Margaret Holland, Duchess of Clarence

Margaret Holland was a medieval English noblewoman born in 1385, the daughter of Thomas Holland, 2nd Earl of Kent, and Alice FitzAlan. Her paternal grandparents were Joan ‘the Fair Maid of Kent’ and her husband, the son of Edward I of England, making Margaret a descendant of English royalty. She married John Beaufort, 1st Earl of Somerset, with whom she had six children, and was invested as a Lady Companion of the Order of the Garter in 1399.

Following the death of her first husband in 1410, Margaret married Thomas of Lancaster, Duke of Clarence, the son of King Henry IV, but they had no children. She passed away on 30 December 1439 at St. Saviour’s Abbey, Bermondsey, in London, England. Margaret and both her husbands are interred in Canterbury Cathedral, where a carved alabaster tomb depicts her lying between them.