Gone Medieval - William Marshal: Knight & Crusader

Episode Date: August 23, 2024

William Marshal was one of the most famous and influential figures in English medieval history, rising from a lowly start to becoming the knight at the right hand of five Kings - Henry II, his co-regent young Henry, Richard I, John and Henry III.  Marshal is the subject of the only known written biography of a non-royal to survive from the Middle Ages, extolled as being "the best knight in the world."But was he really as great as his biographers made him out to be?  Matt Lewis finds out more from John Marshall, who has just finished his PhD at Trinity College, Dublin, on William Marshal.Gone Medieval is presented by Matt Lewis. This episode was edited and produced by Rob Weinberg. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.Gone Medieval is a History Hit podcast.Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original TV documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Sign up HERE for 50% off your first 3 months using code ‘MEDIEVAL’.You can take part in our listener survey here > Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From long-loss Viking ships and kings buried in unexpected places to tales of murder, power, faith, and the lives of ordinary people across medieval Europe and beyond. Join me, Matt Lewis, Dr. Eleanor Jarniger, and some of the world's leading historians as we bring history's most fascinating stories to life, only on history hit. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries

with a brand-new release every week exploring everything from the ancient world, to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. Hello, I'm Matt Lewis. Welcome to Gone Medieval from History Hit, the podcast that delves into the greatest millennium in human history. We've got the most intriguing mysteries, the gobsmacking details and latest groundbreaking research from the Vikings to the printing press, from kings to popes to the crusades. We cross centuries and continents to delve into rebellions, plots and murders to find the stories big and small that tell us how we got here.

Find out who we really were. We've gone medieval. A knight trains for moments like these, but it's still terrifying. He glances at the few men around him, including the Earl of Salisbury, his uncle and his commander. Then, without willing it, he looks over his shoulder at the retreating horses. The Queen of England is amongst them, and he has sworn to protect her. Right now, that means holding this piece of French soil long enough to allow her to escape this attack. There was little time for a calculation between life and death, but it was duty that was on the young man's mind as the riders closed in on him. Adrenaline courses

through his veins as they clash, metal rings on metal, and horses and riders strain every sinew. The knight catches a glimpse of the Earl falling from his horse, his already lifeless body crashing to the floor in a heap of steel. Finally, he realises he is the last man remaining from his small force. A swift look at the horizon lets him know his work is done. The Queen has escaped. He offers his surrender as he would in a tournament and hopes his foes will believe him valuable enough to take captive for ransom. The ransom would be paid by the Queen, and that knight will become one of the most famous and influential figures in English medieval history. He's cropped up before on Gone Medieval, but when we got a listener request from Neil Smith in rugby for an episode dedicated to William Marshall,

well, we all gave ourselves a faith palm in unison. How has this slipped us by? Well, here's Neil to explain why he wanted to hear more about the greatest night. I've been enjoying the history hit podcast for a couple of years, and gone medieval is my favourite of them all. I'd like to suggest an episode that focuses on the life of William Marshall, who seems to have been one of early England's greatest historical figures. I'd love to know more about the family he was born into, his rise to the ranks of the nobility, his tournament successes and his prowess as a knight, and his service to the plantagenets and his ability to give counsel to the warring family.

Perhaps most importantly, whether he really was as great as his biographers made out. Such a long and fascinating life surely deserves at least one episode of gone medieval, if not more. Thanks again for the podcast and keep up the great work. Thank you for that, Neil. When we were filming some castle documentaries in Ireland, one of our contributors, John Marshall, was just finishing his PhD at Trinity College Dublin on William Marshall. John has also written the Pope and Knight and a Bishop on the edge of Christendom, the politics of exclusion in 13th century Ireland for the Irish Historical Studies,

