The Greatest Knight

by Thomas Asbridge

  In the eyes of all those present, indeed in all of Christendom, Richard the Lionheart had been transformed from a mere man, into a divinely ordained king. He walked in state from the abbey to begin his new life as monarch of England, just five days short of his thirty-second birthday. The afternoon and evening were given over to glorious celebration. Richard quickly changed out of his heavy robes and massive crown, donning lighter dress and a simpler diadem to attend a long and luxurious feast. Royal accounts show that no fewer than 1,770 pitchers and 5,050 plates were bought for this occasion.*

  King Richard I now had one overriding priority. He was determined to sail to the Holy Land and wage war against Saladin in the Third Crusade. Like thousands of warriors across Europe, the Lionheart had taken the cross, answering the pope’s impassioned call to arms. The rumbling conflict with the Capetians and the power struggle with his father had both caused long delays, but from this point onwards the Lionheart focused his own energies, and the considerable resources of England and the Angevin realm, upon the crusade. It would still be the best part of a year before the Angevin and Capetian armies began their journey, but there was a new sense of urgent purpose to the preparations.

  Many of Richard’s leading knights joined him on the expedition, including Baldwin of Béthune and Andrew of Chauvigny. But William Marshal, one of the greatest warriors of his generation, did not. There is no certain explanation for this apparent anomaly. William had, of course, already made one crusade to the East, but that was also true of men like Philip, count of Flanders and Duke Hugh of Burgundy, yet they set out on the Third Crusade nonetheless. King Richard certainly had a different role in mind for Marshal, but it may be that his decision to leave William behind was also shaped by an element of pride and jealousy. The Lionheart gloried in war and carefully cultivated his own martial reputation. The battle for Jerusalem promised to be the ultimate proving ground of prowess – the arena in which a legend might be forged – so perhaps the prospect of Marshal’s participation as a potential rival for renown proved unattractive. It is certainly the case that Richard developed a deep loathing for another Third Crusader and distinguished tournament champion, William des Barres. The pair had already clashed during the Angevin-Capetian war of 1188, since des Barres had joined Philip Augustus’ military retinue. In early 1191, when the crusading fleet was moored in Sicily, they met once again in single combat, during a hastily organised joust. When the Lionheart proved unable to unhorse William, he became consumed by rage, ‘uttered threats against him’ and banished des Barres from his sight. For all his regal bearing, Richard was not a man who liked to be bested.

  The History hinted at the fact that Marshal’s failure to participate in the Third Crusade had been the cause of comment, even a degree of shame. The biographer pointedly observed that William did not take the cross because he ‘had already made the journey to the Holy Land to seek God’s mercy . . . well acquitting himself of his mission’, and added, somewhat elliptically, that: ‘Whatever anyone else might tell you, that is how matters were arranged.’ Other men were mocked for not joining the holy war, even accused of cowardice and a reluctance to fight. In some circles it became common to humiliate non-crusaders by giving them ‘wool and distaff’, the tools for spinning, to suggest that they were fit only for women’s work – a distant precursor to the white feather.

  William Marshal would be remaining in England while many of his peers sought fame and distinction in the East, but he would not be idle. Richard’s commitment to the holy war meant that the new king would be absent from the realm for many months, perhaps even years. Having fought to win the Angevin realm, the Lionheart was hardly willing to abandon it to its fate. Two overwhelming threats loomed large in his calculations that autumn. With their temporary rapprochement over, it was obvious that King Philip of France would seize upon any opportunity to snatch Angevin territory. For this reason, the two kings would be setting out for Palestine together.

  Richard found the prospect of leaving his younger brother John behind in Europe equally troubling. John was now in his early twenties. His life had been spent in the long shadow of greater kin: from his overbearing father Henry II, to his dashing, chivalrous brother, Young Henry; and, perhaps above all, the Lionheart himself, the fearless warrior. John had a proven appetite for power, but lacked the martial genius, charm and judgement of his siblings. With the Old King’s encouragement, he had already made one attempt to steal Richard’s lands, invading Aquitaine in 1184, while William Marshal was in the Holy Land. Famously known to contemporaries as ‘Lackland’, because he had received no portion of territory in Henry II’s grand settlement of 1169, John had finally been allocated the province of Ireland in 1177 – a region partially subdued by Henry II after Thomas Becket’s murder. John led a campaign to Ireland in 1185, but achieved little of worth. He had also betrayed the Old King in his dying days.

  Richard thus faced an intractable dilemma. As yet, he remained unmarried and childless. This made John – the only other adult male in the family – an obvious choice as his successor. Their late brother Geoffrey of Brittany’s son, Arthur, possessed a strong claim to the crown through birth, but he was just two years old. John might be ineffectual and untrustworthy, but he was still the only man alive who stood a chance of holding the Angevin realm in one piece, should Richard fail to return from the Levant. The Lionheart was about to embark on the greatest war of the century; there was a very real possibility that he might meet his death in this titanic conflict. The inherent danger of the expedition also meant that he could not risk bringing John on a crusade. In dynastic terms, to do so would be pure folly; and yet the prospect of leaving his brother behind, to scheme and plot in his absence, made Richard seethe with anxiety.

