[5] Joan lived for several years in France where she spent her time being educated by a bishop and "being thoroughly spoiled by an indulgent grandmother.

"[6] Joan was free to play among the "vine clad hills and sunny vales"[7] surrounding her grandmother's home, although she required "judicious surveillance.

He hoped to gain both political power and more wealth with his daughter's marriage, so he conducted the arrangement in a very "business-like style".

[9] He finally found a man suitable to marry Joan (aged 5 at the time), Hartman, son of King Rudolph I of Germany.

[10] As she had spent her entire life away from Edward and Eleanor, when she returned she "stood in no awe of her parents"[6] and had a fairly distanced relationship with them.

It was unheard of in European royalty for a noble lady to even converse with a man who had not won or acquired importance in the household.

Joan sent her four young children to their grandfather, in hopes that their sweetness would win Edward's favor, but her plan did not work.

[23] The king soon discovered his daughter's intentions, but not yet aware that she had already committed to them,[20] he seized Joan's lands and continued to arrange her marriage to Amadeus of Savoy.

[24] With regard to the matter, Joan famously said, "It is not considered ignominious, nor disgraceful, for a great earl to take a poor and mean woman to wife; neither, on the other hand, is it worthy of blame, or too difficult a thing for a countess to promote to honour a gallant youth.

Her father disapproved of her leaving court after her marriage to the Earl of Gloucester, and in turn "seized seven robes that had been made for her".

[31] He also strongly disapproved of her second marriage to Ralph de Monthermer, a squire in her household, even to the point of attempting to force her to marry someone else.

While Joan's age in 1307 (about 35) and the chronology of her earlier pregnancies with Ralph de Monthermer suggest that this could well be the case, historians have not confirmed the cause of her death.

Joan's widower, Ralph de Monthermer, lost the title of Earl of Gloucester soon after the deaths of his wife and father-in-law.

Allegedly, in 1357, Joan's daughter, Elizabeth De Burgh, claimed to have "inspected her mother's body and found the corpse to be intact",[35] which in the eyes of the Roman Catholic Church is an indication of sanctity.

This claim was only recorded in a fifteenth-century chronicle, however, and its details are uncertain, especially the statement that her corpse was in such a state of preservation that "when her paps [breasts] were pressed with hands, they rose up again."

[38] Many have agreed to this characterisation; however, some authors think there is little evidence to support the assumption that Joan of Acre was a neglectful or uncaring mother.