2023 and a community in competition, the Barons of Leinster in 13th Century Island in history, the Journal of the Historical Association, 2023. So who better I thought to tell us more about this fascinating medieval life. John, welcome to gone medieval. It's great to have you here. Thanks for having me, man. To start us off with then, William Marshall crops up all of the time when we talk about a certain period of English history, but we haven't ever done an episode just on William Marshall. So to get us grounded with the basics, what do we know about when and where William Marshall is born? William was born around 1146, 1147. His parents were John Fitzgilbert Marshall and his mother was Sybil, who was the sister of Earl Patrick of Salisbury. He was John. John's fourth son, and John himself was a relatively minor, modest baron in England. His interests

were primarily in Wiltshire and Berkshire. So I suppose from the start, it was clear that William would very much have to make his own way. There wouldn't be a whole lot of an inheritance coming to him. He's born during the anarchy. That's the contest for the kind of civil war for the throne of England between Henry I, the first daughter, Matilda, and Henry's nephew, King's Stephen last between 1139 and 1153. So right bang, smack in the middle of this, William's born. And he's growing up in this kind of charged political climate. His father is maneuvering, switching sides a little bit.

And there's a very kind of well-known scene where his father eventually sides with Matilda. And during a truce, he has to give his youngest son as a hostage. But he's negotiating in bad faith. And Stephen's royal forces threaten to hang William in. front of Newbury Castle. William's only around six years old at the time. And John famously claims that he still has the hammers and the anvils to make more and better sons. Little did he know the prominence that William would want to achieve. But this kind of symbolises the modest upbringing he has and that it's pretty much up to him the life he carves out.

I'm really interesting that story from the anarchy. So that's kind of the first moment in which William appears in any kind of stories. He's this child. he's been used as a hostage. And it's a really awful moment, I guess, in that the king is threatening to kill a six-year-old boy. And his dad is saying, oh, go on then. I can have more sons. I'm not really bothered.

And I wonder how much story we should set in this story. Because for me, Stephen doesn't seem like the kind of guy to be hanging six-year-old children. And I wonder whether this is kind of a little story that emerges later on as a way to think about William Marshall being least likely to achieve anything, slightly abandoned by everyone, you know, could have died at a really young age, but manages to escape. Like, he was destined for all of this stuff. So I wonder whether it's a bit of a sort of allegorical

story that's added later. The main source for the story is William Marshall's biography, which is produced in the 1220s under the patronage of his son, William the Younger. So it's very much a narrative that's been shaped by his eldest son, his successor. And so it obviously is to serve a certain purpose for them. And yeah, this kind of idea of destiny and faith, I think, is what it is grounded in. But there perhaps is some truth to the, certainly in terms of reflecting the relationship between William and, say, his father, because in the late 1150s, once everything's been settled with the war, Henry II, ascends to the throne, he's a Matilda's son. And William is sent to Normandy to be raised in the household of his mother's cousin, William of Tankerville. And when

William's father, John dies, it doesn't seem that William comes home or anything like that for any funeral, anything, and he stays there till he's knighted a year later. And yeah, he doesn't get any lands, anything like that. Perhaps as an early indication of, I suppose, his closeness with his father anyway, at least. But yeah, it's very much a Marshall narrative has been shaped in the 1220s. And how careful, just on the sources for William Marshall, he obviously crops up in lots of places. The life that his son commissioned that you mentioned there is possibly the deepest trove of information that we have about him. But how careful should we be? Because it is very much a family trying to paint a story of their venerated ancestor.

Yeah, we do have to take it with kind of a pinch or a fistful of salt sometimes. Now, a lot of it can be true sort of records of the bureaucracy, but there are a lot of incidents that are either not mentioned at all for specific reasons, such as arguments with clergy. And there's one particular big dispute with a Gaelic Archbishop and these kind of things are not mentioned whatsoever. And there's also say when William ends on becoming regent, there's a kind of incident recorded where the Earl of Chester bleeds with him to take it. You are the saviour of the kingdom, whereas in reality the Earl of Chester sends an envoy to the curia saying that William is too old. There's, I think, a big gap there between the narrative

and the sort of reality as per the other sources. But yeah, it's very much been shaped by the family. It's a remarkable surviving source. And I think sometimes, William is referred to as England's greatest night, but it's more so he's the night with the greatest biography. We know so much about him. We really wouldn't know half of the things we do. Otherwise, over 19,000 lines, Middle French, survives in one manuscript and records his whole life. We don't know a whole lot about the compiler, someone called John from France, but he's at William Marshall the Younger's court. Louise Wilkinson has very convincingly argued the context in that 1224, William Marshall the Younger, there's marriage negotiations that he's to be married to Eleanor,

