Henry Holland, 3rd Duke of Exeter, 3rd Earl of Huntington (27 June 1430 – September 1475) was a Lancastrian leader during the English

Wars of the Roses The Wars of the Roses (1455–1487), known at the time and for more than a century after as the Civil Wars, were a series of civil wars fought over control of the throne of England, English throne in the mid-to-late fifteenth century. These w ...

. He was the only son of John Holland, 2nd Duke of Exeter, and his first wife, Anne Stafford. His maternal grandparents were Edmund Stafford, 5th Earl of Stafford, and

Anne of Gloucester Anne of Gloucester, Countess of Stafford (30 April 1383 – 16 October 1438) was the eldest daughter and eventually sole heiress of Thomas of Woodstock, 1st Duke of Gloucester (the fifth surviving son and youngest child of King Edward III), by h ...

Career

He inherited the Dukedom of Exeter and Earl of Huntington when his father died in 1447. However, he was cruel, savagely temperamental and unpredictable, and so had little support. P.M. Kendall describes him as "dangerous", and was seen as "cruel and fierce" by contemporary Italian observers.

Constable of the Tower

Exeter was for a time

Constable of the Tower of London The Constable of the Tower is the most senior appointment at the Tower of London. In the Middle Ages a constable was the person in charge of a castle when the owner—the king or a nobleman—was not in residence. The Constable of the Tower had a ...

, and afterwards the

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there came to be called "the Duke of Exeter's daughter".

Wars of the Roses

In 1447 he married Anne, the eight-year-old daughter of

Richard of York Richard of York, 3rd Duke of York (21 September 1411 – 30 December 1460), also named Richard Plantagenet, was a leading English magnate and claimant to the throne during the Wars of the Roses. He was a member of the ruling House of Plantage ...

. However, in the

, he remained loyal to Henry VI against the Yorkists. He was imprisoned at

Wallingford Castle Wallingford Castle was a major medieval castle situated in Wallingford in the English county of Oxfordshire (historically Berkshire), adjacent to the River Thames. Established in the 11th century as a motte-and-bailey design within an Anglo-Sa ...

when York briefly seized power after the First Battle of St Albans in 1455. In 1458 he participated in The Love Day, an attempt at reconciliation between the rival factions. He was a commander at the Lancastrian victories at the

Battle of Wakefield The Battle of Wakefield took place in Sandal Magna near Wakefield in northern England, on 30 December 1460. It was a major battle of the Wars of the Roses. The opposing forces were an army led by nobles loyal to the captive King Henry VI o ...

in 1460 and the Second Battle of St Albans in 1461, and in the decisive defeat at Towton in 1461. He fled to Scotland after the battle, and then joined Queen Margaret in her exile in France. He was

attainted In English criminal law, attainder or attinctura was the metaphorical "stain" or "corruption of blood" which arose from being condemned for a serious capital crime (felony or treason). It entailed losing not only one's life, property and heredit ...

in 1461, and his estates were given to his wife, who separated from him in 1464. During the brief period of Henry VI's restoration he was able to regain many of his estates and posts. At the Battle of Barnet, Exeter commanded the Lancastrian left flank. He was badly wounded and left for dead, but survived. Afterwards he was imprisoned, and Anne divorced him in 1472. He "volunteered" to serve on Edward IV's 1475 expedition to France. On the return voyage he fell overboard and drowned, his body being found in the sea between Dover and Calais, Fabyan saying "but how he drowned, the certainty is not known".Robert Fabyan. ''The new chronicles of England and France, in two parts, '' p. 663

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King of England The monarchy of the United Kingdom, commonly referred to as the British monarchy, is the constitutional form of government by which a hereditary sovereign reigns as the head of state of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies (the Baili ...

had given specific orders for the sailors to throw his former brother-in-law overboard.Desmond Seward. ''The Wars of the Roses and the Lives of Five Men and Women in the Fifteenth Century,'' Constable & Robinson, 2002. p. 240.

Family

Before 30 July 1447, he married Anne of York, the eldest child of Richard, Duke of York, and Cecily Neville.Douglas Richardson. ''Plantagenet Ancestry: A Study in Colonial And Medieval Families,'' Genealogical Publishing, 2005. pp. 299–301
''Google eBook''
/ref> She was an older sister of

Edward IV Edward IV (28 April 1442 – 9 April 1483) was King of England from 4 March 1461 to 3 October 1470, then again from 11 April 1471 until his death in 1483. He was a central figure in the Wars of the Roses, a series of civil wars in Englan ...

and

Richard III Richard III (2 October 145222 August 1485) was King of England and Lord of Ireland from 26 June 1483 until his death in 1485. He was the last king of the House of York and the last of the Plantagenet dynasty. His defeat and death at the Bat ...

. He had one legitimate child: *Anne Holland (1461Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Digby 57, fol. 2*r – between 26 August 1467 and 6 June 1474), who married

Thomas Grey, 1st Marquess of Dorset Thomas Grey, 1st Marquess of Dorset, 1st Earl of Huntingdon, 7th Baron Ferrers of Groby, (145520 September 1501) was an English nobleman, courtier and the eldest son of Elizabeth Woodville and her first husband Sir John Grey of Groby. Her secon ...

. Since Henry had no legitimate male issue the disposition of his estates became a complex matter for his widow, the dowager Duchess of Exeter.

Ancestry

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Exeter, Henry Holland, 3rd Duke of 1430 births 1475 deaths 15th-century English Navy personnel

103 103 may refer to: *103 (number), the number *AD 103, a year in the 2nd century AD * 103 BC, a year in the 2nd century BC * 103 (Tyne Electrical Engineers) Field Squadron, a territorial regiment * 103 (Newcastle) Field Squadron, Royal Engineers *103 ...

Earls of Huntingdon Formerly missing people Heirs to the English throne Henry Henry Lord High Admirals of England Military personnel from Devon Military personnel from Exeter People lost at sea People of the Wars of the Roses Unsolved deaths