When Henry and Joan married - Winchester’s other royal wedding

On the left is Henry IV (who reigned from 1399 to 1413) and on the right is his second wife and queen-consort, Joan of Navarre, whom he married in 1403 at the Cathedral. The marriage was an exception in that it appears to have been a love-match of two widowed people, unlike the more usual negotiated dynastic nuptials as was the case when Mary I married Philip of Spain at the cathedral in 1554.

Henry IV (Image: Simon Newman)

Joan was a highly successful consort in two realms and once a regent, yet she was recently described by the historical novelist Anne O’Brien as being a queen who was “more invisible than most”. Joan (or Juana de Navarra) was probably born at Evreux in northern France on 10 July 1370 and died at Havering-atte-Bower in Essex on 9 July 1437. During her long life she was Duchess consort of Brittany and Queen consort of England. She was also regent of Brittany from 1399 to 1403 during the minority of her son Jean.

Aged 16, Joan first married the 30-years-older Duke Jean IV of Brittany (Jean de Montfort) in 1386. Together they had nine children, four sons and five daughters including her eldest son Jean V of Brittany who succeeded his father in 1399, the same year that Henry Bolingbroke overthrew Richard II and was crowned as Henry IV.

Joan of Navarre (Image: Simon Newman)

In the following four years, from 1399 to 1403, there was a long distance and largely secret courtship between Henry and Joan. Henry probably met Joan at St Omer in north-east France when he attended a banquet organised by the Duke of Burgundy that celebrated the marriage of Henry’s close relative Richard II to Isabella de Valois, the daughter of the French king, Charles VI. The banquet was attended by Joan and her husband, the Duke of Brittany. They met again when Henry, then in exile, was at the Breton court in 1398-99. Henry and his first wife Mary de Bohun, who died in 1394, had six children including Henry of Monmouth who succeeded his father as Henry V.

Surprise courtship

The courtship between Henry and Joan and marriage “was one of the real surprises of his reign”, according the historian Ian Mortimer. It was undertaken secretly at a time when England and France were on the verge of war and seems to have begun soon after Jean IV’s death in 1399. Joan approached Henry through intermediaries and in February 1400 wrote him a highly personal approach letter which was full of good wishes and indications of common interests. The letter went far beyond the usual politeness of the member of the French royal family and the king of England.

The courtship was conducted furtively through Navarrese ambassadors. (Joan’s father was Charles II of Navarre, also known as Charles the Bad). Because they were third cousins twice over, the couple had to get papal dispensation to marry. This came from Pope Benedict XIII on 20 March 1402 and the couple were married by proxy at Eltham Palace, now in south east London, on 2 April 1402. The English were astonished at Henry’s marriage to a Frenchwoman while Joan had to make her case to the French court as she was marrying the man who had deprived the French king’s daughter, Isabella of Valois, of the English throne when he deposed Richard II.

Joan of Navarre (Image: Contributed)

Marriage in Winchester

Joan left Nantes on 26 December 1402 to travel to England for her formal marriage. She and accompanying nobles from both families, sailed from Camaret in Brittany on 13 January 1403 but it was a rough voyage and they landed in Falmouth six days later. Henry had expected his bride to arrive in Southampton but he travelled rapidly west and met Joan in Exeter on 30 January.

They travelled east to Winchester where they married in the cathedral in its newly rebuilt nave on 7 February 1403. The marriage was conducted by Bishop (later Cardinal) Henry Beaufort, who was Henry IV’s half-brother.

The wedding was witnessed by much of the English aristocracy as well as two of Henry’s sons, John and Humphrey. A lavish feast was held, costing £522, 12s (£325,000 in current costs). The guests were fed on roast cygnets, ‘capons of high grease’, venison, griskins (lean pork), rabbits, bitterns, stuffed pullets, partridges, kid, woodcock, plover, quails, snipe, fieldfares, cream of almonds, pears in syrup, custards, fritters, and subtleties decorated with crowns and eagles. Henry’s gift to Joan was a jewelled collar, costing £385 (£235,000), and amulets decorated with diamonds, pearls, rubies and sapphires.

They then processed to London where Joan was crowned as queen consort on 26 February at Westminster and took up residence at Eltham, Henry’s favourite palace.

Queenly stepmother

Although the marriage did not produce any offspring, Joan got along with her stepsons which had been motherless since Mary de Bohun had died a decade before. She even sided with the future Henry V in arguments with his father. Joan remained in contact with her Breton children through the rest of her long life in England through letters and gifts, although she never returned to the duchy. There is evidence that her sons Arthur and Gilles visited her in England several times. Gilles died in France in 1412 while Arthur was captured at the battle of Agincourt by his stepbrother’s forces in 1415 and taken to England as a hostage where he was held until 1420. It is recorded that he met his mother on one occasion.

As Henry’s succession was assured through his sons, Henry, Arthur and Humphrey, and there were no children of the second marriage, the marriage did not draw criticism or close scrutiny while Joan’s queenly behaviour at the English court gave her security during her marriage and afterwards. She was a close companion and carer of Henry IV who, from 1405 onwards, suffered from debilitating illness which was possibly a form or leprosy. He died at Westminster on 20 April 1413.

Joan spent a further 24 years as a dowager queen. She was not well treated by Henry V who accused her of plotting to kill him through witchcraft, but he was more interested in seizing her assets at a time of war with France. She was held in house arrest from 1419 to 1422, mostly in comfort at Leeds Castle in Kent. When she died, aged 66, in 1437, her grandson Henry VI gave her a state funeral. She was buried in Canterbury Cathedral alongside her husband where there is an alabaster monument of the loving couple.

So, when visitors look up to the cathedral’s stained-glass panel and see the young woman in the emerald gown, they are looking at the image of an exceptional duchess and monarch whose second marriage was celebrated in Winchester and who brought loyalty and steadfastness to the English court at a time of constant conflict with France.

Tom Watson