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The Holland family was a medieval-era English noble family. Many Hollands were Dukes, Earls, Knights and Barons in medieval England, and they played significant roles in the struggles for the crown in the fourteenth and fifteenth century.
The first recorded Holland was Matthew de Holland of Upholland, possibly the son of Siward 'the Warrior' de Longworth and grandson of Ulfe de Longworth, however this is no more than oft-repeated conjecture, as there are no credible Y-DNA genealogies tracing further back than Matthew at this time. What is historically certain, however, is that Matthew's great-grandson was a knight named Sir Robert de Holland of Upholland. Robert had a son, another Robert, born around 1283, who became a favourite knight of Thomas, 2nd Earl of Lancaster. After fighting for Thomas in the Banastre Rebellion, a civil war started by rival barons, he acquired large plots of land and was created Baron Holand in 1314. He fought with Lancaster against king Edward II of England at the Battle of Boroughbridge in 1322 and after briefly being imprisoned twice and escaping, he continued in rebellion until Queen Isabella's Invasion of England. In 1328 Henry, 3rd Earl of Lancaster's followers declared Robert a traitor over the events of the Banastre Rebellion more than a decade earlier, and he was taken prisoner and beheaded. Robert's eldest son, Robert, would succeed him as 2nd Baron Holand, and whose 1373 death, after that of his son Robert, his heir was his granddaughter Maud, wife of John Lovel, 5th Baron Lovel. It was the younger sons of the 1st Baron, Thomas Holland and Sir Otho Holland, who gained prominence.
Sir Thomas Holland and his brother, Sir Otho Holland, fought side by side in the Hundred Years' War, against the French. They were both daring commanders of the English army, and both saw intense action at the battles of Caen and Crécy. The brothers later left duty in France and returned home to England, where they became two of the founding knights of the Order of the Garter, which remains England's highest order of chivalry. Thomas married Joan of Kent, daughter of Edmund of Woodstock, 1st Earl of Kent, and granddaughter of king Edward I. Thomas was summoned to Parliament in 1354, thus becoming Baron Holland, of a second creation distinct from that held by his father. Otho died childless in 1359, and Thomas died the next year, but not before being made Earl of Kent in right of his wife, who was Countess of Kent in her own right. Thomas and Joan had two sons who were prominent members of the nobility. Their eldest son, Thomas, inherited the earldom, while John first became Earl of Huntingdon and then Duke of Exeter.
Thomas inherited his father's title of Earl of Kent, becoming the 2nd Earl of Kent, and like his predecessors, Thomas was a keen warrior. When he grew up, he fought in many battles, most notably the Battle of Nájera, in which he served under his stepfather, Edward, the Black Prince. He became influential in the court of his half-brother, Richard II of England, and like his father became a Knight of the Garter in 1375, dying in 1397. His eldest son Thomas Holland, 3rd Earl of Kent would be created Duke of Surrey months after succeeding his father as reward for his support of Richard II, but with that king's downfall in 1399 he was forced to forfeit the Dukedom. He would join his uncle John and other supporters of Richard in the Epiphany Rising, and was captured and executed in January 1400. He was succeeded by his brother Edmund Holland, 4th Earl of Kent, who became Knight of the Garter in 1403 and was killed fighting for Henry IV at Île-de-Bréhat in 1408, without legitimate issue, his heirs being several sisters married into the highest ranks of the English nobility, including both the Lancastrian and York houses that would contest the War of the Roses.
John Holland, second son of the 1st Earl of Kent also became a Knight of the Garter, in 1383. He was deprived of his lands in 1385 over his murder of the son of the Earl of Stafford, but was restored the next year and married to a cousin of the king, Elizabeth, daughter of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, under whom he would fight in Spain. He was made Earl of Huntingdon in 1388, and as close supporter of his half-brother King Richard, was made Duke of Exeter in 1397. He was stripped of the title in 1399 by his brother-in-law Henry IV of England, and after his participation in the Epiphany Rising was attainted and executed. His eldest surviving son John would be restored to his father's lands and earldom and made Knight of the Garter in 1416 after distinguishing himself at the Battle of Agincourt, and he continued to support the Lancastrian kings, being member of the Privy Council from 1423. The Dukedom of Exeter was returned to the family in 1444 with an elevated precedence falling only behind that of the Duchy of York, and he died in 1447.
His son Henry Holland, 3rd Duke of Exeter would succeed, and though he married the daughter of Richard, Duke of York, he remained a staunch Lancastrian in the War of the Roses. He was a commander in the Lancastrian victories at Wakefield (1460) and St Albans (1461), before being defeated at Towton and attainted while in exile, and his properties awarded to his wife, the sister of Edward IV, who had separated from Holland. With the Readeption of Henry VI in 1470, Holland was restored to his lands but was again defeated at Barnet, deprived and divorced. He drowned under mysterious circumstances in 1475, his only child having predeceased him.