King Henry III's sister and later Eleanor de Montfort. And this is very much seems like an unusual partnership. Williams and Earl at the end of the day, he's a prominent Earl, but he's no member of the nobility or royalty in wider Europe, which would have been the typical marriage broaching an alliance. And so I think the biography is to bolster the family's position. and their reputation in the 1220s and using William and his prominent legacy and capitalising on his career to really elevate themselves. Yeah, that's really interesting. So it's almost like the biography is to set William aside as someone who, having saved England, you know, his family are

worthy of marrying into the English royal family because they wouldn't be there if it wasn't for the Marshall family. Exactly. I think that's precisely what they're trying to do. And it's a very interesting way to do it. We do know that the biography circulates quite widely. It's tying into the themes of the day, honour, military prowess, piety, still appearing in aristocrat libraries in the late 14th century and this sort of thing. And so I think it completely serves what they're trying to achieve. And in the end, William D. Younger does marry Eleanor. Yeah, but we need to be careful not to get too carried away by it. Yeah, not to be too carried away from it. I think 13th century, the bureaucracy of England is really getting going at this rate and there's so much voluminous records of the different

clothes and patent and fine and pipe rolls. So there's so much other sources to be used as well as contemporary chronicles and annals. And so I think it's to view the history of William Marshall within this wider context. And so, yeah, being careful not just to rely on that solely. So if we go back to William's early career, how does he begin to rise to prominence? How does he end up entering royal service. He is sent over to Normandy to William de Tancroville, his mother's cousin, and William de Tancroville is Chamberlain of Normandy. He sent over to be educated, grow up, and learn the ways of the world in this aristocratic court and also that's intertwining with the royal court. He would have gotten appreciation for the values of the time. He would have

learned how to fight, how to hunt, but also the importance of honour, of piety, of family, And so these would have been instilled in him. And he also would have probably gained an understanding for arguably the most important feature of the time. And that is these kind of social and political mechanics of the court. That is where everything happens. If your finger is not on the pulse, you're out of place. He learns how to, I think, get an appreciation of the different movements and political alliances here. Certainly because once he comes back to England, he certainly has a knowledge of how to

to go about it. So he says here, he's knighted in 1166 by William de Tankerville. He's around 20 years old at the time. As I mentioned, his father had died a year before. And by this time, two of his elder brothers had died. So all of his ancestral lands passed to John Marshall, his elder brother. So I suppose he firmly knows that he very much has to carry out his own path. And so the first way to do this is true the tournament circuit, really. The tournament were the main sporting event and it comprised numerous different events, but all of which revolves around battling, hand-to-hand combat, all of the skills that these people were to use in actual warfare. This is what they were practicing.

And one, taking hostages and you could do quite well from it. And William certainly did and begins to get a bit of money. But he eventually returns to England and starts to slowly work his way into the royal household, which I suppose for a younger son is probably the main route. success. You prove yourself in battle, you're competing with them, in tournaments, and this is how you're earning kind of money fees and you're able to support yourself, your household. He first comes into the household with Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine, who actually Williams captured in France, fighting in a Plantagen army and she secures his release. So this is the first sign. But pretty

quickly he works his way into the household of the young boy king Henry, eldest son of Henry the second, and William becomes his tutor in arms. So again, his military abilities are being recognised. He stays very close to Henry until his death in 1183. Testament to their relationship is William brings Henry's cloak to Jerusalem. And he stays there until the spring of 1186. And then returns again, fights in some more Plantagenet armies in France against King Philip Augustus. And all of these times, he's serving with distinction.

