Edmund Plantagenet, or Edmund of Woodstock (August 5, 1301 – March 19, 1330) was Earl of Kent from July 28, 1321 (fourth creation), the son of King Edward I of England and Marguerite of France. He was from 1327 'after the execution and forfeiture of John FitzAlan, 7th Earl of Arundel' for the three remaining years of his life to hold the castle and honour of Arundel, although he was never formally invested with the titles appropriate to his barony. Edmund was preceded by Hugh le Despenser and was a Lord Wardens of the Cinque Ports before the succeeding Sir John Peche meanwhile a new creation to the Earl of Kent , the second earl Edmund succeeded. Edmund was the father of Joan of Kent, through whom the earldom eventually passed into the Holland family. At the age of twelve, Joan entered into a clandestine marriage with Thomas Holland of Broughton. The following year, while Holland was overseas, her family forced her into a marriage with William Montacute, 2nd Earl of Salisbury. Joan grew up at court, where she became friendly with her cousins, including Edward, the Black Prince who as the Earl of Chester in 1333, Duke of Cornwall in 1337; the eldest son of King Edward III of England and Philippa of Hainault, and father to King Richard II of England. Edward served as a symbolic regent for periods in 1339, 1340, and 1342 while Edward III was on campaign.

Edmund of Woodstock was executed for treason, having supported his half-brother, the deposed King Edward II, by order of the 'Regents Roger Mortimer, 1st Earl of March and Queen Isabella of France', before the outer walls of Winchester Castle. It was said that he had conspired to rescue King Edward from prison. Such was public hostility to the execution that "he had to wait five hours for an executioner, because nobody wanted to do it". Woodstock's execution would appear a retaliation for Edward I's crushing defeat against Simon de Montfort at the Battle of Evesham in 1265, and because the king had treated his rebellious cousins with such great savagery, pursuing the surviving members of the de Montfort family relentlessly. Largs

Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester (1208 – August 4, 1265) was the principal leader of the baronial opposition to King Henry III of England. After the rebellion of 1263-1264, de Montfort became de facto ruler of England and called the first directly elected parliament since those of ancient Athens. Because of this, de Montfort is today regarded as one of the progenitors of modern democracy. He was the youngest son of Simon de Montfort, a French nobleman, and Alix of Montmorency. His paternal grandmother was Amicia de Beaumont, the senior co-heiress to the Earldom of Leicester and a large estate in England, but King John of England would not allow a French subject to take ownership of such an estate in England. As a boy, de Montfort accompanied his parents during his father's campaigns against the Cathars. He was with his mother at the siege of Toulouse in 1218, where his father was killed after being struck on the head by a stone pitched by a mangonel. On the death of their father, de Montfort's elder brother Amaury succeeded him. Another brother, Guy, was killed at the siege of Castelnaudary in 1220. As a young man, Montfort probably took part in the Albigensian Crusades of the early 1220s. In 1229 the two surviving brothers (Amaury and Simon) came to an arrangement whereby Simon gave up his rights in France and Amaury in turn gave up his rights in England. Thus freed from any allegiance to the king of France, de Montfort successfully petitioned for the English inheritance, which he received the next year, although he did not take full possession for several more years, and was not yet formally recognized as earl.

In January 1238 de Montfort married Eleanor of England, daughter of King John and Isabella of Angouleme and sister of King Henry III. Eleanor had previously been married to William Marshal, 2nd Earl of Pembroke.The archbishop of Canterbury, Edmund Rich, condemned the marriage for this reason, though perhaps Eleanor can be forgiven, as she had been widowed at sixteen. The English nobles protested the marriage of the king's sister to a foreigner of modest rank; most notably, Eleanor's brother Richard, 1st Earl of Cornwall rose up in revolt when he learned of the marriage. King Henry eventually bought off Richard with 6,000 marks and peace was restored.

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