8
Richard the Lionheart arrived at Fontevraud around 10 July 1189. As he entered the great abbey church and saw the body of his father, his face was said to have been an emotionless mask, such that ‘nobody could say if he felt joy or sadness in his heart’. He stood impassive for long minutes, staring down at the man who had been his mentor, ally, monarch and enemy. In a very real sense, Richard had hounded the Old King to his death. With his eyes focused solely upon the dogged pursuit of power, the Lionheart had betrayed his family, sided with the Angevins’ avowed foe and waged open war upon his kin. Now all his cherished ambitions had been fulfilled and Henry’s corpse lay cold and lifeless before him. It was perhaps in these moments of quiet reflection that the full burden of kingship settled on his shoulders, as he felt the weight of all that he had done, and began to glimpse the trials that lay ahead.
At last, Richard turned from the body and ‘asked for the Marshal to come to him immediately’. With only the Old King’s chancellor, Maurice Craon in tow, the two men rode out into the verdant countryside surrounding Fontevraud. The History preserved a dramatic record of this tense encounter. After a long pause, Richard finally broke the silence, apparently saying: ‘Marshal, the other day you intended to kill me, and you would have, without a doubt, if I hadn’t deflected your lance with my arm.’ This was a dangerous moment. Should William accept this comment, he would allow the Lionheart to save face, yet at the same time admit to having sought his death. According to the History at least, he chose the harder path, replying: ‘It was never my intention to kill you . . . I am still strong enough to direct my lance [and] if I had wanted to, I could have driven it straight through your body, just as I did that horse of yours.’ Richard might have taken mortal offence at this blunt contradiction. Instead, he was said to have declared: ‘Marshal, you are forgiven, I shall never be angry with you over that matter.’
The Lionheart may have been testing or toying with William during this meeting, but it is likely that he had decided how to deal with Marshal even before he arrived at Fontevraud. Richard would soon be crowned king. He had a fragile realm to defend and a crusade in the Holy Land to fight. He could ill afford to discard a man of William’s quality. Over the last month, Marshal had proven his resolute loyalty to the king and his martial prowess. He was precisely the kind of supporter that the Lionheart would need in the months and years ahead. Perhaps there was, at first, a lingering grudge over their confrontation outside Le Mans, but Richard was shrewd enough to recognise that this had to be put to one side. If he was to prevail as king, such resentments could not govern his actions.
Resolved to draw William into his own circle, the Lionheart offered to confirm the Old King’s pledge of the wealthy heiress, Isabel of Clare’s, hand in marriage. But he took care to emphasise that Henry II had only promised Isabel to Marshal; the actual gift of her guardianship would come as a result of Richard’s own patronage. As the Lionheart’s leading modern biographer, Professor John Gillingham, noted, with this act Richard ‘in effect, made William a millionaire overnight’. Marshal was then entrusted with an urgent mission: instructed to travel to England, ‘take charge of my land and all my other interests’, and bear a secret message to Queen Eleanor. Once they returned to Fontevraud, William received a number of royal writs (letters of instruction), including one confirming his appointment as Isabel’s guardian, and he then set out for the north almost immediately.
The Lionheart dealt with many of his late father’s barons and retainers in a similar fashion. Those who had remained faithful to the last were rewarded. Baldwin of Béthune, for example, received the valuable lordship of Aumale in Normandy, William des Roches, who had covered Henry II’s retreat from Le Mans with Marshal, was accepted into Richard’s military household and Hubert Walter was appointed as bishop of Salisbury. Less favour was shown to those who had turned away from the Old King in his last months, though Richard’s younger brother John was left unpunished. The Lionheart also took care to repay his own leading lieutenants for their service, such that Andrew of Chauvigny received the honour of Châteauroux. Richard went on to meet with Philip Augustus near the great castle of Gisors in the Norman Vexin. The pair had parted as allies, but with the Lionheart now leading the Angevin dynasty, they would soon be forced to confront one another as deadly adversaries. For now, terms of peace were agreed, with the French king returning all recently captured territory, including Berry, and Richard pledging 40,000 silver marks as compensation for their recent campaign.
