The Greatest Knight

by Thomas Asbridge

  In that aim, William Marshal succeeded. Against all the odds, the ‘guardian of the realm’ had quelled the baronial rebellion and thwarted the most threatening invasion of England since 1066. To contemporaries, the swift defeat of the French seemed to be nothing less than ‘a miracle’. Marshal had made the hardest of choices after John’s death, endangering the fortunes of his dynasty and supporters, by backing the forlorn boy-king, Henry III. But in steering the royalists to victory in 1217, Earl William had secured Henry’s right to rule and saved the kingdom.

  EPILOGUE

  William Marshal was afforded little time to savour the victories of 1217. With Louis of France’s departure, the immediate threat of Capetian aggression was at an end, but the huge challenge of restoring England to a state of peace and order remained. The kingdom had been ravaged by years of baronial insurrection. Crown authority had collapsed, and the Royal Exchequer, the main organ of financial administration, had not sat since 1214. The Welsh and the Scots had also capitalised upon the English civil war and French invasion by clawing back lost territory. Stabilising the kingdom would have been a monumental task even for a vigorous adult monarch, yet Henry III remained a minor, and his ‘guardian’, Earl William, was entering his seventies.

  WILLIAM MARSHAL AS ‘REGENT’

  Marshal held the office of ‘guardian of the realm’ – serving to all intents and purposes as Henry III’s regent – for another nineteen months, dedicating himself to the unforgiving and unglamorous business of governance, striving all the while to secure the best possible future for his young king’s regime. The ills of the realm were not cured at a stroke – Marshal was no magician. But given the staggering scale of the problems faced, and his own advanced age and limited previous experience of wielding executive power, the progress made was remarkable. Belying his years, William set to work with enormous energy. Much of his time was spent in London and West minster, but he also moved between Striguil and one of his favoured manor houses at Caversham, on the banks of the River Thames, across from Reading.

  As the elder statesmen of the realm, Marshal proved to be an effective figurehead – his peerless reputation as a paragon of chivalry helping to legitimise the ‘regency’ government. It also enabled him to arbitrate in disputes over land (which were legion), and to oversee the restitution of hostages and payment of ransoms. There was no scent of overbearing tyranny, and only the barest hint of partisan self-service, to Earl William’s rule. He shared authority with Guala of Bicchieri until the late autumn of 1218, when the papal legate returned to Rome (complaining of exhaustion) and was replaced by Pandulf, who had recently held the office of papal chamberlain. Peter des Roches, the bishop of Winchester, and Hubert of Burgh also played leading roles in the administration. Through the collaborative efforts of these men and others, William’s term of office witnessed a gradual restoration of the systems of royal justice and crown finance. A new version of Magna Carta was issued on 6 November 1217, under the seal of the papal legate and William Marshal (who, in spite of his status as regent, continued to employ the same diminutive die he had used as a knight). The document had been further reworked to restore some aspects of royal authority, but it still contained critical clauses dealing with rights to justice, fair trial and freedom from tyranny.

  Earl William enjoyed some success restoring England’s borders in the north, as the Scots agreed to return the lands they had seized during the baronial uprising. The native Welsh were another matter. Wales continued to be beset by insurrection, with Llewellyn ap Iorwerth in resurgent mood, and Marshal’s neighbours on the southern Welsh March in Caerleon going on the rampage. Significant losses were sustained across the province, including the fall of Carmarthen and Cardigan in west Wales. The entire region would remain a troublesome thorn in the side of the English monarchy for much of the thirteenth century.

  Earl William did show some favour to the members of his dynasty and household in the course of his regency, but his actions were generally restrained and far from predatory. Young William Marshal was granted rights to Marlborough Castle – the fortress he had sought during the rebellion – and a valuable slice of the profits from royal exchanges (in centres such as London, Winchester and York). John Marshal was given oversight of the royal forests throughout the realm, while John of Earley and Jordan of Sauqueville received handsome rewards of land. The earl also appointed his long-standing advisor, Master Michael of London, as royal procurator (or legal representative) in the papal court in Rome. William took relatively little for himself, save the custody of Gloucester Castle and the right of free passage for ships to New Ross in Leinster.

