History and genealogy of Peter Montague, of Nansemond and ...

30 INTRODUCTION.
being an heir to the Crown was artfully secured in the Tower by
King Henry VII. and at last was beheaded in 15 13 by Henry VIII.
The Princess Elizabeth, dau of King Edward IV., of Montagu
blood as above stated, married Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, who
became Henry VII., King of England, thus uniting the Houses of
Lancaster and York, the red rose and the white. She became the
mother of King Henry VIII.; also the mother of Margaret, married
to King James, IV. of Scotland, who became the grandmother of
Mary Queen of Scots ; and also the mother of Elizabeth, married to
Lewis the XII, King of France. Thus from the marriage of Philippa
Montagu to the Earl of March, there was descended a long line of
royal personages that includes the Kings and Queens of England
more remote of course, to the present day.
Sir William Montagu, eldest son of the great Earl of Salisbury,
became the second Earl of Salisbury at the death of his father. He
married Joan, dau. of Edmund Plantagenet Earl of Kent, 3d son of
King Edward I. This great Earl of Kent, and son of a King, was
beheaded at Winchester in 1380, after he had remained upon the
scaffold from noon until five o'clock in the evening, waiting for an
executioner ; he was so loved by the people that no one was willing
to undertake the horrid office, till a malefactor from the Marshalsea
was procured to perform it. His daughter Joan was a lady of incom-
parable beauty, and on account of her extraordinary beauty was
styled "the Fair Maid of Kent." She did not long remain the wife
of William Montagu, however, for Sir Thomas Holland sent a petition
to Pope Clement VI. alleging that he had a prior contract from her,
and that the Earl of Salisbury uujustly withheld her from him, whereupon
the Pope gave judgment against the Earl, and the " Fair Maid
of Kent " was transferred to Sir Thomas Holland who was soon after
beheaded, and she became the wife of that immortal hero Edward
the Black Prince, eldest son of King Edward III. and by him she
became the mother of King Richard II. William Montagu, after his
divorce from the " Fair Maid of Kent," married Elizabeth, dau. of
John Lord Mohun, one of the Founders of the Knights of the Garter.
She was sister of Philippa de Mohun who married Edward Planta-
genet, 2d Duke of York, son of Edmund of Langley, 5th son of
Edward III. The Lady Mohun, mother of the above Elizabeth,
.obtained from her husband so much good ground for the common, or