"The finest knight in all the world": the practical chivalry of Sir William Marshal

The life of Sir William Marshal reads like a medieval story book. Starting out as a landless squire whose only possession was family connections, Marshal rose from household knight to become one of the wealthiest and most powerful nobles in early thirteenth century England. Ultimately, he was chosen by his peers to be the guardian and regent of a boy king, during a French invasion abetted by a baronial revolt. William Marshal's remarkable rise was due to the qualities that made him, in the words of both friends and foes, “the finest knight in all the world,” his prowess, his acumen in both war and court politics, and, above all, his reputation for unshakeable loyalty.

In this episode Richard and Ellen retell stories about William Marshal’s life as a landless household knight. A follow on episode explores his career as a baron and his complicated relationship with King John of Magna Carta and Robin Hood notoriety. The focus of both episodes is on the key to William Marshal’s success, his practical chivalry

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Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada

If you have questions, feel free to contact me at richard.abels54@gmail.com

Transcript

‘THE FINEST KNIGHT IN ALL THE WORLD”: THE PRACTICAL CHIVALRY OF SIR WILLIAM MARSHAL

Richard Abels

Podcast script

Richard. Welcome to our fifth episode. “The finest knight in all the world”: the Practical Chivalry of Sir William Marshal (Part 1).  William Marshal, who was born around 1147 and died in 1219, was both the flower of chivalry of his day and an important figure in the turbulent world of Plantagenet politics. He served two English kings, the Young King Henry and his father Henry II, as a household knight; two others, Henry II’s sons Richard the Lionheart and John, as a baron, ultimately an Earl, a royal administrator and advisor; and a fifth, the child king Henry III, as regent and guardian.

[n this episode we will explore William’s life as a landless household knight, what the French medieval historian Georges Duby termed a “youth,” and what in England was known as a “bachelor knight.” And William was a bachelor, in the modern sense of that word, and a “youth” in Duby’s sense, until he was about 40 years old. In our second episode, we will talk about William’s marriage to a wealthy heiress that made him a baron and earl and William’s remarkable career in the service of King John and his infant successor, Henry III. In both, our focus is on what made William so successful, his practical chivalry.

Ellen. In the previous episode Richard explained that medieval chivalry was an aristocratic ethos that arose in the eleventh and twelfth centuries to distinguish the self-defined military nobility of medieval Europe from those whom they considered their social inferiors, especially rich merchants with pretensions.  Although medieval chivalry was an evolving and disputed ethos rather than a code, a consensus had emerged by the late twelfth century about the qualities that a knight needed to possess to be deemed a prudhomme, a worthy man.  These combined the virtues of the knight as warrior —skill in combat on horseback, courage, and loyalty to a lord —, with courtliness, that is, the manners and behavior that enhanced a lord’s court, and Christian piety, at least, piety as interpreted by the knights.  

Richard: All these qualities were important, but the sine qua non was prowess, the ability to fight well with weapons appropriate to a knight, lance and sword. No matter how courteous or pious a knight might be, if he lacked prowess he could not be a prudhomme, a truly worthy man.

Ellen: You just described Monty Python’s Black Knight! 

Richard: Yes, a truly disarming example of prowess and courage!

Ellen: Groan

Richard: To be fair, a consensus also emerged about the proper use of prowess. A chivalric knight displayed his prowess in service to his earthly lord; in defense of the Church, especially by going on crusade; and in the protection of the worthy helpless, that is, noblewomen in distress and defenseless clergy. (Armed clergy, which was not an oxymoron, were another matter.)  

Ellen: Of course, that protection was usually from threats from less chivalrous knights.  

Richard: The Church tried to extend this to all non-combatants, that was a bridge too far for the nobility. Prowess became an even more important marker of true chivalry in the Late Middle Ages and the Renaissance when the urban elites of Italy and Flanders adopted and adapted chivalric manners, and cities began to sponsor jousts that emphasized pageantry rather than actual fighting.

Ellen: Wealth certainly mattered, but how one acquired it and how one used it were equally important.  Honorable wealth came from lordship over land, that is, a noble’s manors, and from the exploitation of peasant labor.  

Richard: How Marxist of you. The 60s live! I’m sure that nobles would not have characterized their lordship over peasants as exploitation, if they even understood the word.  They ruled over peasants because that is how God willed it. The Christian world order comprised ‘those who prayed for all,’ that is the clergy; ‘those who fought to defend all,’ the knights and nobles; and ‘those who worked to feed all,’ everyone else.  Rent and labor was a quid pro quo for the protection their lords owed them, and the justice they maintained.