  Marshal’s resignation from office

  By the start of 1219, William had done what he could to consolidate King Henry III’s position, rebuilding the crown’s relationship with the aristocracy and resurrecting the framework of government. But the incessant demands of office eventually took their toll. In January of that year, he travelled from Marlborough to Westminster, but fell ill on his arrival. Marshal had always been extraordinarily healthy throughout his long life, but according to the biographer, he was ‘plagued by illness and pain’ in the weeks that followed, and it gradually became clear that, after some seventy-two years, his body was finally failing him.

  The earl was joined by his wife, Lady Isabel, and a number of doctors sought to minister to him, but with little effect. On 7 March, he was able to ride to the Tower of London, but was said to be ‘suffering much pain and discomfort’, and by the middle of that month he recognised that his end was approaching. William decided to leave London, for ‘if death was to be his lot’, the History noted, ‘he preferred to die at home [rather] than elsewhere’. Young William Marshal and John of Earley made the necessary arrangements, and Isabel and the earl were taken up the Thames in a pair of boats, travelling at a measured pace, to reach the manor house at Caversham on 20 March. Marshal seems to have yearned for the clean air of the countryside and a calm space where he could be surrounded by his family and closest retainers. The estate also boasted its own chapel, presided over by Augustinian monks from Notley (in Buckinghamshire), who could tend to the earl’s spiritual well-being. Yet first, he needed to free himself from the responsibilities of office.

  William continued to manage the affairs of state from his bed for a number of weeks, while King Henry III took up residence across the river at Reading, along with Peter des Roches. But the earl was wracked by intense pain and had no appetite for food, so he took the final steps to relinquish his authority as regent. On 8 April 1219, the eleven-year-old monarch and his leading counsellors all crowded into Marshal’s bedchamber to begin two days of debate. Peter des Roches sought to press his own claim to the regency, arguing that he had been appointed as a form of guardian in October 1217, but William’s mind was still sharp enough to see through this ruse. Des Roche had been a competent ally, but William seems to have distrusted his insatiable ambition and doubted that he could command the loyalty of the barons. As a result, Marshal placed Henry III into the care of the papal legate, Pandulf, and even took the precautionary step of sending his son, Young William, to watch the public proclamation of this act so that des Roche could not intervene.

  Before the meeting broke up, Earl William called the young king to his bedside. According to the History, Marshal offered one last piece of advice to the monarch whose cause he had done so much to champion. William spoke of his hopes that Henry would ‘grow up to be a worthy man’, but he also issued a stark warning. If the king were to follow ‘in the footsteps of some wicked ancestor’ then Marshal prayed that God ‘does not give you long life’. There was no more that William could do, but hope that young Henry would not repeat the sins of his father. With that, power passed from Marshal’s hands, and he was said to have felt that he had been ‘delivered of a great burden’.

  THE LAST DAYS

  Over the course of the next month, William Marshal’s life slowly ebbed away, until his days finally came to an end. This famed knig
ht – the veteran of so much war and turmoil – was granted a peaceful death, secure in the comforts of his Caversham manor. His wife, Isabel, was present throughout, as was his son, Young William. The earl’s daughters arrived, and the youngest of them sang to him, bringing gentle comfort through his hours of pain. The leading members of Marshal’s retinue also gathered at Caversham, John of Earley chief among them. Their enduring fidelity through these last days laid bare the deep sense of affection and loyalty that they felt for their great lord. They stood in constant vigil over the earl, with never less than three knights in attendance, while Young William insisted on staying by his side through the dark hours of the night. In this way, Marshal was loved and honoured to the last.