THE REWARDS WAITING IN LONDON
William Marshal raced north through Anjou and Maine, but paused en route in Normandy to take possession of Isabel of Clare’s lands at Longueville near Dieppe (in the duchy’s north-eastern reaches), before crossing the Channel – a sure sign that he was now determined to reap the benefits of Richard’s patronage while he could. Once in England, William travelled straight to Winchester, where Eleanor had already been released after fifteen years in captivity. This must have been a strange encounter. When they last met, Marshal had only recently left the queen’s own service and was a mere household knight in his mid-twenties. Now, William was around forty-two and well on the way to becoming a great baron, while Eleanor was an elderly, yet still sprightly, woman in her late sixties. As always, their connection – seemingly so fundamental to Marshal’s early career – can only be glimpsed. The content of the Lionheart’s intriguing message to his mother is lost to history, and frustratingly William’s biographer merely recorded that the message was safely delivered.
Marshal then made his way ‘to the fine city of London’ to claim his bride. As a royal ward, Isabel was residing in the White Tower of London, under the protection of Henry II’s justiciar Ranulf Glanville. At first Glanville was reluctant to release the heiress into William’s care, presumably on the grounds that Richard had yet to be crowned and thus lacked the official authority to apportion a guardianship, but Marshal pressed his case and the justiciar eventually relented. So it was that William finally met his future wife, Isabel of Clare, the lady of Striguil. At around sixteen years old, she was less than half Marshal’s age, but by birth and eminence she was his superior. Her celebrated father, Richard Strongbow, had been one of the great Marcher lords who helped Henry II to conquer territory in Wales and Ireland, and had himself earned the hand in marriage of an Irish princess, Aoife (Eve) of Leinster, Isabel’s mother. Isabel had been a crown ward since 1185, so even though Marshal was now being foisted upon her, the prospect of marriage after four years of uncertainty may well have felt like a release.*
Isabel held title to one of England’s major lordships. At its heart lay a swathe of territory in the southern borderlands with Wales, including the formidable stone castle of Striguil (now known as Chepstow). Elsewhere, Isabel had rights to major manors at Caversham (near Reading) and Long Crendon (to the east of Oxford), the Norman estate of Longueville and significant claims to land in west Wales and Ireland. Her hand in marriage was an inestimable prize – one that would transform William into a leading magnate of the realm. The History conveyed a clear sense of his excitement, noting that ‘now that he had her in his possession he had no wish to lose her’, and so immediately made plans for their wedding.
Given Marshal’s flourishing prospects, there were now plenty of powerful men willing to cultivate his favour. One such, Richard FitzReinier – a city sheriff – gave him lodgings, probably in the environs of St Paul’s Cathedral, and even offered to cover the expenses of the marriage ceremony. William now had a brief moment to draw breath in London. By 1189, the city was set firmly on the path to becoming England’s unquestioned capital and was already one of Europe’s greatest urban centres – with a population of around 40,000, only Paris was bigger. Its growth reflected a much broader trend of urbanisation. Indeed, Marshal lived through a period in which scores of new towns were created in England, including Newcastle upon Tyne, Liverpool and Portsmouth, and the subsequent rise of the ‘burgess’ or merchant class of townsfolk would transform the balance of power in medieval society in the decades and centuries that followed.
Lying astride the River Thames, London was perfectly placed to serve as a centre of trade and commerce, just as Western Europe was emerging on to the world stage as a major economic power. William thus found himself in a vibrant and increasingly cosmopolitan city that summer – a place where everything from Egyptian gemstones, to Chinese silks and Arabian gold could be purchased. Like Le Mans, London had been a Roman settlement and an enclosing circuit of ancient walls dating from that period still stood on the northern banks of the Thames, though they were crumbling along the water’s edge. For the first time in a millennium a magnificent new stone bridge was even then being built across the broad river; commissioned at enormous cost by Henry II in 1176, it took more than thirty years to construct, but would stand until 1831. In one sense London was a centre of Christian devotion, boasting more than a hundred churches by 1189, so William had his pick of sites in which to marry. There were those, however, who condemned the city as a den of vice, with one contemporary complaining that ‘whatever malicious thing can be found anywhere in the world can be found [in London]’, adding that it was packed with ‘actors, jesters, smooth-skinned lads, Moors, flatterers, pretty boys . . . quacks, belly dancers [and] sorcerers’.
