WILLIAM MARSHAL --- some personal reflections
We have now entered the Anniversary Year of the
sealing of the first Magna Carta and the great day is
only five months away! Predictably there has been a
flurry of enthusiastic media comment about it being
the “Cornerstone of Democracy”, with two new
books being published. The BBC talks on Magna
Carta by Melvyn Bragg were excellent, though it was
a pity that William Marshal’s key role in the
reissuing of the Charter in 1216 and 1217, when he
was Regent of England, was not specified. Some of
the media comments, however, have strayed into
sensational speculation such as the claim that the
Charter guarantees Scotland’s independence or that
Magna Carta should be used to determine the rights
for MI5 and MI6 to tap telephones! We must expect
more of this as the popular press gets interested in the
subject and, no doubt, there will be a backlash of
critical comment as the hype goes over the top.
I intend to use these last few articles before June to
bring out some aspects relating to William Marshal
senior and his family which I have only touched on
so far and which have intrigued me personally.
Generally I am amazed by what I still do not know
about him. He played a major role in the
strengthening of several castles in South Wales. The
guide book for Goodrich Castle, near Ross on Wye,
tells of him being among the greatest castle builders
of the age and devotes two pages to him and his
family. Wikipedia shows what he did for Pembroke
and Chepstow Castles – I have not looked at the 11
other castles which at one time or another he
controlled in England, Wales and Normandy, but it is
obvious that his military knowhow would have been
used to update them. Then there is his role in Ireland
where he was, through courtesy of his wife’s
inheritance, Lord of Leinster, a quarter of the island,
at an awkward time when the Normans were still
hated and his overlord, King John, was antagonistic
to his position there. His land in Ireland contained no
less than another 11 castles, though some may have
been rudimentary. I was surprised to find from an
Irish lady, whom I met on holiday, that she had spent
a lot of her school time studying Guilliame de
Mareschal. My attempts to follow this up on the
internet did not bear fruit.
Much of a booklet on The Temple Church in London
and Magna Carta relates to William showing his
importance to the Knight’s Templar. What did he do
in Jerusalem in 1185-7? He was not the kind of
person to sit around and do nothing. What was he
doing founding an abbey in Cumbria far away from
his other possessions and, more locally, how did his
known friendship with Edward, Abbot of Notley
Abbey, develop and affect his life? King John had
given him the pastoral staff at Notley, an office that
was passed onto his sons. We, or at least I, know
little about his life in Normandy in 1190-9. Yet
Longueville was said to be his favourite home where
he and Isabel brought up their young family. It was
said to be the plum manor that he got out of the
Giffard estate. And what made Caversham, another
Giffard manor, one of his favourite residences which
he chose for his deathbed?
Besides showing that I have got a lot to learn, these
omissions show what a great man he had become. I
hope to look further into his career in a later article.
There are two particular aspects of the Marshals that
have intrigued me. Firstly, that such an obviously fit
man could father late in life five sons and five
daughters, with the daughters producing 29 children
from 7 marriages, but the sons collectively being
childless from their 6 marriages. The failure of the
male line had, of course, a profound effect on Long
Crendon. Our history would have been very different
if we had not been divided up. One recalls the curse
of the Irish Bishop whom William had antagonised.
Maybe there was a genetic reason, but the practice of
marrying more for family aggrandisement than for
love, with betrothal and marriage at very young ages,
could not have helped the Marshal boys to have
children. William junior’s first wife died young after
only two years of marriage. His second wife, King
John’s sister, was only nine years old at marriage and
barely 16 when William died. Richard went the other
way marrying a much older woman who had already
been married twice, the first time 25 years
previously. Less is known about the wives of the
other three brothers, but Gilbert’s marriage to the
youngest daughter of the King of Scotland, Walter’s
marriage to a widow of the de Lacy family and
Anselm’s to a member of the de Bohun family all
suggest that they were made for political reasons.
Secondly I was surprised to find that the title of Earl
Marshal held by the current Duke of Norfolk directly
stems from “our” Marshal family. The title is
hereditary and passed from William’s grandfather,
Gilbert the marshal of the royal household. As often
happened in those days a person’s title or trade
became their surname. The title had become an
honorary one by the time William inherited it from
his brother, but still conferred considerable status.
When the male Marshal line died out in 1245, it
immediately passed to the eldest son of William’s
eldest daughter, Maud, who had married Hugh
Bigod, Earl of Norfolk. It has remained with that
family to this day. Seemingly the Marshal Earls of
Pembroke were generally referred to as Earls Marshal
and this title transferred to the Norfolk family.