Holland 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.

His eldest son Thomas Holland, 3rd Earl of Kent would be created Duke of Surrey months after succeeding his father as reward for his support of Richard II, but with that king's downfall in 1399 he was forced to forfeit the Dukedom.

He was succeeded by his brother Edmund Holland, 4th Earl of Kent, who became Knight of the Garter in 1403 and was killed fighting for Henry IV at Île-de-Bréhat in 1408, without legitimate issue, his heirs being several sisters married into the highest ranks of the English nobility, including both the Lancastrian and York houses that would contest the War of the Roses.

He was deprived of his lands in 1385 over his murder of the son of the Earl of Stafford, but was restored the next year and married to a cousin of the king, Elizabeth, daughter of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, under whom he would fight in Spain.

His eldest surviving son John would be restored to his father's lands and earldom and made Knight of the Garter in 1416 after distinguishing himself at the Battle of Agincourt, and he continued to support the Lancastrian kings, being member of the Privy Council from 1423.

He was a commander in the Lancastrian victories at Wakefield (1460) and St Albans (1461), before being defeated at Towton and attainted while in exile, and his properties awarded to his wife, the sister of Edward IV, who had separated from Holland.