William and Isabel were wed in late July. In all likelihood, they followed the normal custom of undergoing a simple ceremony on the church steps – perhaps even those of St Paul’s itself – with Marshal presenting his bride with a token symbolising his dower gift, possibly a ring or even a knife. Only then would the couple have entered the building, prostrating themselves before the altar to receive Mass and, after Communion, William would have exchanged the kiss of peace with the attendant priest, and then finally turned to embrace his new wife.
Before Richard the Lionheart arrived in England and the incessant whirl of court life began anew, the couple were able to steal a few weeks together, lodging at the nearby manor of Stoke d’Aubernon, eighteen miles south-west of London – a ‘peaceful spot, well-appointed and a delight to the eye’. To begin with, at least, William and Isabel’s marriage was simply a political match, but they seem to have developed a relationship based on real affection and mutual respect. In time, they would have no less than ten children, including five sons, the eldest of whom was born within a year. It is also true that, even in an age when male infidelity was commonplace and broadly reported, there is no evidence that Marshal ever took a mistress. On balance, there is a good chance that their union was happy and intimate. Even so, William’s career in royal service led to long periods of separation, and by mid-August that summer he was drawn back into the maelstrom of power politics.
In defence of the realm
Richard landed in England on 13 August 1189, having already been confirmed as duke of Normandy in Rouen. His coronation followed on 3 September in Westminster Abbey, just two miles upriver from the city of London. Richard’s elevation marked the very first occasion when medieval chroniclers described the ceremonial creation of an English king in precise detail. Though the History strangely made no mention of it, William Marshal is thus known to have played an important role in the ritual that day, and he was also joined in the abbey by his brother John Marshal and cousin, William FitzPatrick of Salisbury. John, in particular, appears to have benefited from his younger brother’s rising fortunes. Having himself enjoyed little promotion under Henry II, the elder Marshal had in recent years become an associate of the Lionheart’s brother, Count John, though that connection had done little for his prospects. It is not clear whether William actively lobbied for favour to be shown to his elder sibling, but John certainly enjoyed a short-lived renaissance in his own career after 1189.*
The coronation ceremony began with a solemn procession, accompanied by sonorous ‘chants of praise’, that saw Richard taken from the royal palace to the abbey doors, and then through to the altar. Bishops, abbots and clergy led the way, carrying ‘holy water, the cross, tapers and censers’. They were followed by the leading crown officers and the great barons of the kingdom, each carrying portions of the royal regalia and robes of majesty. John Marshal came bearing ‘a huge pair of golden spurs’; William Marshal carrying the royal cross-tipped sceptre (one of the key symbols of authority) and William of Salisbury with the royal rod of gold, topped by a dove. Richard’s brother, John, bore a golden sword, drawn from the royal treasury, while William Mandeville had the honour of carrying the ‘great and massive crown, decorated on every side with precious stones’. As William Marshal and the assembled throng looked on, Richard knelt before the altar and swore sacred oaths to protect the Church and rule with justice. The central drama of the ritual was performed by Archbishop Baldwin of Canterbury. The Lionheart was stripped to his undershirt and breeches, his chest bared. The prelate then poured holy oil upon Richard’s head, chest and arms, each site representing knowledge, valour and glory. Once clad in his regal raiment and holding the great symbols of office, the vast crown was finally placed upon his head.
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 marriage 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.
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.