  The new king constructed the best solution he could. Rather than follow Henry II’s example, by thwarting John’s ambitions for land – potentially igniting his hostility – the Lionheart provided him with ample territory. John’s possession of the county of Mortain, in southwestern Normandy, was confirmed. He was also endowed with a significant concentration of lands in west and south-west England. Some of this came through marriage to another wealthy heiress, Isabella of Gloucester, who held title to major castles in Bristol and Gloucester itself, and the Marcher lordships of Glamorgan and Newport. John was also given control of the crown fortresses at Marl borough and Ludgershall, and later the counties of Devon, Cornwall, Dorset and Somerset. In England alone, he was set to earn £4,000 per year. In spite of this generosity, Richard’s underlying suspicion was laid bare when he required John to swear he would not set foot in England for three years (though this provision was soon broken).

  The king hoped to sate John’s hunger, but he also resolved to keep him on a tight leash. The kingdom of England would be left in the hands of Richard’s most trusted and able supporters – the guardians of his realm and reign – one of whom would be William Marshal. Queen Eleanor would oversee the interests of England and, in a broader sense, the Angevin Empire as a whole. Within the kingdom itself, royal power would be wielded, as was customary, by the justiciar of England, though the previous incumbent, Ranulf Glanville, was replaced by William Longchamp, Richard’s brusque, Norman-born chancellor. Longchamp was imbued with an extraordinary array of powers and offices, being also appointed as bishop of Ely, keeper of the royal seal and guardian of the Tower of London. But his position was buttressed and balanced by the creation of four ‘co-justiciars’. In this way, not all power would reside in the hands of just one man; instead, the governance of the realm would be managed and supervised by a small inner circle of magnates. William Marshal was appointed as one of these co-justiciars – a heavy burden, given that he had no real experience of administration. His ally from Henry II’s court, Geoffrey FitzPeter, was also chosen, alongside William Brewer and later Hugh Bardolf (both administrators and former servants of the Old King). As a clerk, Geoffrey had no experience of war, but a proven gift for bureaucracy. Having been allotted the hand in marri
age of a Mandeville heiress, Beatrice, in around 1185, Geoffrey’s fortunes rose considerably with the death of the great baron, William Mandeville, earl of Essex, in December 1189. Through his wife’s claim, FitzPeter inherited lands across a large swathe of eastern and south-eastern England, in counties such as Essex, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire – like his friend William Marshal, Geoffrey thus became a leading magnate.

  Through the first half of 1190, Marshal and his fellow justiciars helped to oversee King Richard’s furious preparations for the Third Crusade. This would be the most efficiently organised expedition to the Holy Land ever launched, underpinned by a massively complex logistical operation and financed in large part by a swingeing tax, known as the Saladin Tithe. By that summer, the Lionheart and his rival, King Philip Augustus of France, were ready to begin their grand campaign. Marshal crossed to the Continent to see the great crusading armies assemble at Vézelay in Burgundy, and bid farewell to his king on 4 July. Richard later set sail from Marseille, his avowed goal to wrestle the Holy City of Jerusalem from the hands of the mighty Muslim sultan, Saladin. It would fall to William Marshal to ensure that the Lionheart still had a kingdom to rule on his return.

  THE LORD OF STRIGUIL

  In 1190, William Marshal began his new life as lord of Striguil – a powerful baron of the English realm. The tournament champion and household knight had become a major landholder, endowed with wealth and prospects. That year, his new wife Isabel gave birth to their first child, a boy, named for his father – ‘Young’ William. Marshal had realised the ultimate aspiration of the twelfth-century knightly class. Born a younger son of limited expectations, his skill-at-arms, determined ambition and steadfast loyalty had lifted him from the warrior ranks. Alongside Isabel, he now had a lordship of his own and a real chance to found an enduring dynasty – to leave his mark on the medieval world.

  Though contemporaries did occasionally afford him the title, William had not yet formally earned the right to be named earl. In fact, the earldom of Pembroke in west Wales, to which Isabel retained a claim, had been in crown hands since the 1150s. Nonetheless, as Marshal took up his seat on the Welsh March he could be more than proud of the lands in his possession. Along with more established Marcher lords – such as the earls of Chester to the north and the Briouze family in Herefordshire – William was now a major figure in the region. The centrepiece of his lordship was an expanse of fertile land in lower Gwent, west of the great Severn Estuary, that brought both possession of stone castles at Striguil and Usk, and farming income from the wool trade. King Richard had also sold William rights to the lucrative office of sheriff of Gloucester. This gave Marshal temporary control of Gloucester Castle and the verdant Forest of Dean, and a notable concentration of power and influence in the southern borderlands.

