Sir Thomas de Holand Wake Kent

May 9, 2014 — ancestry, Baron de Holland, Britain, Sir Thomas de Holland

Sir Thomas

My 20th great-grandfather was a member of the Order of the Garter. He was a military commander and member of Parliament.  The Hundred Years’ War was a huge drag because it lasted for 100 years.   He fought in Flanders and in France for Britain.

Sir Thomas de Holand Wake Kent (1314 – 1360)
is my 20th great grandfather
Sir Thomas Holand Knight deHolland (1350 – 1397)
son of Sir Thomas de Holand Wake Kent
Margaret DeHoland (1385 – 1439)
daughter of Sir Thomas Holand Knight deHolland
Joan Beaufort (1407 – 1445)
daughter of Margaret DeHoland
Joan Stewart (1428 – 1486)
daughter of Joan Beaufort
John Gordon (1450 – 1517)
son of Joan Stewart
Robert Lord Gordon (1475 – 1525)
son of John Gordon
Catherine Gordon (1497 – 1537)
daughter of Robert Lord Gordon
Lady Elizabeth Ashton (1524 – 1588)
daughter of Catherine Gordon
Capt Roger Dudley (1535 – 1585)
son of Lady Elizabeth Ashton
Gov Thomas Dudley (1576 – 1653)
son of Capt Roger Dudley
Anne Dudley (1612 – 1672)
daughter of Gov Thomas Dudley
John Bradstreet (1652 – 1718)
son of Anne Dudley
Mercy Bradstreet (1689 – 1725)
daughter of John Bradstreet
Caleb Hazen (1720 – 1777)
son of Mercy Bradstreet
Mercy Hazen (1747 – 1819)
daughter of Caleb Hazen
Martha Mead (1784 – 1860)
daughter of Mercy Hazen
Abner Morse (1808 – 1838)
son of Martha Mead
Daniel Rowland Morse (1838 – 1910)
son of Abner Morse
Jason A Morse (1862 – 1932)
son of Daniel Rowland Morse
Ernest Abner Morse (1890 – 1965)
son of Jason A Morse
Richard Arden Morse (1920 – 2004)
son of Ernest Abner Morse
Pamela Morse
I am the daughter of Richard Arden Morse

Thomas Holland, 1st Earl of Kent, 1st Baron Holand, KG (c. 1314 – 26 December 1360) was an English nobleman and military commander during the Hundred Years’ War.
He was from a gentry family in Upholland, Lancashire. He was a son of Robert de Holland, 1st Baron Holand and Maud la Zouche. One of his brothers was Otho Holand, who was also made a Knight of the Garter.Military Career

In his early military career, he fought in Flanders. He was engaged, in 1340, in the English expedition into Flanders and sent, two years later, with Sir John D’Artevelle to Bayonne, to defend the Gascon frontier against the French. In 1343, he was again on service in France. In 1346, he attended King Edward III into Normandy in the immediate retinue of the Earl of Warwick; and, at the taking of Caen, the Count of Eu and Guînes, Constable of France, and the Count De Tancarville surrendered themselves to him as prisoners. At the Battle of Crécy, he was one of the principal commanders in the van under the Prince of Wales and he, afterwards, served at the Siege of Calais in 1346-7. In 1348 he was invested as one of the founders and 13th Knight of the new Order of the Garter.

Around the same time as, or before, his first expedition, he secretly married the 12-year-old Joan of Kent, daughter of Edmund of Woodstock, 1st Earl of Kent and Margaret Wake, granddaughter of Edward I and Margaret of France. However, during his absence on foreign service, Joan, under pressure from her family, contracted another marriage with William Montacute, 2nd Earl of Salisbury (of whose household Holland had been seneschal). This second marriage was annulled in 1349, when Joan’s previous marriage with Holland was proved to the satisfaction of the papal commissioners. Joan was ordered by the Pope to return to her husband and live with him as his lawful wife; this she did, thus producing 4 children by him.

Between 1353 and 1356 he was summoned to Parliament as Baron de Holland.

In 1354 Holland was the king’s lieutenant in Brittany during the minority of the Duke of Brittany, and in 1359 co-captain-general for all the English continental possessions.

His brother-in-law John, Earl of Kent, died in 1352, and Holland became Earl of Kent in right of his wife.

He was succeeded as baron by his son Thomas, the earldom still being held by his wife (though the son later became Earl in his own right). Another son, John became Earl of Huntingdon and Duke of Exeter.
Children

Thomas and Joan of Kent had four children:

Thomas Holland, 2nd Earl of Kent
John Holland, 1st Duke of Exeter
Joan Holland, who married John V, Duke of Brittany
Maud Holland, married Waleran III of Luxembourg, Count of Ligny