Marshal also employed a number of clerks and chaplains within his household. He was probably accompanied at almost all times by a personal chaplain. This priest, who was responsible for William’s spiritual care, travelled with a portable altar, vestments and sacred vessels, and was thus capable of hearing confession and performing the ritual of Mass. A chaplain named Roger was in Marshal’s service by 1190, and was later joined by Eustace of St-Georges (probably a kinsman of the knight Alan). Clerks, on the other hand, played an administrative rather than devotional function. These well-educated men oversaw the day-to-day administration of William’s estates, managing his accounts and correspondence, and Marshal’s own limited literacy only served to heighten their importance. William’s first chamberlain, for example, a man named Walter Cut, was essentially the keeper of Marshal’s purse, with responsibility for his coin.
William must have turned to some of his clerks for advice, particularly on issues of governance and politics. He formed a particularly close attachment to Michael of London, who may well have been recruited during Marshal’s sojourn in that city in July 1189. Michael held the title of magister, or master, which meant he had spent nine years studying grammar, rhetoric and logic, as well as more advanced subjects like astronomy, in a cathedral school, perhaps that of St Paul’s. Alongside the knight John of Earley, Michael seems to have been one of William’s closest associates, following virtually his every footstep for the best part of a quarter of a century.
Other clerks represented Marshal’s interests on semi-permanent detachment. From the mid-1190s onwards, Master Joscelin was employed in London, overseeing affairs in Westminster and the city. He lived on a small Marshal-owned estate in the Thames-side suburb then known as Charing (positioned between the city walls and the royal palace), but was required to provide Lord William and his knights with ample lodging whenever they stayed in London. Over time, this London satellite of Marshal’s affairs seems to have developed into a form of clearing house. Master Joscelin could use his access to London’s markets to purchase whatever William required, and store these goods on the Charing estate while they awaited transportation. Similarly, the valuable wool produced in the Welsh Marches might be brought to the city and traded for a lucrative profit – a process that must have been eased by Marshal’s connections with the Flemish city of St Omer, given that Flanders was now the centre of the European wool industry. William had learnt early on that a knight could not prosper through acts of prowess alone. Just as he had taken care to reap the financial rewards of his tournament victories in the late 1170s, so now he looked to nurture the wealth and resources of his new lordship. It would not be long before Marshal amassed a considerable fortune.
In his first year as lord of Striguil, William also established a religious house of his own – the Augustinian priory of Cartmel. Marshal endowed the new institution with lands and property from his small Lancashire estate – making it clear that this was a very personal act of devotion – and the text of the charter that confirmed this transfer has survived. In the Middle Ages, documents of this type usually contained a list of witnesses – those willing to attest to the accuracy and legally binding nature of the deed. As such, they offer a snapshot of a nobleman’s ‘affinity’ – his inner circle of vassals and contacts. The Cartmel charter was witnessed by eleven members of William’s household (many appearing for the first time in connection with their new lord), and by his ally Geoffrey FitzPeter, brother John Marshal and cousin, William FitzPatrick, earl of Salisbury.
But the fascination of this window on to Marshal’s world does not end there. In the main body of the charter, William sought to explain why he was creating this priory, the first monastery formed through his patronage. Foundations of this type had become extremely popular in aristocratic circles over the preceding century, so the act itself was not unusual for a man of his status. The establishment of Cartmel clearly served as a public affirmation of Marshal’s charitable piety, but it was also a way to give thanks to God and earn spiritual merit that might ease the path to Heaven. William sought to apportion this redemptive force in his charter, stating that the priory had been created ‘for my soul and the soul of my wife Isabel, and those of my ancestors and successors and our heirs’. Marshal also paid tribute to his royal patrons, the men who had lifted him to fortune: Henry II and Richard I were named, but only Young King Henry was described more intimately as ‘my lord’ – a man who had left an imprint on William’s heart and soul.
THE PROTECTORS OF ENGLAND
As a powerful magnate and co-justiciar of England, William could not afford to focus solely upon the interests of his own lordship; the realm was his to protect. Unfortunately, William Longchamp, the man chosen by King Richard to hold the reins of power in England, soon proved to be something of a disaster. Longchamp was justifiably paranoid about Count John’s intentions, but he also had a worrying tendency to horde power and a natural gift for alienating and infuriating his peers. In truth, Longchamp was probably driven more by heartfelt loyalty to the Lionheart than personal ambition, and simply doubted the ability of others to defend his monarch’s interests. But, because he had no time for the unctuous niceties of courtly politics, his co-justiciars quickly assumed the worst and took against him.