Ellen: Yeah, protection from other nobles, and justice that coincidentally always profited the lord or cost him nothing. 

Richard: Not all knights had land. Landless knights sought a position in a great noble’s household, where each would receive food, clothing, and rewards commensurate with his rank and service, and maybe ultimately the gift of a fief. 

Ellen: Serving knights also looked to profit financially from tournaments and, especially, warfare.  Another poem by Bertran de Born, the snarky troubadour knight you introduced in the last podcast, explained why he and those like him rejoiced at the prospect of war [insert music]:

Richard:  "Trumpets, drums, standards, and pennons and ensigns and horses white and black we soon shall see, and the world will be good. We’ll take the usurers’ money, and never a mule-driver will travel the roads in safety, nor a townsman without fear, nor a merchant coming from France. He who gladly takes will be rich.” (And, yes, the music is by Bertran de Born.)

Business dealings brought wealth but not honor.  

Ellen: How wealth was used also distinguished a chivalric noble from a wealthy merchant. True chivalry required a nobleman to display generosity toward kinsmen, friends, and deserving followers. Wealth was also necessary to display one’s nobility through pageantry, the chivalric version of conspicuous consumption. 

Richard: Above all, medieval chivalry was about honor, which in the Middle Ages meant social status and the respect of other worthy men. Kings and the Church attempted to shape this ethos, but ultimately it was the knights themselves who defined it through their practice. 

Confession time.  I chose Ulrich von Liechtenstein as my exemplar of chivalry in the last episode because he is memorably weird and because some of our listeners might recognize the name from the Heath Ledger movie “The Knight’s Tale.” Ulrich’s Venus Tour in which he rode from Venice to the Czech Republic dressed in drag as Lady Venus, challenging all good knights to joust against him was hardly normal behavior even in his day.  It was a theatrical display of Ulrich’s prowess as a tournament knight, his wealth, and his generosity, masquerading as courtly service to the lady he professed to love.  Ulrich demonstrated his courtliness in a more subtle fashion by interspersing love songs throughout “The Service of Ladies.” Playing musical instruments, singing, and writing love poetry and songs were also courtly skills.  Although primarily thought of as a warrior, Richard the Lionheart, taken prisoner by the Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI on his return from crusade, composed a song,  “Ja nuns hons pris [ja nunshon pree],” lamenting the time it was taking for his supporters to raise his ransom. 

No prisoner can tell his honest thought
 Unless he speaks as one who suffers wrong;
 But for his comfort he may make a song.
 My friends are many, but their gifts are naught.
 Shame will be theirs, if, for my ransom, here
 I remain for yet another year.  (words and music by King Richard)

Richard’s well-known love of music gave rise to the apocryphal story of how the minstrel Blondel discovered where Richard was imprisoned by traveling from castle to castle in Austria singing the first verse of a song known only to the two of them. In reality, Richard’s whereabouts were well known. His mother Eleanor of Aquitaine was doing her best to raise his ransom but it was taking time because of her other son John’s attempts to frustrate her efforts. The reason that Richard was rushing home to England was because Eleanor had sent him word that John, with the aid of King Philip Augustus of France, was attempting to usurp the throne.  That much of the Robin Hood story is true.

Ellen: Maybe Richard the Lionheart should have you’re your example of chivalry. Ulrich’s “The Service of Ladies” is fun and makes your point about the past being a foreign country, but, as I pointed out at the end of our last episode, there are several key chivalric virtues missing from it. The only time Ulrich demonstrated courage was when he heroically submitted to plastic surgery on his lip. Nowhere in the The Service of Ladies do we see Ulrich practicing courtliness in a noble’s court or demonstrating any kind of Christian piety. Even his willingness to go on crusade is about his service to ladies rather than to God, as his squire points out.  And because Ulrich took on the persona of a knight errant out of a romance, the only loyalty he demonstrates is to his lady rather than a king or a lord. Even his prowess seems frivolous, as he never demonstrated it in actual war. 

Richard: In a sense, Ulrich seems to have had too much money and too little to do. The general peacefulness of southern Germany in the early thirteenth century shaped how he exhibited his chivalry.

Ellen: Fortunately, there was a knight from the generation before Ulrich who exhibited all the qualities missing from “The Service of Ladies,” Sir William Marshal.

Richard:  El,  why don’t you tell our listeners who Sir William Marshal was.

