Background
Shortly after his birth, after negotiations between Floris and King Edward I of England in April 1285, he was betrothed to Elizabeth, a daughter of Edward and Eleanor of Castile.
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January John I, Count of Holland
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Career
Soon after this the infant John was sent to England to be raised and educated there at Edward"s court. In 1296, after the murder of John"s father Count Floris V, King Edward invited a number of nobles from Holland with English sympathies, amongst whom were John III, Lord of Renesse, and Wolfert I of Borselen. On 7 January 1297 John married Edward"s daughter Elizabeth at Ipswich.
Soon after this, he was allowed to return to Holland, although being made to promise to heed the council of Renesse and Borselen.
At first Renesse acted as regent, but on 30 April 1297, John had appointed Wolfert van Borselen regent in his stead, until his fifteenth birthday. As regent, Wolfert van Borselen, pursued a policy of neutrality towards Flanders and England.
He came into conflict with the city of Dordrecht and was killed there by a mob on 30 August 1299. After this Count John II of the house of Avesnes took over the regency, for a few months.
Count John I of Holland died at Haarlem in the same year, on 10 November, childless and only fifteen years old, reportedly of dysentery, but there were suspicions he was murdered.
From this time to the extinction of Hainaut as an independent county, Holland was in personal union with Hainaut. Three years after John"s death, his young widow remarried to Humphrey de Bohun, 4th Earl of Hereford.