William Marshal’s own antipathy for Longchamp was laid bare in the History, where the chancellor was described as a man who lacked wisdom, enjoyed ‘spending the king’s wealth’ and ‘imposed his own laws everywhere’. Marshal probably played a significant role, alongside his fellow co-justiciars, in drafting a letter of complaint to Richard in late 1190 setting out Longchamp’s failings. This missive reached the Lionheart in Sicily in February 1191, where he was waiting for the Mediterranean Sea lanes to open, and sounded a serious note of alarm. In response, the king sent the trusted prelate Walter of Coutances, archbishop of Rouen, back to England with a pair of royal writs authorising him to depose Longchamp should the need arise.
Archbishop Walter reached England in the summer of 1191, and by that time Count John had crossed the Channel and was pushing to have William Longchamp removed from office so as to open his own path to power. The count wished to be formally recognised as Richard’s heir, and perhaps hoped to assume the role of regent in his absence. John knew that the chancellor and chief-justiciar would block his every step, but the same could not be said of William Marshal. As co-justiciar, William was expected to defend England against the creeping influence and devious aspirations of Count John. It is also likely that Marshal’s elevation as lord of Striguil was actually part of a wider strategy, conceived by Richard, to contain and counterbalance John’s own significant power in the Welsh Marches and the West Country. William may have achieved his position precisely because King Richard trusted him to watch and resist John’s every move. But the Lionheart had misjudged his man.
Marshal had a reputation for unbreakable fidelity, but he was not the bluff, plain-speaking Longchamp. At the Angevin court, William had begun to understand the importance of moving with caution, keeping one eye on the future and the pursuit of possible advantage. He had also learnt to avoid making enemies of powerful men – especially if they were your neighbours – unless strictly necessary. Thus, the fact that John’s own estates and honours bordered those of Striguil, and that their respective interests overlapped in the likes of Gloucester, actually made Marshal deeply reluctant to alienate the count.
Even more than this though, William was determined to protect his claim, through Isabel of Clare, to lordship of Leinster – a valuable, semi-autonomous province in Ireland. Through Henry II’s gift, John held the title ‘lord of Ireland’ and this made Marshal his subject in Leinster. If he wished to, the count could obstruct, even thwart any future attempt by William to assert power in his Irish lands. In the autumn of 1189, Marshal had taken the first, somewhat tentative step in this process, dispatching a certain Reginald of Quetteville to ‘take possession of his holdings’ in Ireland (though Quetteville evidently enjoyed little success, and was condemned by the History as ‘treacherous’ and ineffectual). In the months that followed, William formally acknowledged John’s status as his overlord in Leinster, hoping to forestall any difficulties.
When Count John returned to England, William thus manoeuvred with care. By this stage, the bleak news from the front line of the Third Crusade must also have raised doubts about Richard I’s prospects of survival. The European armies had already suffered grave losses. Frederick Barbarossa, the mighty German emperor, had drowned in June 1190, before he even reached the Holy Land. Elsewhere, the main campaign had become locked into one of the most devastating military engagements of the Middle Ages: the great siege of Acre. This fortified port-city – once a famous centre of commerce and pilgrim traffic – had fallen to Saladin’s forces after the battle of Hattin in 1187. A desperate, almost suicidal, attempt to retake Acre had begun in the autumn of 1189, and crusaders congregated at the siege in their thousands. Saladin arrived with a relieving army and did his best to dislodge the Latin Christian troops, but they dug defensive trenches and refused to be broken.
This investment would last twenty-two months, exacting a terrible cost in lives. It became a hellish scene of carnage, miasma, hunger and despair. Some, like Ranulf Glanville, fell prey to sickness and died within weeks of arriving. At the height of the Christians’ suffering, through the winter of 1190, one eyewitness estimated that 200 crusaders lost their lives each day from illness and starvation. Archbishop Baldwin of Canterbury, who had led an advanced Angevin contingent to Acre, passed away that December; so too did Count Theobald of Blois, one of William Marshal’s old friends from the tournament circuit. Acre became the graveyard of Europe’s aristocracy. Given that this was known to be King Richard’s destination in the summer of 1191, it was hardly surprising that many began to wonder whether he would ever return.
