenth birthday, Joan married the rich, powerful and turbulent Gilbert ‘the Red’ de Clare, earl of Gloucester and Hertford, who was nearly three decades older than she was, born in September 1243. Isabel, the elder of his daughters by his first wife Alice de Lusignan, was ten years Joan’s senior. After her marriage, she left court to be alone with her new husband at his manors, to the displeasure of her father, who in reprisal seized seven robes that had been made for her. There’s no way of knowing what kind of relationship Joan and Gilbert had, though they produced four children in five and a half years of marriage (Gilbert de Clare, Eleanor de Clare, Margaret de Clare, Elizabeth de Clare  all survived to adulthood).Gilbert de Clare died in December 1295, aged fifty-two, a few weeks after the birth of their youngest child Elizabeth, leaving Joan a widow at the age of twenty-three. Edward I set plans in motion for Joan to marry Count Amadeus V of Savoy, who was also decades her senior, born in about 1249. However, she calmly informed him that she was already secretly married, to Ralph de Monthermer, a squire of her late husband. Edward I was furious, seized Joan’s lands, and imprisoned Ralph. Either before informing her father of her marriage, or after Monthermer had been put into prison–the accounts vary–Joan sent her little daughters to visit their grandfather the king in hopes that they would soften his mood. The date of Joan and Ralph’s marriage is not known, but probably took place in about January 1297, and their first child, Mary, was born in October that year. Ralph de Monthermer’s parentage is obscure, though apparently he was illegitimate - in 1304, the Annals of London called him 'the bastard Ralph de Monthermer’. He was born in about 1262, so was about ten years older than Joan.After a great deal of discussion at court about the matter, Joan, as the chronicles report, was at last allowed to plead for herself before her father, at which time she is said to have told the king that as it was no disgrace for an earl to marry a poor woman, it was not blameworthy for a countess to advance a capable young man. This defense is said to have pleased Edward I, though it is probable that Joan’s pregnancy, which would have been visible at the time of this exchange in July 1297, also convinced the king to accept the situation. He restored most of Joan’s lands to her and pardoned Monthermer, who from November 1297 onward was referred to as the Earl of Gloucester.Joan bore Ralph four children, two daughters and two sons. In a letter sent by Edward of Caernarfon (future Edward II) to Ralph on 30 May 1304 says “it pleases us very much, and gives us great joy, that our dear sister has the consent of our dear lord the king, our father and yours.” Finally! After more than seven years and four children! Edward called Ralph, in the eleven letters he sent him in 1304 and 1305, “our very dear brother”, and it seems that he considered Ralph to be a member of his inner circle, and a trustworthy and reliable confidant.Edward II was also close to Joan of Acre, twelve years his senior. In 1305, during the period he had quarrelled violently with their father and had his income cut drastically, Joan lent him her seal, so that he could buy goods. As her secret marriage to Ralph amply demonstrates, Joan was not afraid of her harsh father, or the fact that he would likely be furious at her helping Edward (their sister Mary made sure she had the permission of the king before writing to Edward, whereas Joan didn’t bother).Joan of Acre, countess of Gloucester and Hertford, died on 23 April 1307, around the time of her thirty-fifth birthday, and was buried at the Augustinian friary at Clare, in Suffolk. Her death may have been pregnancy or childbirth-related, though it’s not certain. A few weeks later, her father died, and her brother succeeded as Edward II.Ralph de Monthermer remained a widower for eleven years, then married Isabel Hastings, one of the sisters of Hugh Despenser the younger - also without the king’s permission.XX -- source link

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