It's becoming clear, you want him on your side rather than any other. all of this service, this loyalty brings royal patronage, royal favour. And the most significant and transformative of all of this comes in 1189 when he marries Isabel de Clare, who was one of the richest heiresses of the time. Isabel is heiress to Richard Fitz Gilbert Declare. Most people probably better know as Strongbo. And Isabel's mother was Eva MacMurrah, so she's daughter of the King of Lentster. She's from Gale Garth Royalty and Richard Fitzgillbert declares a very well-known Welsh martyr lord. And so this essentially overnight William Marshall ascends from Royal Courier to one of the comital elite and he's lord of a transnational assemblage of lands which span England, Ireland, Normandy

and Wales. And so this is really when he propels into the kind of next step and this kind of puts him on a very good place on the social ladder. And he really starts to take off from there. Yeah, it's almost like a perfect career progression. He sort of comes as a younger son with almost nothing of his own. He's got to make his own way in the world. The tournament circuit obviously provides him with a way to do some of that. He can get fairly wealthy from capturing and ransoming people in the tournament circuit

and things like that. But he's also serving the crown in real battles. And it's interesting you see, Henry the Young King has his reputation as a great tournament night, but not so great at the polyester. and the real battles, whereas William Marshall seems to manage to bestride both of those things with great competence. And then it's almost like that earns him this spectacular marriage that must have felt, you know, a few years earlier, it would have looked utterly beyond his reach to marry into that kind of level of society. And yet he's managed through his hard work

in these various different ways to propel himself right to the top table of politics in England. Absolutely. And I think William is certainly aware of this. And there's a number of his charters, some 90 charters of his surviving across his lands. And in a number of these, particularly involving Ireland, Wales, Normandy, he makes a grant of land and he says, by the council and descent of Isabel. So she's very instrumental in kind of the martial lordship and he's very aware that everything he has is from it. And even in the biography, there's a scene recounted in that in the mid-1200s. William as loggerheads with King John, he rallies the barons of Lensler, so the kind of main tenants, and there's this speech he gives at Clenny Castle. And in it he says, I have nothing here save through Isabel. So he's very, I think, aware of that. And so his sons are as well producing the biography.

Isabel is the thing that makes William essentially as a man, as a knight. This is where kind of it all really kicks off for him. And then William Marshall seems like this person who is able to separate. the idea of service to the crown as an institution from service to the man who is sitting on the throne at the time. Having said that, he does come dangerously close to getting on the wrong side of John, as everybody does, you know, whoever ends up on the right side of John forever, who knows. How does he manage to navigate that tricky relationship with John? You know, he seems to want to serve John, but John is not open to being served by one of the greatest men in the kingdom. John is probably one of, if not the most difficult king to get along with during the Middle Ages.

I suppose the first thing to mention is the kind of interesting juxtaposition with John is. So before John becomes king, his brother Richard I first is king. And when Richard ascends to the throne, he says to William, you're to give homage for Ireland. And William refuses to say, no, John is actually lower of Ireland since 1185. So I don't owe homage to you for Ireland. I owe to John. John seems to appreciate this gesture and they get on quite well when Richard is king. He's Lord of Ireland, but he also has a lot of land in Wales.

So natural neighbours and that's quite a good relationship at the start. The only problem is for John when the shoe is on the other foot in 1204 and the plantagenet position in Normandy crumbles, and William Marshall says, I'm going to pay homage to the King of France for my lands in Normandy. and he has Longville and Or Beck and this really upsets John I think when the dust settles and he realizes a large part of his inheritance is gone

and he wants to take out his frustration, his anger. Easier to do it to someone on your side of the channel rather than in France where he's already lost and so William becomes quite a natural target. Now it's not the only one to do it by no means but he's probably the most prominent one to get away with it.