The Lionheart himself had equivocated on the issue of the succession, dangling strong hints that he might support his infant nephew Arthur of Brittany’s claim to the throne. That summer, John moved to have his own claim formally acknowledged by the realm’s leading men. At the very least, William Marshal did not step in his way. Having witnessed the chaos that followed the elevation of a boy king to the Jerusalemite throne in 1185, Marshal may have been reluctant to see Arthur’s cause promoted. William was treading a difficult and dangerous path. So long as Count John made no active move to seize power or damage crown interests while King Richard lived, Marshal could maintain a politic neutrality – thus retaining John’s good graces – without appearing to be complicit in treachery.
Through the summer of 1191, Count John conducted a virulent smear campaign against Longchamp, blackening his name with accusations of homosexuality, deriding his low birth and demanding his deposition. As one eyewitness put it, John ‘was sharpening his teeth against the chancellor’. In October 1191, Marshal and the other co-justiciars finally bent to this pressure. Longchamp was summoned before a council of magnates and stripped of his powers, using the authority of the two sealed royal letters carried by Archbishop Walter. The exact level of William Marshal’s complicity in this affair is difficult to determine. William’s medieval biographer was no fan of Longchamp, but he loathed Count John far more, casting him as ‘arrogant, intemperate and most treacherous’. As a result, the History took every possible step to distance its hero, Marshal, from the hated figure of John, at times actively concealing their dealings. But on the basis of other chronicles, such as that written by Roger of Howden, William does appear to have maintained at least the appearance of strict neutrality through the summer and early autumn of 1191.
Once removed from office, Longchamp was forced to relinquish control of the Tower of London. He then sought to escape England, travelling south to Dover, in the hope of taking a ship to the Continent. According to a particularly scurrilous story later circulated by one of John’s supporters, Longchamp disguised himself as a woman to avoid detection, dressing in ‘a green gown of enormous length [and] a cape of the same colour with unsightly long sleeves’. Waiting on the seashore, he was said to have attracted the attentions of a randy fisherman, and after being fondled and chased down the beach, was threatened with stoning. Saved by his servants, Longchamp eventually went into exile in Flanders.
Count John made important gains that October. His status as King Richard’s primary heir was widely acknowledged and he was appointed as ‘supreme governor of the realm’ – tantamount to the office of regent. Crucially, John was also empowered to take control of all but three royal castles in the realm, giving him significant military power. However, not everything went his way. Walter, archbishop of Rouen, stepped into Longchamp’s role as chief-justiciar, and was thus in a position to stifle some of John’s broader ambitions. The History observed with satisfaction that Walter ‘governed the land more rightfully than the chancellor had done, for there was no excess in him’. For now at least, Marshal had managed to protect his own interests, maintaining a cordial relationship with Count John, while still discharging his responsibilities as co-justiciar. William had navigated the complex political machinations of 1191 with a measure of prudent agility, but the trace scent of self-service seems undeniable.
The return of King Philip Augustus of France
Marshal’s delicate dance of allegiance could not last indefinitely, and the crisis that would ultimately draw the true extent of his loyalty to the Lionheart out into the open was set in motion in December 1191. For though King Richard remained in the Holy Land, that winter Philip Augustus returned to Europe, and was ‘safe and sound and impudently boasting that he was going to devastate the king of England’s lands’. The course of the Third Crusade had exacerbated the Capetian monarch’s embittered antipathy for his Angevin rival. Sparks had flown even before they set sail from Europe. Philip had long been determined to force through Richard’s marriage to his half-sister Alice of France, but with Queen Eleanor’s encouragement, the Lionheart forged a powerful new marriage alliance with the Iberian kingdom of Navarre, in the hope of protecting his southern Aquitanian interests. Much to Philip’s disgust, Richard declared his intention to marry the Navaresse heiress Princess Berengaria in February 1191, and the pair were duly wed on the island of Cyprus that May. From the Lionheart’s perspective this move made strategic sense, but the Capetians deemed it a grave slur against their dynasty’s honour.
