The which he called Canutium, for his hire,
New Cantium, which Kent we commonly inquire.
Spenser, Faëry Queen, II. x. 12 (1590).
Kent (earl of), under the assumed name of Caius, attended upon the old King Lear, when his two elder daughters refused to entertain him with his suite. He afterwards took him to Dover Castle. When the old king was dying, he could not be made to understand how Caius and Kent could be the same person.—Shakespeare, King Lear (1605).
Kent (The Fair Maid of), Joan, only daughter of Edmund Plantaganet, earl of Kent. She married thrice: (1) William de Montacute, earl of Salisbury, from whom she was divorced; (2) Sir Thomas Holland; and (3) her second cousin, Edward, the Black Prince, by whom she became the mother of Richard II.
Kent (Margaret), a handsome, proud woman, whose husband deserts her and lives in South America with a mistress, leaving her to support herself and child. He comes back poor and not penitent, and she considers it her duty to live with and to support him, although while she was believed by most of her acquaintances to be a widow she was beloved and wooed by Dr. Walton, a man worthy of her.
Robert Kent, the husband, is a queer compound of fascinating and repulsive traits. He takes his wife’s hard-earned money as his due, and cajoles his little girl into giving “poor papa” the contents of her savings bank.—Ellen Olney Kirke, The Story of Margaret Kent (1886.).
Kenwigs (Mr.), a turner in ivory, and “a monstrous genteel man.” He toadies Mr. Lillyvick, his wife’s uncle, from whom he has “expectations.”
Mrs. Kenwigs, wife of the above, considered “quite a lady,” as she has an uncle who collects the water-rates, and sends her daughter Morleena to a day school.
The Misses Kenwigs, pupils of Nicholas Nickleby, remarkable for wearing their hair in long braided tails down their backs, the ends being tied with bright ribbons.—C. Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby (1838).