During her third marriage she carried on an amicable correspondence with Queen Elizabeth I of England, who recognised Lady Desmond's skill in diplomacy, and relied upon her to restore and keep the precarious peace in southern Ireland.
In the 1520s her father fought his neighbours, the lords of Muskerry in County Cork and the earls of Ormond in eastern Munster.
In September 1520 or 1521 her father was defeated at the Battle of Mourne Abbey, south of Mallow, County Cork, by the allied forces of Cormac Laidir Oge MacCarthy, 10th Lord of Muskerry, and Thomas the Bald.
[19][20] In December, Muskerry, Thomas the Bald, and Piers Butler, 8th Earl of Ormond, besieged her father unsuccessfully in Dungarvan.
[26] For reasons unknown, the marriage negotiations came to a halt, and Anne later married King Henry VIII of England as his second wife.
[28][d] Her dowry consisted of land in County Tipperary along the boundary between the Desmond and the Ormond possessions, including the manors of Clonmel, Kilfeakle, and Kilsheelan.
James and Joan had seven sons:[31] After the dramatic fall of the Boleyns, the earldom of Ormond reverted to her father-in-law in February 1538.
He fell victim of a mass poisoning along with his steward and 16 of his servants,[39] possibly at the instigation of Anthony St Leger, who was Lord Deputy of Ireland and a political opponent.
[42][43] It is believed the marriage was a political maneuver to prevent Joan marrying her cousin, Gerald FitzGerald, heir to the Earldom of Desmond.
[46] Nonetheless, Lady Ormond claimed the customary right to keep a private army of gallowglasses in Kilkenny, which greatly annoyed Edward Bellingham, who had replaced St Leger as lord deputy of Ireland on 22 April 1548.
Due to his reputation as a rake and libertine at the English court, Sir Francis Bryan earned the nickname "Vicar of Hell".
While Bryan lay dying at Clonmel, Joan was allegedly out on a hunting expedition with her second cousin, Gerald FitzGerald.
Joan maintained a friendly correspondence with Queen Elizabeth,[61][62] who recognised her ability, and relied on her to restore and keep the precarious peace in Munster after her husband, allegedly tired of Joan's domination over him, broke the truce with her eldest son, Thomas, who had succeeded his father as Earl of Ormond.
After the two factions began making raids against one another, Joan spent nearly two weeks journeying back and forth on horseback to arbitrate between the two enemy camps, before a tenuous peace was finally re-established in 1560.
[68][69] The ensuing Desmond rebellions earned her widower the sobriquet of "rebel earl" and ended with his forfeiture and killing in 1583.