Ellen.  With pleasure!  He was an English knight and baron of the late twelfth and early thirteenth century, and one of my very favorite characters from medieval history. Praised as the finest knight of his day by contemporaries, William Marshal’s life reads like a medieval story book. Starting out as a landless squire whose only possession was family connections, Marshal rose from household knight to become one of the wealthiest and most powerful nobles in early thirteenth century England. In his last years he served as regent for the boy king Henry III, leading the royal forces against a French invasion invited by a baronial revolt.  This may not be a “rags” to riches story, as William began at the bottom of the highest stratum of society, but it is as close as it gets for medieval knights.

Marshal’s remarkable rise was a consequence of the qualities that made him an exemplar of late twelfth-century chivalry: prowess in tournaments and combat, tactical and strategic acumen in war, the “courtesy” and discretion necessary to navigate the shoals of the royal court, and, above all, a reputation for unwavering loyalty to those whom he served. This was not the chivalry of Sir Walter Scott or even Ulrich von Liechtenstein. It was an intensely practical chivalry. William Marshal’s life is a window on the politics and aristocratic culture of Plantagenet England and provides the best insight into what chivalry meant in practice in England and France in the late twelfth- and the early thirteenth-century.

Richard: We know more about William Marshal than any other English knight of the Middle Ages because of an extraordinary and unique primary source, L’Histoire de Guillaume le Maréchal, “The History of William the Marshal.” This long biographical poem, 19,000 lines of verse, five times as long as “The Song of Roland,” was composed by "John the Troubadour" for Marshal's eldest son Earl William Marshal II. The guiding force behind the work was another John, John of Earley, William Marshal’s closest friend and squire.  The author's intention, of course, was to glorify William Marshal and to present him as the "flower of chivalry." The History presents William Marshal as the epitome of the prud’homme, a “worthy man.” For the poet this meant a nobly born man of prowess, unshakeable loyalty, and piety, who possessed the complementary skills and temperament of a courtier.  The reader of the poem needs to remember that this is a literary work rather than an historical study. But John was writing for an audience who had known the Marshal, and his goal was to write a biography that would ring true to them. 

What the author of The History knew of William Marshal’s childhood and youth were stories that the elderly Marshal enjoyed telling his household knights. If these were intended for their edification, the lessons he taught are not what a modern audience might think appropriate for the education of a chivalric knight. 

Ellen: The “History” is full of wonderful anecdotes that tell us a lot about the values and mentality of knights and barons in the early thirteenth-century.

Richard: Those wonderful anecdotes got you into trouble in a class on medieval England that you took with the professor who was later to become my dissertation advisor, J.M.W. Bean.

Ellen: Story.

Richard: Fortunately, the anecdotal mode is perfect for a podcast, so why don’t you tell our listeners about William Marshal’s first close brush with death as a child or about five.  But first let me set the historical stage.

William Marshal was the fourth son of John fitzGilbert, a landowner with manors in Wiltshire in southwestern England. John fitzGilbert held the hereditary office of marshal in the royal households of King Henry I of England, King Stephen, and Queen Mathilda.  A royal marshal was responsible for the king’s stables, made travel arrangements for a royal court that were always on the move, and led the king’s household knights in time of war. 

Ellen: William himself did not assume the office until the death of an older brother. But before then Marshal seems to have become a family surname.

Richard: The long and brutal civil war that followed King Henry I’s death, pitting his nephew King Stephen against King Henry’s daughter the Empress Matilda—widow of the Holy Roman Emperor Henry V--put barons like John FitzGilbert into impossible conflicts of loyalty.  In the absence of effective central authority, it also gave them an opportunity to increase their holdings by seizing lands from their neighbors, building castles without royal approval, and switching allegiances when they thought it to their benefit. John Marshal did all that.  John Marshal was guided by a determination to protect and expand his holdings. 

[START]William Marshal’s mother Sybil was John Marshal’s second wife and of higher rank than her husband. The marriage was a political alliance that ended a local, private war between her brother, Earl Patrick of Salisbury, and John Marshal. The only problem was that John Marshal at the time was married with two sons. But he was not a romantic.  The choice between having Earl Patrick as an ally or keeping his first wife was an easy one for him to make. 

Ellen:  The choice between his youngest son and a castle was also not difficult for John Marshal.  

John Marshal was not a sentimental man. William’s earliest memory was his father giving him to King Stephen as a hostage to obtain a truce during a siege. King Stephen had no reason to trust John Marshal, who had been a member of his court before he switched loyalties to the Empress Mathilda. Ostensibly the truce was so John Marshal could consult Matilda about surrendering the castle. Instead, John used the time to stock supplies and strengthen the garrison. 

