Philippa of Hainault;, or Philippa d’Avesnes, Countess of Holland-Hainaut, 1311-1369 was the wife of King Edward III. of England. She became on January 24, 1328 in the Cathedral of York with the fifteen year old Edward, her second cousin, married. In historiography she is considered to be a good-hearted woman who her husband after the siege of Calais (1346) dissuaded him, through the execution of six posh citizens to make an example.
From the marriage with Edward thirteen children were born, including five sons who lived to adulthood and whose rivalry were ultimately be triggers of the Wars of the Roses.
Her son Edward of Woodstock(Plantagenet), named after his birthplace, Prince of Wales and Aquitaine, known as the Black Prince of Wales, father of the future King Richard II and John of Gaunt (1340 – 1399, the suffix Gaunt (Ghent) derives from his birthplace Ghent in the county of Flanders), founder of the House of Lancaster, which provided the English king for the first time with his son Henry IV.
Source: Selections Of The Ancient Costume Of Great Britain And Ireland, from the 7th to the 16th Century by Charles Hamilton Smith. London: Printed by William Bulmer and Co. Shakspeare-Press, for Messrs. Colnaghi and Co. Cockspur Street, 1814 Engraver: Atkinson, John Augustus, 1775 c. 1833, Havell, Robert, d. 1832, Merigot, James. Hill, John, 1770-1850.