In military terms, Philip and Richard enjoyed considerable success in the East. Richard reached Acre on 8 June 1191. Though he promptly fell ill less than a week later, he soon recovered. William Marshal’s old associate, Philip, count of Flanders, was less fortunate, succumbing to sickness just over a month after landing in Palestine. Nonetheless, the arrival of the Angevin and Capetian kings reinvigorated the crusader siege, and Acre was finally forced to surrender on 12 July. As far as the Lionheart was concerned, the campaign had only just begun, but within weeks Philip Augustus made the shocking announcement that he intended to return to the West. With Acre conquered, Philip considered his crusading vow fulfilled. More king than holy warrior, he was understandably determined to prioritise the interests of his Capetian realm. The count of Flanders’ precipitous death also left King Philip with rights to a portion of his lands – the prosperous and strategically significant region of Artois. To press home this valuable claim, the French sovereign needed to be in Western Europe. And once there, he would also be in a position to threaten the Angevin Empire.
On 29 July, Philip swore a sacred and binding oath not to attack Angevin forces or lands while Richard was still on crusade; he also promised to wait forty days before initiating any hostilities once the Lionheart returned to Europe. The Capetian king held a copy of the gospels in one hand and touched saintly relics with the other as he gave these assurances, but that did not stop him breaking these pledges at will. By year’s end, Philip was back in France. The experience of the holy war seems to have left him physically and emotionally shattered. His hair fell out and, harbouring a gnawing suspicion that Richard had ordered his assassination, he surrounded himself with a permanent corps of bodyguards.
Philip’s nerves may have been shot, but his political ambitions had only deepened. In early 1192 he confirmed Baldwin of Hainault as the new count of Flanders, but took possession of Artois for himself. This was a massive coup for the French crown. With direct control of towns like Arras and St Omer, and the allegiance of Boulogne and Lille, the Capetians had clear access to the Channel for the first time in the twelfth century. King Philip then trained his sights upon that most contested territory: the Vexin. This border zone, just forty miles northwest of Paris, had been an enduring bone of contention between the kings of France and the dukes of Normandy. The critical frontier followed the line of the River Epte, roughly halfway between Paris and Rouen, and was defended on the Norman side by a string of heavily fortified castles, including the redoubtable fortress of Gisors. The long-established balance of power in the Vexin had created an effective stalemate, but meant that a constant threat of invasion hung over the French realm’s north-western reaches. Philip resolved to reclaim this vital territory at any cost.
Philip Augustus had used all his guile and cunning to drive a wedge between Richard and his father, the Old King, during the last years of Henry II’s reign. It was only too obvious that the same frustrated ambition that had driven the Lionheart to betray his family now festered in Count John. Naturally, the French king set to work exploiting this weakness. John was invited to visit Paris, probably with the intention of drawing up a new marriage alliance that would see him wed to Alice of France, and the Norman Vexin promised to the Capetians as a dower gift. The count seems to have been more than willing to entertain such a scheme, but sensing the danger, the venerable Queen Eleanor intervened. She called John to a succession of councils, attended by William Marshal and the other justiciars, at Windsor, Oxford, London and Winchester. The position taken by William in these assemblies is unclear – though the fact that four meetings were held indicates that the discussions were extensive – but the count was eventually threatened with the confiscation of all his English lands and castles should he cross to France, and he duly relented.
In the face of this temporary setback, King Philip readied his kingdom for a more direct military incursion into Normandy, ordering ‘every kind of weapon to be forged day and night’ across the realm. However, his nobles were deeply reluctant to wage open war on the territory of an absent crusader, realising that it might lead to their excommunication from the Church. Philip was still trying to goad them into action in early 1193, when shocking news arrived that would reshape the history of England and France. Richard the Lionheart would not be returning. He had been taken prisoner and was even now confined under lock and key. But his captors were not Muslims; they were European Christians.