So we see a break relations, 1204, and this sort of boil over into a sort of proxy war in Ireland in 1206, 1207, when the justice year of Ireland, he starts raiding Marshall lands and he tries to lay siege to Gokennie Castle, where Isabel Declare, who's pregnant at the time and residing with a couple other children and they're trapped inside while William's still in England, but the marshals kind of, they are able to capture Miler and they win and he's able to frame it as he's doing everything John asks of him in court, but apparently oblivious of while this is happening in Ireland and comes out to Victor but says, oh, it was my men. And it stays quite tense. William finally journeys to

Ireland and he pretty much stays there constantly till about 1213. And the only thing that really changes the relationship between William and John is when everything starts to go belly up for John in the early 1210s. He's facing crisis at home abroad. He's excommunicated by the Pope for going against them. And so that one of the first symbols we have of kind of Williams, he heads a list of the magnates of all of Ireland. There's 26 of them named, and they send it to the Pope saying, we are prepared to live and die with John, even though he's excommunicated. And then William returns 1213, brings over a force from Ireland and helps the stabilise the position in Wales, quite volatile. Both Ireland and Wales are quite kind of front.

or climates, not entirely conquered. And so William is an anchor. So he goes to Wales, starts to try stabilize and settle the march of Wales. And then all the while, baronial opposition is rising in England. There's threatenings of a French invasion by Prince Louis. And so I think by the time William starts to return, he's in a really good position. Things are really starting to turn against John. William's well respected by the barons. He's also a big, figure in Wales and Ireland. And so John sees this as if I give William Morelands and custodianships, particularly in Wales, he's going to administer them and they'll augment his influence. And so it's seen that this kind of intertwining of martial and royal interests. And so this is sort of John's

tactic and getting ready for the war to come. This is a way it should go. John should be king. I do think that he believes in the crown as an institution, but I do think there's a big self-interest dynamic in it. William, his lands are in Ireland and Wales and he is, has considerable lands, but as I said, they're both sort of frontier regions, can be volatile, political climates. And so he does rely on royal support to a certain degree in both. So I suppose when he is returning, there has been rumblings of revolt in Wales and clashes. There's been skirmishes. Things are starting to ramp up. It's definitely not surprising that William wants to be there in person to look after his own interests. He actually stays in Wales for the majority of the early Barons War,

what we call as the Magna Carta War. He's in England to kind of broker the peace and the agreement at Runnymede, finally signed 15th to June, Magna Carta, 1215, but John Reneges and revolt quickly starts, but it's primarily in England, a little bit of a breakout in Wales where Williams is able to combat and there's no upsurge in Ireland whatsoever. William, pretty much Stes in Wales for the kind of conflict to come, pretty much until the death of King John in October. And that's when I think William steps centre stage in England. So I do think the fact he's not as involved in England

in the early stages of the revolt, while John is still alive, would suggest that a lot of it is looking after his own interests in Wales, I think. John seems quite lucky in having William Marshall and that he, because William Marshall can see this idea of being loyal to the institution of the Crown rather than to John. It's almost like John alienates William Marshall to the point where he just goes to Ireland to get away from John because if you could, why wouldn't you?

But then he's also willing to come back when he's needed. And he could quite easily have said, oh, I'm quite busy in Ireland, John. Why don't you deal with this yourself? But it does seem like he feels compelled by some sense of duty to the Crown to come back and do whatever he can to help. Am I seeing that maybe through rose-tinted spectacles? Am I not being cynical enough? and what he was doing was coming back when there was a ripe moment to try and improve his own position.