When messengers from Stephen threatened to kill the five year old boy, John Marshal coolly replied, do with him what you will. I still have the anvils and hammers to forge better sons than him. A king such as Henry I wouldn’t have thought twice about fulfilling the threat. When an outraged noble demanded justice for the blinding of his son while held hostage by Henry’s son-in-law Eustace, the king gave him permission to blind his two hostages, who happened to be the king’s own granddaughters.  But Stephen, a less ruthless and hence less effective medieval ruler, couldn’t bring himself to give the order. He had grown fond of the child, who saw the whole thing as a game and his captors as playmates.

Richard:  When William was about 13, his father sent him to be trained for knighthood in the household of his cousin, William, lord of Tancarville, the hereditary constable of Normandy.  William served him as a squire, and at the age of 20 was dubbed a knight. The affair was simple. The constable girded a sword around William’s waist, and probably struck him on his two shoulders, and—voila—William Marshal was now a knight.  The knighting took place while the Constable was preparing to defend the town of Drincourt against the Count of Flanders.  William fought enthusiastically and well, until he was wounded by a group of Flemish mercenaries who sunk an iron hook into his shoulder in an attempt to pull him to the ground. He escaped, but his horse died from its wounds. At the feast that followed the victory, one of the nobles teasingly asked William for the gift of a horse harness, and when William said he had none to give, the noble in mock surprise said, how odd, I thought you must have had forty or even sixty today. Everyone laughed. The point of the joke was serious: a knight, especially a landless knight, had to look out for himself. Rather than capture knights for ransom, William had fought simply to protect the town, and that was something he could not afford to do.

After his knighting, William returned to England to join the household of his most prominent relative, his uncle Earl Patrick. Henry II, son of the Empress Mathilda and Count Geoffrey of Anjou, now ruled England and about a third of France. From his mother Henry II inherited the kingdom of England and the duchy of Normandy. From his father, the county of Anjou, and when he married Eleanor of Aquitaine in 1152 soon after the annulment of her 15-year marriage to King Louis VII of France, he added the large, prosperous, and completely ungovernable county of Poitou and duchy of Aquitaine to what historians term the “Angevin Empire.” (Angevin is the French adjectival form of Anjou. I warned you that I am slightly pedantic.)

Ellen: Earl Patrick was assigned to aid Eleanor in bringing Poitou under a semblance of control. Among the most troublesome nobles of Poitou the Lusignan family. The Lusignan brothers Geoffrey and Guy ambushed Earl Patrick as he was escorting Eleanor. The party was taken completely by surprise. Eleanor managed to escape, but an unarmed Earl Patrick was struck down from behind. Enraged, the young William Marshal charged alone against the murderers to avenge his uncle. His horse was killed underneath him. Surrounded, he backed up against a hedgerow and,  in the words of the poet, “fought like a wild boar amongst the dogs,” until a knight got behind the hedgerow and slashed his thigh. Wounded, William Marshal was taken prisoner. Surprising everyone, Queen Eleanor paid the ransom. Eleanor was so impressed with Marshal’s loyalty to his uncle, courage, and prowess, she convinced her husband to appoint William as tutor in arms to their eldest son, Henry, the Young King. Young Henry was 15 years old and his father had recently had him anointed and crowned king.  Henry II gave the boy the title of king but no land to rule. In lieu of actual responsibilities, Young Henry, who was charming, generous, and courtly, devoted him to chivalry. He became a tournament addict, and William became his champion team captain. 

          In a movie one would expect to see William charge his opponents with lance lowered and unhorse them, and then perhaps fight on foot with swords until they surrendered.  But William’s signature move was more elegant and less violent. He would ride past an opponent and at the last moment snatch the reins from his hands. William would then lead horse and rider off the tournament grounds. The only answer to this move was to cut the reins or leap off the horse.  Either action would leave a knight helpless and vulnerable to capture. 

William’s success in tournaments gained him renown, raised him in the esteem of the Young King, and brought him wealth from the ransoms paid by the knights he captured. This usually consisted of their warhorse, horse gear, and armor, which the merchants who frequented tournaments would buy and resell for profit.  William’s ransoms were known to be reasonable, which made the knights he captured more resigned to their fate. On his deathbed,  William estimated that he had taken at least five hundred knights over his lifetime.  This was not boasting. In a ten month period in the late 1170s, he and a fellow knight with whom he formed a partnership captured 103 knights. We know this because they persuaded the Young King’s kitchen clergy to keep a tally of their captures. Tournament earnings meant nothing to barons who fought in them. They were everything to landless household knights such as William Marshal.

