Holland family

The Holland family was a medieval-era English noble family. Many Hollands were Dukes, Earls, Knights and Barons in medieval England, and they played significant roles in the struggles for the crown in the fourteenth and fifteenth century. Origin and ennoblement The first recorded Holland was Ulfe de Holland, grandfather of Matthew de Holland of Upholland, son of Siward de Longworth 'the Warrior'. Matthew's great-grandson was a knight named Sir Robert de Holland of Upholland. Robert had a son, another Robert, born around 1283, who became a favourite knight of Thomas, 2nd Earl of Lancaster. After fighting for Thomas in the Banastre Rebellion, a civil war started by rival barons, he acquired large plots of land and was created Baron Holand in 1314. He fought with Lancaster against king Edward II of England at the Battle of Boroughbridge in 1322 and after briefly being imprisoned twice and escaping, he continued in rebellion until Queen Isabella's Invasion of England. In 1328 Henry, 3rd Earl of Lancaster's followers declared Robert a traitor over the events of the Banastre Rebellion more than a decade earlier, and he was taken prisoner and beheaded. Robert's eldest son, Robert, would succeed him as 2nd Baron Holand, and whose 1373 death, after that of his son Robert, his heir was his granddaughter Maud, wife of John Lovel, 5th Baron Lovel. It was the younger sons of the 1st Baron, Thomas Holland and Sir Otho Holland, who gained prominence. Founding of the Order of the Garter Sir Thomas Holland and his brother, Sir Otho Holland, fought side by side in the Hundred Years' War, against the French. They were both daring commanders of the English army, and both saw intense action at the battles of Caen and Crécy. The brothers later left duty in France and returned home to England, where they became two of the founding knights of the Order of the Garter, which remains England's highest order of chivalry. Thomas married Joan of Kent, daughter of Edmund of Woodstock, 1st Earl of Kent, and granddaughter of king Edward I. Thomas was summoned to Parliament in 1354, thus becoming Baron Holland, of a second creation distinct from that held by his father. Otho died childless in 1359, and Thomas died the next year, but not before being made Earl of Kent in right of his wife, who was Countess of Kent in her own right. Thomas and Joan had two sons who were prominent members of the nobility.