Yeah, absolutely. He's aware of it. So is John is aware of it and like Henry III is aware of it under the later marshals. And so I think, yeah, they're very conscious that they are these anchors of English power in Ireland and Wales. And with this comes a certain amount of reliance from the Plantagenets because they have a vast lands with varying levels of bureaucratic intensity and royal. proximity and so they rely on resident, powerful men. And so people like the marshals who are travelling between their lands all the time have administrators constantly present. When you're under pressure, they are the people you turn to. And I guess to some extent there's a knack for a nobleman at this time in making sure that your own selfish personal interests align somewhat with those of the crown. If you can balance those scales, then you're in a pretty good position. And maybe

William Marshall is just good at that. What he needs happens to be what the Crown needs and vice versa. And so he's in the right place at the right time, able to do the right things. Yeah, he's great at adapting to different political climates. And I think a certain amount of that is definitely his childhood being raised in civil war, traveling, having to make his own way. And so learning a bit of astuteness, I think is particularly important. But also one of the big adjustments he has to make with Richard and John, as Richard is well known for being the crusader king, he spends a great deal of his reign, not actually in England, which is suitable for someone like William. He's entrusted with being Sheriff of Gloucester and one of the four co-justiciers

of England during Richard's reign at the start. And so that kind of suits Richard's far out of sight, out of mind. Whereas with John, from 1185, he's only destined to be Lord of Ireland and have lands in the March of Wales. And so when he becomes king in 1199, yeah, you get a much more closer sort of proximity of royal attention to these lands. If you look at the kings who come to Ireland, Henry II comes in 1171. John comes as Lord of Ireland in 1185, but he comes as King of England in 1210. And then no other king comes to Richard the second. And he comes twice, but in moments of crisis as well. So I think John is much more concerned with what's happening in Ireland. So that is a big adjustment William has to make. His liberties, his judicial prerogatives,

they're being closely watched under John. They weren't under Richard, but a free hand to act. William handles it very well and even when John comes in 1210 and basically comes after William DeBrioz and he goes after to the Lacey family and they are banished and basically anything John asks of William he gives up who says I want castles, hostages,

here you go and completely acquiesces to all of the commands and so he's able to bide his time and kind of see out the sort of choppy waters to come out on the other side. So I think yeah he's very astute at adapting to this shifting political climate under the contagionates and the changing during the different reigns. Yeah. And I think there's an interesting difference in the approaches of Richard and John. So there's a moment where William Marshall almost kills Richard before Richard is king.

But it's almost like that causes Richard to respect William Marshall and his service to the crown, whereas John can't reconcile that. You know, if you fall out with John, that's it. You're dead to him unless he happens to desperately need you again in the future. So there's a real difference between the ways that Richard and John respond to William Marshall and the way that he offers his service. But William is still managing to negotiate and navigate those choppy waters at sometimes. He seems to do a really good job of making his way through that, whatever the prevailing conditions. Yeah, it's definitely painted like that in the biography.

David Crouch has recently convincingly argued that William Marshall's quite astute that he's at court at the time. The other man who would rival him is the Earl of Chester, who's a little bit away, so he's a little bit behind the kind of happenings. But it's very much the case that William possibly believes that he is the man to sort this out, that having loads of people chipping in and making decisions is not the way to go. There's a French invasion, and there's barons in widespread revolt in England. So we need quick acting, someone who's proved himself. So it's quite possible that that is the case, but he definitely takes the reins probably more forcefully than they're handed over to him. And everything's been decided by the time the Earl of Chester arrives. And it's important that, as I said, William's born around 1146, 1147.

He's no spring chicken when John dies. He's about 70 and he's taking hold of the kingdom. Yeah. And then I guess his really big moment arrives with the death of King John, the accession. of the young Henry III and everybody is casting around thinking how do we run a country with a small child as a king

I always get this impression that everyone's in a room and suddenly all the eyes just end up on William Marshall and he's standing there going Yeah, he takes charge and he starts organising role of forces but Lincoln is the pivotal moment really I suppose the turning point and yeah

he leads to force he is on horseback fighting yeah 70 years old And it is quite possible that he is thinking of his legacy beyond. He's even thinking, look, if I die here and if we come out to Victor's, what a way to go. So he's not too worried about that maybe. And he's lived quite a good life by this stage. He's had 10 children.