Richard: Modern historians rank Henry II among the best kings of England. He restored peace and central authority after a destructive and chaotic civil war, and established the rule of law.  Along with his grandfather Henry I, Henry II is credited with creating the Common Law, that is, the law to which all free Englishmen could appeal. In the medieval period, Common Law was the king’s law. In a series of Assizes, meetings of the kings and the magnates of the realm, Henry II established the superiority of the king’s law and courts over those of the barons, and developed regular legal procedures to resolve disputes over lands held from the Crown—made urgent by the tangled claims created by the civil war.  But contemporaries had little admiration for Henry II, whom they saw as ungenerous and legalistic.  They much preferred his chivalrous son, the Young King Henry.

For Bertran de Born, Young Henry was

“the best king who ever took up a shield, the most daring and best of all tourneyers. From the time when Roland was alive, and even before, never was seen a knight so skilled, so warlike, whose fame resounded so around the world.” 

Ellen: William Marshal liked to tell his household knights about his own experiences when he was in their position. Unsurprisingly, he emphasized his prowess and his loyalty. But even the most loyal knight could be falsely accused by envious peers. This is what happened to William when he was master of arms in the household of King Henry II’s eldest son, Henry the Younger.  William was the captain of his team of knights.  He was by far the best knight in any tournament in which he participated. Calling him the “finest knight who ever was or ever will be,” the Young King preferred to be knighted by Marshal than by even the king of France, an unheard of honor for one of Marshal’s rank. Young Henry further honored William by elevating him to the status of knight bannerette, a knight who could unfurl his own banner and captain his own squadron of knights in a tournament. 

Richard: Noble courts were often rife with tensions.  They were filled with young knights vying to be noticed by the lord, his lady, or the seneschal upon whose favor their welfare depended.  Given the youth of the household knights, their warrior identities, the fact that they were usually armed with swords, and the culture’s emphasis on honor, this competition could erupt in violence, which perhaps explains why the heroes of medieval romances are always courteous to their fellow knights and when praised, always respond with modesty, down-playing the deeds they have performed.  This courtly quality was known as mesure, self-restraint, the ability to shake off an insult and respect the peace of the lord’s court. Worth was demonstrated through actions, not claimed by words.  The “History” makes of point of presenting William as self-deprecating, easy going and good natured.  

When I taught this to midshipmen, I compared this quality of restraint and calculated self-deprecation to the star college quarterback who having had a spectacular day on the field tells the interviewer that his great receivers and selfless blockers are the true heroes of the game. And, of course, he thanks God.

Ellen: The favor shown to William by the Young King aroused the envy of his fellow household knights, some of whom stood well above Marshal in the social hierarchy. Jealous of William’s success and fearing to challenge him directly, they started a whispering campaign, accusing him of placing the Young King at risk in tournaments while he pursued ransoms.  Far more serious, they spread the rumor that William was sleeping with the Young King’s wife Margaret, daughter of King Louis VII of France. The Young King did not want to confront William directly, but the rumors made it impossible for William to continue in his service. Although romances about Lancelot and Tristan and may have made adultery with a queen seem glamorous—that is, if the knight was sufficiently worthy—in real life adultery was a deadly serious matter.  It shamed the cuckolded husband and, worse, threatened the legitimacy of his bloodline. The culture approved of knights praising the beauty of his lord’s wife, but this was a game played in the presence of the lord and was meant to flatter him as much as the lady. To go beyond that was both a personal betrayal and, in the case, of king’s and counts, treason. Even in the romances, adulterous relationships had unhappy consequences. Lancelot’s love affair with Queen Guinevere led to civil war and destroyed the fellowship of the Round Table. Tristan and Isolde’s resulted in the lovers’ deaths.  A household knight bold enough to emulate Lancelot or Tristan risked death if discovered.  It is very unlikely that William actually had betrayed Young Henry in this fashion, but the rumor in itself was sufficient to tarnish the Young King’s honor as well as William’s. William demanded the right to clear his name through trial by combat against his accusers, but his reputation was such that no knight was willing to step forward and accept the challenge. 

Richard:  William Marshal suddenly found himself as a knight errant. Knights errant wandering the countryside in search of adventure were a staple of medieval romances, but they are almost always the sons of kings or princes. Once again reality and romance diverged.  For William what it meant was that he was a landless knight without a lord to serve. Fortunately for William, his reputation made him a desirable commodity to other great nobles who sponsored tournament teams and several counts, including Philip of Flanders, bid against one another for the privilege to be his patron. 

