Joan Fitzalan, Countess of Hereford

The estates which comprised Joan's large dowry made her one of the principal landowners in Essex, where she exercised lordship, acting as arbitrator and feoffee in property transactions.

[6] A member of St. Helen's religious guild in Colchester, Joan founded chantries and was also a patron of Walden Abbey, having donated money for relics, vessels, vestments, and the construction of new buildings.

Described as having possessed a "stern character",[9] she showed him no mercy, and promptly gave orders for his decapitation, after having summoned the children of her dead brother to witness the execution.

Following the beheading, which was performed without benefit of a trial, she ordered that Holland's severed head be raised on the end of a pike, which was placed upon the battlements of Pleshy Castle.

Joan appears as a character in Georgette Heyer's last book My Lord John, which is set in the reign of King Henry IV.