She was known as "the Fair Maid of Kent." She was age 24 and more at her brother's death. She was sister and heiress of John, earl of Kent, lord Wake and lord Woodstock. She became countess of Kent, baroness Woodstock, and baroness Wake in her own right after John's death on December 29, 1352. Thomas was her first husband. By her third husband, Edward, the Black Prince, she was the mother of Richard II. Between 1362 and 1371 she was with Edward in Aquitaine, where her two sons, Edward and Richard II, were born. By her intervention in 1378, proceedings against Wycliffe at Lambeth were stopped. She was detained briefly in 1381 by Kentish rebels during the Peasant's Revolt. In her last year, despite illness and growing corpulence, she mediated the breach between Richard II and John of Gaunt.

• Married: in or bef 1339 ¹
• Note:

  
  In May, 1347, Thomas petitioned Pope Clement VI, claiming that he had been married to Joan for more than eight years, and that while he was in Prussia William Montagu, earl of Salisbury, married Joan and unjustly detained her. It appears that Joan did go through a form of marriage with Montagu, possibly under compulsion. The Pope determined that Joan and Thomas's marriage was legal and on November 17, 1349, ordered her to be restored to her lawful husband.

1. Thomas DE HOLAND b: ABT 1350
2. John DE HOLAND b: AFT 1350

1. Type: Book
   Author: Cokayne, George E.
   Periodical: The Complete Peerage
   Publication: Sutton Publishing, Gloucestershire, 2000