John Holland, 1st Duke of Exeter John Holland, 1st Duke of Exeter John Holland, 1st Duke of Exeter (c. 1352 – 16 January 1400) also 1st Earl of Huntingdon, was an English nobleman, a half-brother of King Richard II (1377–1399), to whom he remained strongly loyal. He is primarily remembered for being suspected of assisting in the downfall of King Richard's uncle Thomas of Woodstock, 1st Duke of Gloucester (1355–1397) (youngest son of King Edward III) and then for conspiring against King Richard's first cousin and eventual deposer, Henry Bolingbroke, later King Henry IV (1399–1413). He was the third son of Thomas Holland, 1st Earl of
Pontefract Pontefract Pontefract is a historic market town in West Yorkshire, England, near the A1 (or Great North Road) and the M62 motorway. Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, it is one of the five towns in the metropolitan borough of the City of Wakefield and has a population of 28,250, increasing to 30,881 at the 2011 Census. Pontefract's motto is "Post mortem patris pro filio", Latin for "After the death of the father, support the son", a reference to the English Civil War Royalist sympathies. At the end of the 11th century, the modern township of Pontefract consisted