  This was, and still is, one of the most stunningly beautiful corners of the British Isles – a green land of rolling hills and open skies. The tranquil River Wye meandered through William’s territory until it eventually emptied into the Severn, and some five miles upstream on the Wye’s west bank, lay the secluded monastery of Tintern, founded by one of Isabel’s ancestors in 1131. Tintern was the first house established in Wales by the great monastic superpower of the twelfth century, the Cistercian Order. Such was the austere asceticism of these holy brethren that they were not even permitted to dye the wool of their habits, and so were known to contemporaries as the White Monks. William and Isabel became patrons of Tintern, forging a close association with the abbey.

  Throughout this period, Marshal’s main residence was the majestic stone castle of Striguil, perched on a rocky bluff above the western banks of the River Wye, a little more than a mile from its confluence with the Severn. This fortress still stands relatively intact today, though it was much enlarged and improved in later centuries. It is one of the few places where one can still touch the fabric of William’s world. When Marshal arrived, the stronghold consisted of a rectangular stone keep, or Great Tower, probably surrounded by a timber palisade. Work to improve and enlarge the castle began almost immediately, in either late 1189 or early 1190, with the construction of a formidable, double-towered stone gatehouse, 110 yards downslope from the keep. This technologically advanced entryway boasted two portcullises and a massive ironclad oak gate (dated through dendrochronology to 1189). Remarkably, this twelfth-century gate remained in place until 1964, when it was replaced with a replica, but the original can still be seen hanging in the castle’s small hall porch. In later years, William added an inner wall (between the keep and gatehouse), with a pair of three-storey towers, and probably established the stone-built perimeter curtain-wall, creating a truly impressive fortification.*

  William Marshal’s household

  After 1189, William Marshal was in a position to assemble a full-scale baronial household of his own. He had spent his life in service to others, but now at Striguil, he himself could truly become a ‘father of knights’. Using the evidence preserved in the History of William Marshal alongside additional documents, it is possible to piece together a richly detailed picture of the warriors who entered William’s military retinue and the clerks who helped to administer his lands. This offers a rare and illuminating insight into the inner workings of an aristocratic household, and gives us a glimpse of the men who would surround Marshal in the years to come, helping him to survive the rigours of war and the intrigues of court politics. For close to three decades, William had known the life of the retainer, serving no less than five patrons, fulfilling the roles of warrior, counsellor and confidant. As a lord, it was now Marshal who sought out the essential support and allegiance that only the loyal members of his mesnie could provide. Some of those who joined William’s ranks would remain with him to the very end of his days, others would come and go, and a few would betray his trust.

  Marshal also had to shoulder the financial burden of patronage – feeding, clothing and arming his knights – while cultivating the bonds of trust and interdependence within his household through social conventions such as feasting and the semi-ritualised bestowal of the kiss of peace to his followers. As the historian David Crouch observed, a man of William’s standing also had to assume two distinct personas: becoming ‘a great oak to his men, spreading his sheltering branches over them’ in his paternal guise; but presenting a far sterner face to the outside world, such that his reputation inspired ‘such terror that the fear of him keeps . . . the men under his protection’ safe from the predations of rivals. Much of Marshal’s behaviour through the rest of his career would be coloured by these obligations and expectations.

  Four established members of the Marshal household followed William to Striguil. John of Earley, his ward and squire, was soon to enter his twenties and would be knighted, probably by Marshal’s own hand. The servant Eustace Bertrimont, and the young Wiltshire knights William Waleran and Geoffrey FitzRobert can also be placed in the Marshal entourage, with the latter being married to Isabel of Clare’s illegitimate half-sister, Basilia, who had already been twice wed and widowed, and was fast approaching her forties.

  Some of the significant knights drawn into William’s circle were local potentates in their own right, with family connections to the Clare dynasty. The most prominent of these was Ralph Bloet (whose brother had married Isabel’s aunt), the guardian of Striguil castle until 1189. When Marshal took possession of his lordship, Ralph lost control of this fortress, though he retained his own English lands in Wiltshire and Hampshire. He also enjoyed significant influence in the Marches through his marriage to the Welsh noblewoman Nest Bloet (King Henry II’s former lover), a member of the ‘royal’ dynasty of Caerleon. Ralph was probably younger than William Marshal, but of a similar generation, having fought in Ireland alongside Strong bow in 1171; his local knowledge and connections were clear assets, so it is likely that William courted his services. William was also joined by Philip of Prendergast, a knight of Irish and Welsh ancestry, who had married Basilia’s daughter, Maud, more than a decade earlier.
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br />   Other household knights had no direct link to Striguil or the West Country, but seem to have forged a connection with Marshal during his career. Roger d’Aubernon was the son of Engelrand of Stoke d’Aubernon, lord of the peaceful Surrey manor where Marshal and Isabel had spent their ‘honeymoon’. Alan of St-Georges hailed from the Rother valley in Sussex, at the foot of the South Downs. He may have come to William’s notice through the Marshal family’s connection to Sussex and the nearby coastal village of Bosham. In all, William Marshal appears to have maintained a core group of between fifteen and twenty knights in his retinue. Between eight and ten of these would have accompanied him at any one time, while others rotated through key postings, holding lands and offices in Marshal’s name. The West Country knight, Nicholas Avenel, for example, took the position of under-sheriff in Gloucester in William’s stead.