Edward the Black Prince Margaret, daughter of Philip III of France, and widow of Thomas lord Holland, and in right of his wife earl of Kent, then in her thirty-third year, and the mother of three children. As the prince and the countess were related in the third degree, and also by the spiritual tie of sponsorship, the prince being godfather to Joan's elder son Thomas, a dispensation was obtained for their marriage from Pope Innocent VI, though they appear to have been contracted before it was applied for. The marriage was performed at Windsor, in the presence of King Edward III, by Simon
Edward the Black Prince with his father on 12 October 1347, took part in the jousts and other festivities of the court, and was invested by the king with the new order of the Garter (1348). The Black Prince shared in the king's expedition to Calais in the last days of 1349, came to the rescue of his father, and when the combat was over and the king and his prisoners sat down to feast, he and the other English knights served the king and his guests at the first course and then sat down to meat at another table. When the king embarked