Queen: Joan Beaufort, Queen of Scotland, 1404-1445

Two Plantagenet princesses had been Queens of Scots, married to Scottish Kings of the House of Dunkeld.  Joan of England, daughter of John and married to Alexander II, and her niece Margaret, daughter of Henry III and married to Alexander III, both died young without producing children.  It would be a Plantagenet descendant who would marry into the Scottish royal family, and provide yet another link to John of Gaunt and the Lancastrians.

Joan was the daughter of John, 1st Earl of Somerset, himself the son of John of Gaunt by his third wife, Katherine Swynford.  Katherine and John of Gaunt later married and their children were granted legitimate status, though barred from the royal succession.  They took the surname Beaufort, after one of John of Gaunt's many estates in France, and their commoner blood on their mother's side didn't prevent any of them from marrying into the great and the good of the English aristocracy.  John of Gaunt's eldest son, John, Jr., 1st Earl of Somerset, married Lady Margaret Holland, herself the daughter of the Earl of Kent, was the granddaughter of Joan of Kent, daughter of Edmund of Woodstock.  Thus, little Joan, named for her famous great-grandmother, had lion's blood on both sides of her family. 

As a niece of King Henry IV, Joan spent a great deal of time around court, and met James I of Scotland, who was at the time a prisoner of war in England.  James wiled his time writing poetry and memoirs, and composed The King's Quair, or King's Book, in part after seeing Joan in the garden from a window.  Though it may have been a case of love at first sight, it was also political.  Marriage with Joan was part of the terms of James' release, and 10,000 marks was subtracted from his ransom in lieu of a portion of Joan's dowry.  On February 12, 1424, when Joan was bout 20, she and James were married in St. Mary Overie Church in Southwark.  They were given a grand banquet by her uncle, Henry Cardinal Beaufort at Winchester Palace.  Later, Joan accompanied her husband back to Scotland and was crowned Queen at Scone Abbey.  She was known to plead for the lives of those who were to be executed for crimes or who had incurred the King's wrath.

The couple had 8 children, including a Dauphine of France, a Duchess Consort of Brittany, an Archduchess of Austria, 3 countesses, a duke, and the heir, James II of Scotland.  Life in Scotland was dangerous, as James I discovered when he was assassinated in Perth in February, 1437.  Joan was injured in the incident, but escaped with her life.  Now a widow with several small children, Joan at first was appointed Regent for her son, and exacted vengeance on his assassin, the Earl of Atholl.  But the Scots wouldn't stand being ruled by an Englishwoman for too long, and the Earl of Douglas soon replaced her as Regent.  Joan was able to keep custody of her children, including young King James.  Joan married again, James Stewart, known as the Black Knight of Lorne.  Black being used as a term for someone who could be violent if their temper was roused.  He was an ally of the Regent Douglas, but plotted to overthrow Alexander Livingston, governor of Stirling Castle.  Stirling was the nursery palace for the Stewart kings and, by custom, the governor of the Castle was also the legal custodian of the minor king or heir.

Livingstone had Joan arrested and forced her to give up custody of her son.  Not to be outdone, she fled to Dunbar Castle, and continued the fight, dying there in 1445.  She was buried in the Carthusian Priory at Perth.  Her husband survived her, as did her three children from that marriage, including two earls and a bishop.