William Marshal
William Marshal was a busy boy! - that is probably because there were two. Both were Earl's of Pembroke.
The effigies of William Marshal that can be seen in Temple church, Lincolns Inn, and that of Geofrey de Mandeville
must have some significance.
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The title: Earl of Pembroke
In my history of the region my interest in this Earldom relates primarily to the 2nd and 3rd creations, the de Clares
and the Marchals.
Wikipedia:
Earl of Pembroke is a title in the Peerage of England that was first created in the 12th century by King Stephen of England.
The title, which is associated with Pembroke, Pembrokeshire in West Wales, has been recreated ten times from its original inception.
1st Earl of Pembroke
William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke (1146 or 1147 – 14 May 1219), also called William the Marshal
(Norman French: Williame li Mareschal,[1] French: Guillaume le Maréchal), was an Anglo-Norman soldier
and statesman during High Medieval England[2] who served five English kings: Henry II
and his son and co-ruler Young Henry, Richard I, John, and finally Henry III.
2nd Earl of Pembroke
William Marshal, 2nd Earl of Pembroke (French: Guillaume le Maréchal) (1190 – 6 April 1231)
was a medieval English nobleman and was one of the sureties of Magna Carta. He fought during the First Barons' War and
was present at the Battle of Lincoln (1217) alongside his father William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke, who led the
English troops in that battle. He commissioned the first biography of a medieval knight to be written,
called L'Histoire de Guillaume le Mareschal, in honour of his father.
Later creations such as 4th, Hastings - 5th, Lancaster (1414) - 6th, del la Pole (
The knights and lawyers of the round church
Effigies of William Marshal can be seen in the Temple Church, Lincoln's Inn, London.
The post on London on the Ground says:
King John based himself in the Temple in the period leading up to the Magna Carta in 1215. The king issued preliminary charters from here in an attempt to satisfy barons opposing him, but a group of them demanded that he acknowledge allegiance to a full charter of rights as a check on royal power.
Three men closely associated with those events were buried in the Round Church: William Marshal I, his son William Marshal II and the Master of the Temple, Brother Aymeric.
William Marshal was a negotiator between King John and the barons at a meeting in the Temple in January 1215, a precursor to the signing of Magna Carta at Runnymede in June that year. His eldest son, also William, was one of the Magna Carta sureties, a council of 25 barons created to monitor the king's observance of the terms of the charter. Aymeric was a close associate of the Marshals and the leading Templar at a time when much of the lead-up to Magna Carta took place at the Temple.
Stone effigies of the Marshals still lie in the Round Church, alongside effigies of other knights. The earliest person represented in effigy was Geoffrey de Mandeville, who died in 1144.
William Marshal
The London on the Ground describes William Marshal.
William Marshal I, Earl Of Pembroke, was described by the Archbishop of Canterbury of the day, Stephen Langton, as "the best knight that ever lived". William claimed to have overcome more than 500 knights in tournaments as a young man. He became Earl of Pembroke through his marriage to Isabel de Clare, inheriting her father's lands in England, Wales, Normandy and Ireland. The marriage was sanctioned by King Richard I as a reward for William Marshal's royal service.
After John's death in 1216, William Marshal became regent for the infant King Henry III, ruling the country on his behalf. As regent he reissued Magna Carta in 1216 and 1217, ensuring its survival. Henry III secured its future by re-issuing the charter once more in 1225.
William Marshal joined the Knights Templar on his deathbed in 1219, aged 72, thereby keeping a commitment made while on a crusade in the Holy Land in the 1180s.
