Royal: Joanna of England, 1335-1348

Kings were humans, too.  Over time a myth has developed that parents in former times loved their children less than parents do today.  Various reasons are given, ranging from the fact that so many children died as babies or otherwise tragically young, to the low marriageable age of girls, to the apparent formality with which parents and children treated each other on a daily basis.  While all these factors are true, there can be no doubt that, in many cases, royal and noble parents loved their children and families as much as anybody.  And, when tragedy struck, they felt it as much as did the common people, or people today.

Edward III and his wife Philippa of Hainault had many children, at least 9 who lived to grow up.  Most of the time, the focus is on the boys.  Edward the Black Prince, John of Gaunt, Lionel of Antwerp, Edmund of Langley, and Thomas of Woodstock would take up a lot of their parents' time.  However, Edward and Philippa also had several daughters.  Their middle daughter, Joanna would perhaps cause them more pain than any of the others.  She was one of the earliest and, for her time, better known victims of the Black Death. 

Joanna was born in London in 1334.  Edward and Philippa took great care over her education.  She was placed in the care of Marie de St. Pol, wife of Aymer de Valence and co-foundress of Pembroke College, Cambridge.  There, Joan grew up with her brother Edward, the future Black Prince, her sister Isabella and their cousin, Joan of Kent.  Later, Joanna travelled in 1338 with her parents on a visit to Louis IV, Holy Roman Emperor, seeing the famous German city of Koblenz.  Joanna was to be married to one of Louis' sons, but that fell through later.  In 1345, she was betrothed to Pedro of Castile and departed England in 1348.  Her parents spared no expense on her trousseau, the inventory of which still survives.  Joanna's wedding dress was silk, she had another dress of red velvet, silver and gold buttons, other heavily embroidered gowns, even bed curtains and linens.  She was surrounded by a retinue of servants, retainers, musicians, clergy and men-at-arms.  There was to be no doubt that this was a Princess of England.

Joanna crossed the Channel and made her way to Bordeaux.  By that time, a strange new disease was already making itself felt in Bordeaux and was on its way to England.  Perhaps believing that Joanna was removed from any chance of infection given her rank and the fact that princesses didn't mix with common folk, Joanna's attendants felt she was safe.  Then, members of her close personal retinue began to sicken and die.  Joanna fled to a small village called Loremo, but there the Black Death caught up with her.  She died on July 1, 1348 and her body was buried in the chapel at Bordeaux.  By that time, Bordeaux and England were in the grips of the crisis.  The town mayor of Bordeaux ordered buildings in the town burned to ward away the contagion.  The fire caught the castle, destroying Joanna's remains before he family could claim them.

Meanwhile, back in London, even as he oversaw arrangements to dispose of the large numbers of dead and quell the rising panic, Edward's family would suffer two more blows.  Two of Joanna's little brothers, Thomas and William of Windsor, also died of the Plague.  This disease spared no one.  Royals, nobles, commons, clergy, tradesmen, soldiers, women and children were all susceptible to it.  Meanwhile, life went on and Edward had to write to Joanna's fiancée Pedro's father, the King of Castile, to explain what had happened and formally call off the marriage.  Edward wrote.

We are sure that your Magnificence knows how, after much complicated negotiation about the intended marriage of the renowned Prince Pedro, your eldest son, and our most beloved daughter Joan, which was designed to nurture perpetual peace and create an indissoluble union between our Royal Houses, we sent our said daughter to Bordeaux, en route for your territories in Spain. But see, with what intense bitterness of heart we have to tell you this, destructive Death (who seizes young and old alike, sparing no one and reducing rich and poor to the same level) has lamentably snatched from both of us our dearest daughter, whom we loved best of all, as her virtues demanded

No fellow human being could be surprised if we were inwardly desolated by the sting of this bitter grief, for we are humans too. But we, who have placed our trust in God and our Life between his hands, where he has held it closely through many great dangers, we give thanks to him that one of our own family, free of all stain, whom we have loved with our life, has been sent ahead to Heaven to reign among the choirs of virgins, where she can gladly intercede for our offenses before God Himself. (Source: Wikipedia).

Funeral Effigies

For almost all of the early Plantagenets we have very little to go on in the way of portraiture.  Pictures of the Kings and Queens and their family were often stylized illuminations in manuscripts, or elaborate tomb carvings.  Neither of which was likely accurate in terms of how they looked.  However, there may be another clue in the carved wooden effigies used at their funerals.

State funerals for monarchs and members of royalty were even more elaborate in Medieval times than they are now, and a much more drawn out process.  A deceased person would have to be transported from where they died to their intended burial spot, then would like in state several days or even weeks while masses were said for their soul.  At that time, lying in state meant exactly that, a body or representation of a body lying on a bier with candles burning around them.  In the era before modern embalming techniques and depending on the condition of the corpse, a body could break down and begin to decay and stink quite rapidly after death.  What to do?

As part of the elaborate preparations made for such funerals, a wooden effigy of the deceased would be carved and laid over the casket containing the remains, or the bier if the casket and physical body weren't present.  These effigies could be made of either wood or wax.  However, wax in the presence of a number of wax candles burning could present a problem.  The effigy would be carved and painted to resemble the deceased, and either clothed in that person's garments and robes of state, or a portion of the clothing carved into the likeness.  Crowns or other jewelry could be added as needed.  Once the funeral was over and the coffin properly buried in the crypt, the effigy was sometimes saved for additional memorials later.  And, some of these effigies have managed to withstand the test of time and come down to us.

The most striking thing about these wooden effigies is how lifelike they look.  No doubt, the carvers tended to present the deceased in the best light possible.  Edward III died at age 64, but his effigy is hardly that of an old geezer, but a middle aged man.  Anne of Bohemia, Catherine of Valois and Elizabeth of York all look much younger.  And they were, even for those days.  Anne of Bohemia, whose wooden head has been preserved, was only 28 when she died.  Catherine of Valois, who survives as a nearly intact full-length image, was 35.  Elizabeth of York, whose head and partial torso remain intact, was 37.  Aside from a forensic reconstruction of their skulls, this is the closest we can come face to face with them today.