Queen: Joan of the Tower, Queen of Scotland, 1321-1362

Three Plantagenet princesses married into the royal family of Scotland, Joan, daughter of John, Margaret, daughter of Henry III, and another Joan, daughter of Edward II.  And, all three marriages ended up loveless, childless and in name only.  Edward's daughter Joan, 1321-1362 was, as her name suggests, born at the Tower of London.  Her father, Edward, died in 1327, when Joan was barely six years old.  In 1328, the Treaty of Northampton officially ended the First Scottish War of Independence, with the marriage alliance of David II, son of Robert Bruce, and Joan.  David was only four.  They were married at Berwick on Tweed, on the border between England and Scotland.  Robert Bruce died in 1329, and his son David was crowned at Scone in 1331, making Joan Queen Consort of Scotland at the tender age of 10.

The Treaty of Northampton solved nothing.  England and Scotland were soon locked in war again.  Edward III backed a Balliol claimant for the Scottish throne and scored a victory at Halidon Hill in 1333.  Joan and David were sent for safekeeping to France, where Joan's cousin through her mother, Phillip VI, was king.  Phillip granted the exiled Scottish king and his entourage the use of Chateau Gaillard, Joan's great-great-uncle Richard I's masterpiece on the Seine River.  At some point, Joan and David would have been deemed old enough to begin living together as husband and wife, but no children ever ensued from their marriage.  In 1341, they returned to Scotland and David began ruling as king in his own right.  He was captured by English forces at Neville's Cross in 1346 and was imprisoned in Joan's own birthplace, the Tower of London, for 11 years.

Joan was permitted to visit her husband, but still no children came along.  In 1357, when David was released, Joan made the decision to remain in England.  Her mother, Isabella of France, was old and ailing and Joan wished to care for her in her final years.  Edward and David permitted her to stay in England.  Joan herself died in 1362 at Hertford Castle.  She was buried in Christ Church, Greyfriars, London, but no trace of her tomb survives to this day.