John Holland, 1st Duke of Exeter, 1st Earl of Huntingdon, KG, of Dartington Hall in Devon, was a half-brother of King Richard II (1377–1399), to whom he remained strongly loyal. He is primarily remembered for being suspected of assisting in the downfall of King Richard's uncle Thomas of Woodstock, 1st Duke of Gloucester (1355–1397) and then for conspiring against King Richard's first cousin and eventual deposer, Henry Bolingbroke, later King Henry IV (1399–1413).
John Holland, 2nd Duke of Exeter, 2nd Earl of Huntingdon, was an English nobleman and military commander during the Hundred Years' War. His father, the 1st Duke of Exeter, was a maternal half-brother to Richard II of England, and was executed after King Richard's deposition. The Holland family estates and titles were forfeited, but John was able to recover them by dedicating his career to royal service. Earl of Huntingdon, of the Castle, town, manor of Barnstable and manors of Dartington, Fremington, South Molton, Torrington, Devon, Stevington, Bedfordshire, Ardington, Berkshire, Haslebury, Blagdon and Somerset. Holland rendered great assistance to his cousin Henry V in his conquest of France, fighting both on land and on the sea. He was marshal and admiral of England and governor of Aquitaine under Henry VI.
Thomas Holland, 2nd Baron Holand, and jure uxoris1st Earl of Kent, KG was an English nobleman and military commander during the Hundred Years' War. By the time of the Crécy campaign, he had apparently lost one of his eyes.
Thomas Holland, 2nd Earl of Kent was an English nobleman and a councillor of his half-brother, King Richard II of England.
Thomas Holland, 1st Duke of Surrey, 3rd Earl of Kent, KG, Earl Marshal was an English nobleman and courtier.
The peerage title Earl of Kent has been created eight times in the Peerage of England and once in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. In fiction, the Earl of Kent is also known as a prominent supporting character in William Shakespeare's tragedy King Lear.
The title Duke of Exeter was created several times in England in the later Middle Ages. Exeter is the main town of Devon. It was first created for John Holland, the half-brother of King Richard II in 1397. That title was rescinded upon Henry IV's accession to the throne two years later. The title was then granted to the former's half-brother, Thomas Beaufort, 1st Earl of Dorset by his nephew Henry V. Following Beaufort's death without heirs in 1426, the title was restored to the Holland family, which held it until the 3rd Duke was attainted in 1461 as a Lancastrian, dying in 1475.
The Epiphany Rising was a failed rebellion against King Henry IV of England in early January 1400.
Edmund Holland, 4th Earl of Kent, 5th Baron Holand, KG was the Earl of Kent from 1400 to 1408. He was the 106th Knight of the Order of the Garter in 1403.
Joan Holland was the third daughter of Thomas Holland, 2nd Earl of Kent, and Alice FitzAlan. She married four times. Her first husband was a duke, and the following three were barons. All of her marriages were most likely childless.
Elizabeth of Lancaster was the third child of John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster, and his first wife Blanche of Lancaster. Elizabeth was made a Lady of the Garter in 1378.
Events from the 1390s in England.
Ralph Lumley, 1st Baron Lumley was an English nobleman, soldier and administrator under King Richard II, who was stripped of his lands, goods and title and executed for rebelling against King Henry IV.
Lady Alice Holland, Countess of Kent, LG, formerly Alice FitzAlan, was an English noblewoman, a daughter of the 10th Earl of Arundel, and the wife of the 2nd Earl of Kent, the half-brother of King Richard II. As the maternal grandmother of Anne de Mortimer, she was an ancestor of kings Edward IV and Richard III, as well as King Henry VII and the Tudor dynasty through her daughter Margaret Holland. She was also the maternal grandmother of Joan Beaufort, Queen of Scots.
John Montagu, 3rd Earl of Salisbury and 5th and 2nd Baron Montagu, KG was an English nobleman, one of the few who remained loyal to Richard II after Henry IV became king.
Sir Robert Cary of Cockington, Devon, was twelve times Member of Parliament for Devon, in 1407, 1410, 1411, May 1413, April 1414, Mar. 1416, 1417, 1419, May 1421, 1422, 1425 and 1426. Much of his later life was devoted to regaining the many estates and other landholdings forfeited to the crown following his father's attainder in 1388. He was an esquire in the households of King Richard II (1377–1399) and of the latter's half-brother John Holland, 1st Duke of Exeter.