But it's probably the case as well that I think he really feels that young Henry should not be paying for his father's crimes. Maybe this idea of leaving in the institution and thinking, yeah, we need to secure Henry's inheritance. He very much fights on the front line. They obviously win at Lincoln and he's able to agree the Treaty of Lambeth and he saves the kingdom. Imagine what they'd have made of the whole Biden-Trump thing, 80-odd-year-olds, taking control of the country. They're worried about William Marshall at 70. And even then, you know, for a guy who's around about 70, he's no slouch. You know, he gets stuck into it. And when they get to Lincoln, you know, he has absolutely no qualms about still riding into battle. He still wants to be this great servant to the crown.

But maybe he's also got one eye on his enduring legacy, his reputation at this point. And he's thinking this is how I really write myself into the history books. Hindsight is great. When we think of battles and pivotal moments, we say, oh, sure, they did it. But it's really precarious. You cannot overstate that enough. Williams' biography, again, talks of William having a conversation with one of his close nights, John DeRle. And he's contemplating sending Henry III to Ireland.

if they lose England and they can start to regather forces. And the minority council talk about sending John's Queen and Richard, a later Earl of Cornwall, King of the Romans, sending them to Ireland so that they're out of harm's way while William and Henry and the Council try to establish their position. So it's really Lincoln decides it all. And so it's definitely the case that it's probably for him all of his experience. The tournaments, battles in France, his involvement in Ireland, in Wales,

and everything brings him, yeah, to this point, and he probably weighs it up in his head and thinks at a risk worth taking and he's absolutely right to do it. Not only comes out still surviving, but comes out essentially winning the war there and then. Yeah, and that does also seem like a real culmination of all of his training and experience

from the tournament circuit, which would have prepared him for a fight in the streets of a town almost. And his wider political experiences, because he seems to me that in 1216, what he spots is an opportunity while enemy forces are divided to make a really bold dash at half of them before you allow them to regroup. And it was really everything hinged on Lincoln, didn't it? If they'd lost Lincoln, their cause was utterly destroyed and Henry would never have thrived as King of England. And so he clearly spies that this is the moment and judges that the time is right to go for it right now.

It was a heck of a gamble, but he must have been drawing on all of his 70 years of experience by this point to think it's a gamble, but it's one we have to make. Yeah, and I think that's again, his experience, this sort of astuteness really comes out. So yeah, he reissues Magna Carta, 1217. There's only two seals on that version, and his is one of them, and the other is the papal legates. And essentially, you know, William Marshall will be the reason that Magna Carta survives. he's the one that sort of reinstitutes it. And that's almost a cynical, political ploy as well, isn't it? Because what he's doing is he's removing the maybe the most offensive portions of Magna Carta, but then giving the barons what they'd wanted from John and sort of saying, well, what are you fighting for now? You've got what you wanted. He knows to Magna Carta will smooth over any of the rough edges left. And yeah, as he said, he's able to play around with a little bit. He also extends it to Ireland. And he also implements this sort of policy. So he dies in May 1219, but in between Magna Carta and his death, he implements this policy of sort of reconciliation rather than retribution. The door is left open for a lot of the revolting barons, not losing their lands, and it quickly heals the kind of wounds of civil war, which can really cut deep and can last quite long. I think his attitude to that really saves England, saves Henry's inheritance, and gives him a lot. fighting chance to restore his kingship. Yeah, fascinating. William Marshall dies in 1219. He's buried at the