Ellen:  Then suddenly Young Henry recalled William to service.  The Young King’s frustration and resentment against his father and his younger brothers Geoffrey and Richard had erupted in an unsuccessful rebellion in 1172-3, which Henry II had forgiven. Now. A decade later, Young Henry was threatening a second rebellion, one that originated in the support that he and his brother Geoffrey, now count of Brittany, were providing to Aquitanian nobles rebelling against the harsh rule of their brother Richard. When Richard turned to his father for support, the conflict among the brothers widened into a rebellion against Henry II. Young Henry’s need for an experienced fighter and tactician trumped the unproven rumors, which were undermined by the defection of the chief accuser to Henry II.  Fearing that he would be charged with disloyalty to Henry II, William Marshal asked King Philip Augustus and other French nobles to write on his behalf to King Henry II.  The letters, which must have stressed William’s good character and prudence, led Henry II to give William Marshal permission to rejoin the household of his son and even to fight against him, with the hope that the Marshal would talk sense to Young Henry and head off war.

Richard: This brings us to my favorite anecdote about Marshal. On his way to rendezvous near Paris with two friends who were also rushing to support the Young King, William encountered a runaway monk and a noble lady in the forest. William, who was napping by the side of the road, was awakened by the sound of horses riding by. Without first arming himself, the curious William decided to chase after them to find out who they were and “what their business is.” 

When he caught up with them, William grabbed hold of the man’s heavy cloak and demanded to know who he was. The man, noticing that William was unarmed, pulled himself free and responded that he should mind his own business. When the man placed his hand on his sword, William told him that he was game for a fight, and called on his squire to hand him his sword. John the Troubadour describes what happened next: “The man took fright and drew back … The Marshal dug in his spurs and seized the man by his hood; he tugged at it so violently” that the man’s hood came off, exposing him to be “the most handsome monk to be found between there and Cologne.” The lady revealed herself to be the sister of a knight from Flanders whom William knew quite well. “My fair lady,” William lectured her, “you are not behaving sensibly … I advise you in good faith to desist from this folly, and I shall reconcile you with your brother.” The lady, fearful of being shamed, refused to return to her kinsmen. The Marshal then turned to the monk and demanded to know how he planned to support himself and the lady. The monk showed him a heavy purse containing forty-eight pounds. Although this was a large sum of money, William asked how the monk intended to live off of that money. “’We shall advance them to others to make a profit and live on the interest.’ The Marshal replied, ‘What! Usury! God’s lance, I don’t much care for this.” He then ordered his squire to take the money from them in order to prevent the monk from committing the sin of usury. He sent them on their way with a lecture. Upon meeting up with his companions at an inn, William told them the story and generously shared the loot with them. They urged him to catch up with the eloping couple and take their horses and baggage as well, but William decided against this course of action.  (ll. 6677-6864)

Ellen:  Sidney Painter, whose biography of Marshal represents him as a paragon of chivalric virtue, felt it necessary to justify his hero’s actions. In taking the couple’s money, Painter explained, William was acting as a sort of Christian police man intervening against sin.  To most of us, I suspect that what William did looks more like a mugging. Clergy of the time might have thought so as well.  According to canon law, William ought to have taken both the monk and his money to the nearest archdeacon.  That William chose not to do so, and was so proud of that decision that he turned it into a story to amuse and edify his household knights decades later, is revealing of the mindset of his class. 

Richard: The story probably amused Marshal’s friends and household knights. The mugged couple, in particular the uppity cleric, deserved their fate for their shameful behavior, and William and his companion knights deserved to profit from it.  Whatever we—or a twelfth-century cleric-- might think of his actions, the Marshal himself had no doubt that what he had done was to his credit—as well as to his profit. The story of William Marshal’s encounter with the runaway couple challenges modern conceptions of chivalry. But it is consistent with how Marshal and his contemporaries understood that ethos.  

Ellen. The Young King’s rebellion came to a sudden end when Young Henry contracted dysentery. As he lay dying, he saw the cross stitched on his cloak and remembered the unfulfilled vow he had taken to go on Crusade. Young Henry turned to William and asked him as his intimate friend to take his cloak to Jerusalem to fulfill his vow.  So William went on Crusade. The only thing we know for certain is that while in the Holy Land, William pledged that he before he died he would join the Order of the Knights Templar, a monastic military order founded to protect Christian pilgrims to Jerusalem.

