A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Beaufort, Joan
BEAUFORT, JOAN,
Queen of Scotland, was the eldest daughter of John Beaufort, earl of Somerset, (son of John of Gaunt,) and of Margaret, daughter of the earl of Kent
She was seen by James, sometimes called the Royal Poet, son of Robert the Third, king of Scotland, while he was detained a prisoner in the Tower of London, and he fell passionately in love with her. On his release in 1423, after nineteen years of captivity, he married Joan, and went with her to Edinburgh, where they were crowned. May 22nd., 1424. In 1430, Joan became the mother of James, afterwards James the Second of Scotland.
She possessed a great deal of influence, which she always exercised on the side of mercy and gentleness. In 1437, the queen received information of a conspiracy formed against the life of her husband, and hastened to Roxburgh, where he then was, to warn him of his danger. The king immediately took refuge with his wife in the Dominican abbey, near Perth; but the conspirators, having bribed a domestic, found their way into the room. The queen threw herself between them and her husband, but in rain; after receiving two wounds, she was torn from the arms of James the First, who was murdered, February 21st., 1437.
Joan married a second time, James Stewart, called the Black Knight, son to the lord of Lorne, to whom she bore a son, afterwards earl of Athol. She died in 1446, and was buried at Perth, near the body of the king, her first husband.