August 5, 1301- Edmund of Woodstock PLANTAGENET was born at Woodstock, Oxfordshire, England. Edmund was the Earl of Kent. He was the son of Edward I Longshanks, king of England, and his second wife Marguerite de France. In 1322 he supported his half-brother Edward II, king of England, against the coalition of the Marcher lords and Thomas, 2nd earl of Lancaster, who were seeking to force the expulsion of Edwards hated favorites, the Despensers. Edmund besieged Thomas of Lancasters Yorkshire stronghold of Pontefract and witnessed his execution in 1322. In 1324 Edward made Edmund lieutenant of Aquitaine, where he faced an invasion by Charles de Valois. About Christmas 1325 he married Margaret Wake, daughter of John Wake, 1st baron Wake, and Joan de Fiennes. They had two sons and two daughters of whom only Joan, known to posterity as the Fair Maid of Kent, would have progeny. In 1326 Edmund joined Isabelle “the She-Wolf” de France, Edward IIs queen, in her conspiracy against her husband, and was one of the council appointed to govern for the young Edward III in 1327 after the kings forced abdication. Edmund resisted Isabelles ascendancy, but she implicated him in a plot to free Edward II, whom he believed to be still alive, and she had Edmund beheaded on 19 March 1330. The Complete Peerage, 2000, Microprint Edition, Sutton Publishing Gloucester. ISBN 0-904387-82-8. Vol. VII, pg. 142.
Posted on: Tue, 05 Aug 2014 20:16:52 +0000
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