Joan was brought up in the court of Hugh X of Lusignan who was promised to her in marriage from an early age, as compensation for him being jilted by her mother Isabella of Angoulême, however on the death of John of England, Isabella decided she should marry him herself and Joan was sent back to England, where negotiations for her hand with Alexander II of Scotland were taking place.
She and Alexander married on 21 June 1221, at York Minster.Agnes Mure Mackenzie, The Foundations of Scotland (1957), p. 251. Alexander was twenty-three. Joan was ten, almost eleven. They had no children. Joan died in her brother's arms at Havering-atte-Bower in 1238, and was buried at Tarrant Crawford Abbey in Dorset.
Nothing now remains of this church; the last mention of it is before the Reformation. It is said that she is now buried in a golden coffin in the graveyard.