Richard: Upon his return in 1186, William Marshal entered  the service of Henry II. King Henry’s had had reservations about William’s influence on his prodigal son. That was now replaced by respect and admiration for William’s loyalty. He took the measure of William and saw him to be a valuable asset. He endowed William with his first fief, the large estate of Cartmel in the north of England, and named him as the guardian of a royal ward Heloise of Lancaster.  By marrying Heloise, as was his right, William would have become a baron on the order of his father. William remained a royal household knight, but he was no longer landless. Henry II appreciated William’s military abilities, and he now needed all the military support he could get. Henry was at war against the King of France, Philip Augustus, and simultaneously faced a rebellion by his eldest remaining son, Richard the Lionheart, who, to secure his hold on Aquitaine against his father, did homage to Philip for the duchy.  

In the service of King Henry II William Marshal had the opportunity to display another chivalric quality, strategic acumen. Probably most people think of battles like Agincourt when they think of medieval warfare. In reality, battles were rare in the eleventh through fourteenth centuries. Warfare was much more like Sherman’s march to the sea than Gettysburg. The primary military activities were ravaging and sieges. This did not provide knights with much of an opportunity to display prowess, which helps explain the popularity of tournaments. Occasionally sieges would be temporarily suspended to allow the opposing knights to joust against one another, not as a trial by combat to determine the outcome of the siege but simply to demonstrate prowess and pass the time.

King Philip Augustus’ invasion of Normandy in 1188 was a typical campaign.  Philip’s troops ravaged the countryside, besieged the key castle of Gisors, and when he failed to take it, withdrew his forces. Henry II asked William Marshal for advice on how to respond. “’Listen to me sire,” William said, “Philip has divided and disbanded his troops. I advise you to disperse your men too, but to give them secret orders to reassemble at a given time and place. From there they are to ride into the territory of the king France and ravage it. If this is done in force, prudently and promptly, then the King of France will find that he has suffered great damage.” ‘By God’s eye’s, said the king, Marshal, you are most courteous (molt corteis) and have given me good advice. I shall do exactly as you suggest.’” (ll. 7782-7852)  And he did with success. 

This was standard operating procedure in French and English warfare in the late twelfth century. What is remarkable is that the poet saw no problem describing William Marshal’s advice as “most courteous.”  What William was recommending involved laying waste fields, villages, and towns, all the while plundering and killing cattle and noncombatants. As the poet observed, such raids were effective because “when the poor can no longer reap a harvest from their fields, then they can no longer pay their rents, and this, in turn, impoverishes their lords.” (ll. 659-69).  Chivalric restraint and mercy were did not extend below the knightly class. Clerics actively disapproved of this destructive form of warfare, just as they disapproved of tournaments. In both cases, their condemnations fell upon deaf ears. For soldiers such as William Marshal there was nothing shameful or dishonorable in waging war that targeted peasants and townsmen. Even for the “flower” of late twelfth-century chivalry, warfare was waged more through fire than the sword.

Ellen: If ambushes, deception, and raids designed to ravage the countryside, destroying the enemy’s economic resources were all accepted military activities, what, if anything, was considered unchivalric by the poet and his audience? 

Richard: For the poet it came down to killing an unarmed knight, as the Lusignan brothers had done to Earl Patrick, or abandoning a town that one is obliged to defend. Otherwise, all was fair, including killing the horse under the knight. 

Ellen. You are alluding to the story about how William Marshal ambushed Richard the Lionheart, then count of Poitou, to stop his pursuit of Henry II.  

In the last two years of his reign, Henry II fought a losing war against his eldest surviving son and presumed heir Richard and his longtime rival, and nominal overlord, King Philip Augustus of France. The root of Richard’s rebellion was once again sibling rivalry.  A rumor had spread, perhaps started by King Philip and certainly encouraged by him, that Henry intended to disinherit Richard in favor of his beloved youngest son John.  Henry II, always coy about the succession, did nothing to squash the rumor, which Richard took as confirmation.  Richard, who had been fighting alongside his father in a territorial war against Philip Augustus, now joined forces with the French king with the goal of deposing Henry.  Henry was seriously ill, but that mattered little to Richard.

In 1188 Philip Augustus invaded Richard’s county of Poitou. Henry II assembled an army that, of course, included William Marshal, and intense warfare was fought along the disputed borderlands between England and France.  Philip sought a peace conference when two powerful allies, the counts of Flanders and Blois, abandoned him.  Philip salvaged victory by driving a wedge between Henry and Richard. In the negotiations, Philip agreed to concede the disputed lands to Richard with the proviso that Richard marry Philip’s sister Alice and that Henry formally recognize Richard as his heir. A rumor had spread, perhaps begun by Philip himself, that King Henry intended to disinherit Richard and make John his heir.  It was well that Henry favored his youngest son. When Henry refused to answer Philip’s proposal, Richard took it as proof that the rumor was true. Richard angrily left the conference. Henry dispatched William Marshal to persuade Richard to return, but Richard sent him away.  Instead, he joined forces with Philip Augustus against his father. 

Henry II was an outstanding general, but Richard was even better. He had a further advantage, as the old king had fallen ill. Philip Augustus and Richard relentlessly pursued Henry II, whose support dwindled as knowledge of his poor health spread. The old king took refuge in the city of Le Mans.  When scouts from the French king’s army appeared on the outskirts of the city, Henry ordered the suburbs of the town to be set afire.  The fire spread out of control to the city itself.  Henry and his supporters fled Le Mans as Philip’s forces closed on the city.  William Marshal remained behind with a small force to cover the retreat.  Richard was so eager to capture his father that he did not bother even to arm himself. William ordered his men to hide near the road and wait. When Richard charged by, William sprang the ambush, and charged Richard with his lance lowered.  Taken by surprise, Richard, cried out, “God’s legs, Marshal, don’t kill me.  It wouldn’t be right. I am unarmed.” William responded, “No. I won’t kill you—I’ll leave that to the devil,” and drove his lance into Richard’s horse. Richard fell hard to the ground.  “It is my belief,” commented the troubadour, “that no single lance-blow achieved such a rescrue, saving men doomed to loss, pain, and woe, since God in his Passion allowed Himself to be stricken with a lance.”

Richard. Everyone knew that Henry had lost his war against his son, and that Richard inevitably would succeed to the throne. There was no upside in supporting the ailing Henry II, and nobles began either to defect or to return to their homes.  Appreciating William’s steadfast loyalty and increasingly dependent on him, Henry II rewarded William by allowing him to exchange his guardianship of Heloise for that of a far more desirable heiress, Isabel de Clare, the daughter of Earl Richard de Clare, known as ‘Strongbow,’ earl of Striguil and Pembroke in Wales and conqueror of Leinster in Ireland. Of course, William’s marriage to Isabel depended upon King Henry II’s survival, and the old king was ailing.

Ellen:  Finally, Henry II could flee no more.  On his deathbed, he received Richard and Philip’s demands.  The first was to pardon everyone who had rebelled.  The first name on the list was Henry’s youngest son John, whom he had thought loyal.  Henry famously turned his head to the wall and died, murmuring, “Shame, shame, on a vanquished king.” 

Richard: Henry II died soon after. He had sent William and his other household knights and officers to gather whatever support they could. He died at the castle of Chinon, attended only by lowly servants, who took advantage of the situation by stripping the corpse of anything of value, including the king’s clothing. By the time that William and his fellow household knights learned of the death of their lord and returned to Chinon, they found his naked corpse lying on the ground. 

William remained with the body to fulfill the final melancholy duty of a man to his lord:  to assure him a decent burial.  Once again William had served a lord faithfully to end, and once again William found himself on the losing side. There was no money for alms to the poor, as customary upon the death of a king. William Marshal prepared to sell his horse to pay for the funeral. He didn’t have to. The barons of Anjou and Touraine came to escort the king’s body to the abbey of Fontevrault, a mixed religious house favored by both Henry and Eleanor, where he was to be buried. The corpse lay there awaiting the arrival of Count Richard soon to be King Richard.  As did William Marshal. Days before William had been a man on the cusp of ascending through marriage into the highest stratum of his society.  Now he was simply the lord of the manor of Cartmel. His future was in the hands of the man whose horse he had killed under him.

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Ellen:  After impassively viewing his father’s corpse in the Church, Richard summoned Marshal and said accusingly:  you tried to kill me. I only survived because I was able to deflect your lance with my arm.  William answered:  If I had wanted to kill you, you would be dead.  I killed your horse and that was no crime.  Richard then answered:  If you are half as loyal to me as you were to my father, I’ll consider myself well served. Richard was reminded by one of the old king’s household that his father had given Isabel de Clare in marriage to William. Richard responded that his father had only promised her to him. He was giving her.

Ellen:  and this over-the-top generosity helps explain why Richard was remembered as the Lionheart.  

Richard:  Not generosity, although it was seen as a chivalric gesture, but pragmatism. Richard was planning on going on Crusade. He needed proven, solid men like William to keep order in his absence. He may also have preferred to marry Isabel to a grateful serving knight than to one of the magnates of the realm.

Ellen:  William’s marriage to Sybil de Clare, daughter of the famous Longbow, made him one of the greatest nobles in the kingdom and transformed his life.  We will take up his career as a great aristocrat in our next podcast