  The kings that William served had all suffered tortured, or sudden, deaths. Young Henry’s final, agonising days had been passed as a rebellious son, denied succour by his father. Old King Henry himself had been hounded to his grave, while the Lionheart fell to a tragically wasteful wound and John met his end as a reviled figure of hate. Earl William was not spared the pain of death – the debilitating disease that snatched away his strength, left him often in agony, and he was barely able to consume food in his last twenty days. But he was afforded the time to prepare for his demise. The History recorded an intensely detailed account of these last weeks, describing how Marshal sought to set his affairs in order, and it is perhaps these closing sections of the biography that offer the clearest picture of the inner man, as we learn what mattered most to William in his dying days.

  The care of Marshal’s dynasty and men

  The future of the Marshal dynasty weighed heavily on William’s mind. His last will and testament was prepared with the utmost care, so as to ensure the preservation of his legacy. As a younger son, William had inherited nothing from his own father, but over seven decades Marshal had amassed an extraordinary assortment of lands and honours. At a personal level, this was perhaps the greatest achievement of his life. He had lifted his family’s name to unimagined heights and was now determined that these efforts should not be wasted. All of the provisions of his will were recorded by William’s personal almoner, Geoffrey the Templar. John of Earley was named as one of Marshal’s executors, and the written terms were formally confirmed by Pandulf, the papal legate, and Stephen Langton, archbishop of Canterbury. Nothing was to be left to chance. The first thought, of course, was given to Isabel. She would retain rights to all of the lands he had gained through her hand in marriage thirty years earlier until the time of her own death, after which point the territories would be divided according to Earl William’s wishes.

  Young William was to receive the core estates of the Marshal dynasty – the lordships of Striguil, Pembroke and Leinster – as well as the lands held by the Marshal family elsewhere in England, including Hamstead Marshall. As second son, Richard Marshal was granted Longueville in Normandy, but instead of confining his holdings to France, William also allotted him the Buckingham shire manor of Crendon. Gilbert Marshal was destined for a career in the Church and thus received no estates, but the earl’s fourth son, Walter, was promised custody of Goodrich Castle, on the Welsh March. The earl’s initial instinct was to leave nothing to his youngest son, Ancel, who was still but a child. Not, it would seem, for lack of love, for Marshal was said to have declared that ‘[he] is very dear to me’, but because William believed Ancel should make his own way in the world, as he himself had done – finding ‘someone who will love and honour him greatly’. Yet, in the end, John of Earley intervened on the boy’s behalf, and he was apportioned Irish land worth £140. Four of Earl William’s daughters were already married, but he granted a small income to the fifth, Joan, in anticipation that she would soon be wed.

  With the safety of his family secured, Marshal’s mind turned to the well-being of his knights. He had spent the first forty years of his own life in service, and cherished the intimate bonds of friendship and trust forged with the members of his own mesnie. Most of William’s closest retainers had already been well rewarded with lands and offices, but the obligation to provide for his warriors remained a pressing concern. In these final weeks, one of Marshal’s clerks suggested that the store of eighty fine, fur-trimmed scarlet robes held in the manor house might be sold off. He apparently told the earl that the money raised could be used ‘to deliver you from your sins’, but William was appalled by this suggestion. ‘Hold your tongue you wretch,’ he reputedly countered, ‘I have had enough of your advice.’ Marshal’s firmly held view was that these robes should be distributed to his men, as a last token of his duty to provide for their needs, and he bid John of Earley to commend him to all the household knights to whom he had been unable to speak in person. Beyond the inner circle of his family, the mesnie had been the cradle of William’s life – a priceless sanctuary – and it remained so to the very end.

  The fate of William’s soul

  As Marshal’s time drew to a close, thoughts of the afterlife and the judgement of souls spoken of by the Church began to press in upon his mind. With death approaching, he was said to have declared: ‘[I must] take great thought for the salvation of my soul, for my body is now in peril.’ Earl William revealed that he had prepared carefully for this moment decades earlier. The ever-faithful John of Earley was sent on a special mission to the southern March. William told him to bring ‘the two lengths of silk cloth which I gave to Stephen [of Évreux] to look after [and] make haste to return here’. Earley duly performed this task, and the History detailed the intimate scene that played out upon his return.