Temple Church in London. You can still visit his tomb effigy today. When I first found out it was quite surprised, you know, it looks battered and worn and everything else, but apparently it was perfect until the Second World War when the Temple Church was bombed. And it's actually World War II bomb damage to the tomb that we see, not the wear and tear of kind of 800 years of him being there. But in terms of his legacy, so, you know, this biography is created for perhaps a variety of reasons that positions him as the greatest knight. I've talked about the survival of Magna Carta being in no small part due to Marshall's championing of it as a way to counteract resentment to John after John is gone. What do you think is William Marshall's legacy

and do you think it's sometimes overstated or can it ever be overstated? A lot of the time with legacy it tends to be quite mixed. So at the time there are a number of glowing. obits in different chronicles, and they very much seem Henry the third or the minority council in a royal mandate state that William had proved himself like gold in a furnace, but he's very much in the immediate aftermath seen in these kind of very positive light. It's an interesting story recounted by Matthew Paris. William's five sons die without producing an air. This happens 1245, and at the death of the last one, Matthew Paris, monk and chronicler of St. Albans,

gives a very interesting story that he puts this down to a curse that during William's life in the 1200s in particular, he acts with a kind of heavy hand in Ireland, particularly against one Gaelic Irish bishop, whose bishop of ferns, and take some lands. Elva tries to contest it, goes to petition the Pope and everything, and William, when he becomes regent, shuts all of this down, isolates Elvin. and he eventually resorts in manipulating hagiographies to try and prove his fame to the lands and dies in the middle of it without coming out to Victor. Matthew Parris recounts how

after William dies, Elva journeys over to Temple Church and stands over. William's tomb and says, if the lands are not returned, your name will die with this next generation. And William the Younger kind of says, go home, you're not getting any land back sort of thing.

And then so he's putting it down to this and he says that William was a great sort of statesman for England, warlike soldier against the French, with sort of a hurtful conquerer against the Irish. That's one of the first other side of the kind of legacy that we see. You see an interesting shift in the 16th 17th century. The death of William is seen as the beginning of the kind of cracks in the colony in Ireland. So they see this division of inheritance as a convenient point of genesis for the later turmoil in early modern Ireland. And so a lot of political commentators are writing about him writing about his life, his time in Ireland. But in general, today, as we said,

there was a lot of phenomenal work done for the anniversary of Madre MacArthur and a lot of kind of commemorations and thinking about it and its role in establishing constitutional history in England. And at the end of the day, William's statues in the House of Lords. So I think he very much rightly needs to be viewed as one of the founding figures of Britain and Ireland as we know it. Yeah. I mean, it sounds a little bit like we're going with his legacy is significant and huge, even if some of what we know about him might be exaggeration and everything else, we can see that very real impact on the constitutional and political development of England, Wales and Ireland in the centuries after his death. Yeah, everybody

loves an underdog story, whether that's today, 13th century, 12th century, doesn't really matter. And it's not quite rags to riches. But as we talked about, it's, It's very humble beginnings. But true loyalty, brotherhood, military prowess, piety, perhaps most importantly, prudence, one can transform their fortunes and this sort of upsurge in chivalric loyalty that we see after the 13th century. William becomes a key feature in this. And I think this sort of senances place both then and now. Well, there you go.

That sounds like a perfect place to end it. It's wonderful. Thank you so much for joining us, John. It's been an absolute pleasure to find out more about William Marshall's life and career and the ways that we think about him, the ways he was viewed in his lifetime and the way he's been viewed since. So thank you very, very much. Thanks for having me, Matt. If you've enjoyed hearing more about the exploits of William Marshall, you can find him popping up in episodes we've done with Kath Hanley on her book, 1217. And in the first episode of our chat with David Carpenter on his two-part biography of King Henry, third, both are well worth listening aside from the martial goodness within. There are new installments of Gone Medieval every Tuesday and Friday, so please come back to join Eleanor and I for more from the greatest millennium in human history. Don't forget to also subscribe or follow us on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts

and tell all of your friends and family that you've gone medieval. You can also listen to us and all of History Hits podcasts, add free, and watch hundreds of TV documentaries when you subscribe at history hit.com forward slash subscribe. As a special gift, you can also get 50% off your first three months when you use the code medieval at checkout. Anyway, I better let you go. I've been Matt Lewis and we've just gone medieval with history hit.