Was the Black Prince a control freak where his wife was concerned….?

Before I start, I must apologise for the decidedly uncontemporary illustrations. They are an indulgence, I fear. The one above, of the Prince of Wales (known to posterity as the Black Prince) in armour at an army camp, his hands clasped behind his back, seems to me to probably capture him exactly as he was…all the time! Not a man to argue with.
For aeons beyond recollection, men have been the top dogs. What they said, went. And if they were princes, boy did it went! I think it’s safe to say that Edward of Woodstock was just such a man. He decided everything, as Joan of Kent discovered when she became his Princess of Wales.

Joan was reputedly the most beautiful, charming, seductive and enticing woman in England, and had already proved herself in her first marriage by producing two strong sons and two daughters who lived to adulthood. There was something about her that got men going, as the phrase has it, and Edward of Woodstock was no exception. She was his cousin, he called her Jeanette and he was clearly head over heels in love with her…perhaps he always had been, which was why he’d left it so long to get married. He wouldn’t have any other woman but his Jeanette. He was thirty-one and she was thirty-three, and they were married at Windsor on 10th October 1361,
However, although Edward of Woodstock was notably extravagant with gifts to others, he wasn’t with Joan. His mother, Queen Philippa {pingback to 24/6} , wasn’t particularly lavish toward her either, giving her a corset that had to be mended at a cost of £6 13s 4d! That was a lot of dosh back then, so either it was a corset studded with jewels (not comfortable!) or it was practically beyond redemption and required picking apart and rebuilding from scratch! Literally.
Edward had decided views on everything, including his wife’s appearance. It began even before their marriage, with him making suitable changes in how she and her children by her first marriage presented in public. In Penny Lawne’s excellent biography Joan of Kent, starting on page 140, the list of materials, embroideries, furs and so on involved may seem impressive, but are actually modest by the royal standards of the day. And there’s no record at all of any jewellery being given to Joan. He gave far more to his sisters.
The prince even seems to have had a hand in Joan’s wedding dress. Well, not literally, I imagine…although you never know. Maybe not in public! His hand was in the design. The material was red cloth-of-gold, with threads of gold woven on a web of silk. Beautiful, yes, but not as lavish with jewels as the churching gown the queen had worn. Everything for Joan appears to have been low key. Why?
Was Queen Philippa perhaps disapproving of the match? Hence the damaged corset and modest wedding gown?

Joan had a chequered marital history and there was always a question over whether or not she was actually free to marry the Prince. She’d been married to Thomas Holand, who started off as seneschal to the Earl of Salisbury but became Earl of Kent. Unfortunately she was also married to the Earl of Salisbury, at the same time perhaps, but that’s another story. The Salisbury match was set aside by the Pope, so that should have been that. Now, with the Prince of Wales’s marriage, Thomas was definitely dead, but Salisbury was still very much alive and kicking, so was he her real husband after all? This must have plagued many a mind at the time, including the king and queen. And the prince’s next surviving brother, John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, who had an eye on the succession for himself. Now, if he could prove Joan committed bigamy with Edward…
Was the Prince of Wales only too conscious of this stumbling block? Did he want the marriage to be low key because of it? Or was he just an over-assertive man who thought he knew it all…and got away with it every time because he was a prince? I don’t think there’s any doubt that he loved her, but he just couldn’t help interfering and pushing her around.
I’d like to say it couldn’t happen today, but unfortunately bullying know-alls are still thick on the ground…. All right, all right, I know some of them are women, but the vast majority are men!