  The long-hidden silks were presented, but at first one of the earl’s knights seemed unimpressed, saying: ‘I find them a little faded, unless my eyesight is blurred.’ William ordered the cloths unfolded. Perhaps in that moment he wondered if his memory of this treasured fabric had been at fault. But once they were laid out, Marshal was relieved to see that ‘they looked very fine and valuable’ and were obviously ‘choice cloth of good workmanship’. The earl called in his son and then explained: ‘I have had these lengths of cloth for thirty years; I had them brought back with me from the Holy Land [so that they might] be draped over my body when I am laid in the earth.’ William then charged Earley with performing this task and even instructed him to use coarse cloth to protect the silk in case of bad weather, so that it would not become ‘damaged or dirtied’. This was how Marshal had long envisaged the honouring of his corpse, and he was determined that this ritualised union with a relic of sacred Jerusalem be performed to the letter.

  Towards the middle of May, a messenger arrived at Caversham bearing the news that the papal legate, Pandulf, had granted Marshal a special reward. He was told that the ‘legate absolves you of all the sins you have committed in your lifetime and which you have truly confessed’, and as the History pointedly observed, William wisely made sure to offer confession throughout this period. The earl also made additional donations to religious houses in his last days and was said to have asked that alms be given to the needy, and food, drink and clothing be set aside for ‘one hundred of the poor’ after his death.

  When viewed from a distance, these elaborate preparations might seem to suggest that Marshal was fanatically obsessed with the fate of his soul – or, at least, that the biographer wished to present him as such. But in truth, William was merely following the established customs of his day; taking due precautions for what all Western Christians then believed would be the moment of ultimate judgement before their God. One further incident, reported by the History, seems to reveal that, as a knight, Marshal held a distinct view of Christian doctrine and his own spiritual well-being. While confined to his bed, William apparently struck up a conversation with some of his household knights. One of them recalled that he had heard clergymen claim that ‘no man will find salvation on any account if he does not return what he has taken’, and thus wondered if the earl intended to renounce all his worldly goods.

  Marshal’s fascinating response, as described by the biographer, is worth quoting
in full, for even if it was not a precise record of his words, it offers a unique insight into the knightly mindset – exposing the ways in which medieval warriors sought to reconcile the essential needs of their profession with the teachings of the Latin Church. This, then, was Earl William’s reported reply:

  ‘Churchmen are too hard on us, shaving us too closely. If, simply because I’ve taken 500 knights and kept their arms, horses and all their equipment, the kingdom of heaven is closed in my face, then there is no way for me to enter in, for I am unable to return these things. I believe I can do no more as regards God but surrender myself up to him as a penitent for all the sins I have committed and all the wrongs I have done. They might well wish to push me, but they can push me no further; either their argument is false on this score or no man can find salvation.’

  Death and burial

  In William Marshal’s last days ‘he was unable to eat or drink’, and though his servants tried to feed him with mushrooms, and a few crumbs of white bread, ‘his heart became weak and his natural functions stopped’. Around this time, the earl divulged his secret agreement with the Templars. Back in the 1180s, he had decided to enter the ranks of that Order before his death and wished to receive a burial at the brethren’s hands. In return for this service, he would be leaving the Templars a ‘fine manor in Upleadon to enjoy in perpetuity’. In William’s mind, induction into this esteemed knightly Order must have seemed a fitting end to a warrior’s life. His friend Aimery of St Maur, the master of the Templars in England, travelled to Caversham to perform the rite in person. One year earlier, Marshal had issued instructions for a special white Templar robe, emblazoned with a red cross, to be prepared ‘without anyone knowing of its existence’. The garment was now produced, but William then called for Isabel to come to his room. The biographer described how: