Lady Joan FitzAlan | |
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Countess of Hereford Countess of Essex Countess of Northampton |
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Spouse(s) | Humphrey de Bohun, 7th Earl of Hereford, 6th Earl of Essex and 2nd Earl of Northampton |
Issue | |
Noble family | FitzAlan |
Father | Richard Fitzalan, 10th Earl of Arundel |
Mother | Eleanor of Lancaster |
Born | 1347 Arundel Castle, Sussex, England |
Died | 7 April 1419 |
Joan FitzAlan, Countess of Hereford, Countess of Essex and Countess of Northampton (1347 – 7 April 1419), was the wife of the 7th Earl of Hereford, 6th Earl of Essex and 2nd Earl of Northampton. She was the mother of Mary de Bohun, the first wife of Henry of Bolingbroke who later reigned as King Henry IV, and Eleanor de Bohun, Duchess of Gloucester. She was the maternal grandmother of King Henry V.
In 1400, she gave the order for the beheading of the Earl of Huntingdon in revenge for the part he had played in the execution of her brother, the 11th Earl of Arundel.
The estates which comprised Joan's large dowry made her one of the principal landowners in Essex, where she exercised lordship, acting as arbitrator and feoffee in property transactions.
Lady Joan FitzAlan was born in 1347 at Arundel Castle, Sussex, one of seven children, and the eldest daughter of Richard FitzAlan, 10th Earl of Arundel and his second wife Eleanor of Lancaster. Her paternal grandparents were Edmund FitzAlan, 9th Earl of Arundel and Alice de Warenne, and her maternal grandparents were Henry, 3rd Earl of Lancaster and Maud Chaworth.
Joan had a half-brother from her father's first marriage to Isabel le Despenser: