Doubts have been raised about William Marshal’s career as a crusader – but what was the truth behind the claims?
Being a crusader was never easy. But it was particularly hard in the early 1180s.
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The illustrious knight William Marshal was a good example of the problems involved in this period. He was a long-standing Templar supporter and patron who had given the order lands in Herefordshire. William had been at the deathbed of Henry the Young King (Henry II’s eldest son) in the summer of 1183. Henry junior had previously vowed to go on crusade and his failure to fulfil that vow weighed heavily upon him.
As he lay dying, the Young King handed his pilgrim cross of cloth and the cloak onto which it was woven to his companion William, a man described as Henry’s carissimus – the man most dear to him. ‘Marshal, Marshal’, the writer of The History of William Marshal made him say, ‘I leave you my cross, so that on my behalf you can take it to the Holy Sepulchre and with it pay my debt to God.’ Deeply moved by his lord’s distress, William promised that he would go to the Holy Land in his stead.
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After Henry had been buried at Rouen in July 1183, William, already at the relatively mature age of thirty-six or thirty-seven, sought permission from King Henry to go to the East on his son’s behalf. Henry agreed and gave him 100 Angevin pounds ‘to assist him on his journey’. This was a useful gesture of financial support and endorsement, although, as one contemporary biography rather ungratefully commented, the sum involved would barely pay for one of his horses.
Like his late lord, William was a committed crusader. He may even have thought about permanently emigrating to the East – he certainly put his affairs in suspiciously good order before he set off. But, in a military context, his trip was less significant. The pious William seems to have seen it as a personal pilgrimage rather than a full-scale expedition. He took only a small contingent with him, including his squire, Eustace Betrimont.
William travelled to the East on the autumn sea passage, arriving in October or very early November 1183, just before the shipping lanes closed until the weather improved again in the spring. William spent about two years in the Latin East, and we know that he was back in France at the end of 1185 or early 1186.
With his military experience and warlike nature, William would almost certainly have seen as much action as possible during this period. Although there was less fighting than usual in 1184–5, he and his men may well have seen some service. Perhaps they were with the army of Jerusalem in the successful campaign of manoeuvre in the summer of 1184 to fend off Saladin’s attacks on the key castles of Kerak and Belvoir.
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The view diagonally across the round of Temple Church in London, England. Photo by DAVID ILIFF. License: CC BY-SA 3.0
William’s military exploits in the Latin East were inevitably curtailed soon afterwards, however. The four-year truce that was subsequently negotiated with Saladin started in the spring of 1185. The enforced peace of a ceasefire probably accounts for the strangely unspecific rhetoric of William’s biographer when describing his activities in the East. In two years, he wrote, William ‘performed more feats of prowess, more acts of daring and largesse, more fine deeds than anyone else had achieved in seven’ – all of which was fine, but there was a noticeable (and deeply suspicious) reticence to specify what those deeds actually were.
Everyone knew that this was just a lull in the fighting, however. Far worse was still to come. William’s biographer was probably being all too accurate when he wrote that the Templars ‘loved him dearly for the great qualities they had found in him: they were very upset to see him go’. The admiration of the Templars was fully reciprocated. William built up an even closer relationship with the brothers and seems to have become a Templar associate himself – before he left Jerusalem, he made a binding commitment to end his life within the order.
The timing of his arrival in the Holy Land was unfortunate. But the Templars on the front line would soon be in grave need of men like William Marshal.
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This was not the end of William Marshal’s relationship with the Templars, however.
After the death of King John in October 1216 William became regent of the kingdom and protector for his young son, Henry III. The new regent was, not coincidentally, close friends with Aimery of Saint-Maur, the master of the British Templars. The two men were old and exhausted their last energies in the service of the young king. But together they made a huge difference in keeping the ship of state afloat.
William Marshal and his family had been deeply committed to the Templars for decades. This devotion went far beyond mere talk. William gave the order the very substantial estate of Upleadon in Herefordshire – it was estimated to be worth £28 12s in 1338. As he had promised in the Holy Land, decades earlier, when he was on his deathbed the regent formally became a Templar.
His body was carried in procession and temporarily laid to rest at Reading Abbey, then taken to Staines and on to Westminster Abbey. There a mass and night-time vigil was held to celebrate the life and devotion of the old soldier. His funeral was held at the New Temple, probably on 20 May 1219, in a service led by the Archbishop of Canterbury. His body was laid to rest next to that of his comrade Aimery. Although present at William’s deathbed, Aimery had, with poignant symmetry, preceded his friend in death just a few days earlier.
Photo by Tilman2007 / Wikimedia Commons
His tomb can still be seen in the New Temple in London, alongside the memorials to his fellow warriors. By a strange chance, we have a little detail about what his burial service in the New Temple church looked like. When he was in Jerusalem, death and the Templars being uppermost in his mind, he bought two expensive lengths of silken cloth, which he wanted to be used as a shroud for his corpse, and had them transported back to England. Perhaps he is still dressed in what little is left of them.
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Despite the best efforts of well-meaning Victorian restorers and the less well-meaning attention of the Luftwaffe, we even have a good idea of which effigy belongs to him. In the nave of the New Temple there is an imposing and extremely unusual effigy. A grizzled warrior, confident and serene, lies in chain mail armour and shield. Under his mailed feet lies a lion whose head is pierced by the knight’s sword.
On the face of it, this is not too unusual. Many knights have similar memorials. This one is subtly different, however. Most effigies portray the deceased in their prime – that is, at the ideal age when their resurrection would occur. But William Marshal was famed for his longevity – he had remained active in the affairs of state into his seventies. This rare feature of his political and military life was reflected in the features of his face – unusually, the effigy portrays an old man with deeply etched lines on either side of his nose and a heavily wrinkled brow. Here was the aged but towering figure that everyone remembered and respected.
The famous old soldier had found a suitably militant home in death as well as life.
Dr Steve Tibble is a graduate of Jesus College, Cambridge and London University. He is an Honorary Research Associate at Royal Holloway College, University of London. Steve is a leading authority on warfare and violence in the crusading era.
He is a contributor to ‘The Cambridge History of the Crusades’ and ‘The Oxford Illustrated History of the Crusades’, both forthcoming in 2023. You can learn more about Steve on his personal website, or follow him on X/Twitter or Instagram.
Further Reading:
Asbridge, T., The Greatest Knight, London, 2015
Barber, M., The New Knighthood: A History of the Order of the Temple, Cambridge, 1994
Tibble, S., Templars – The Knights Who Made Britain, London, 2023
By Steve Tibble
Doubts have been raised about William Marshal’s career as a crusader – but what was the truth behind the claims?
Being a crusader was never easy. But it was particularly hard in the early 1180s.
The illustrious knight William Marshal was a good example of the problems involved in this period. He was a long-standing Templar supporter and patron who had given the order lands in Herefordshire. William had been at the deathbed of Henry the Young King (Henry II’s eldest son) in the summer of 1183. Henry junior had previously vowed to go on crusade and his failure to fulfil that vow weighed heavily upon him.
As he lay dying, the Young King handed his pilgrim cross of cloth and the cloak onto which it was woven to his companion William, a man described as Henry’s carissimus – the man most dear to him. ‘Marshal, Marshal’, the writer of The History of William Marshal made him say, ‘I leave you my cross, so that on my behalf you can take it to the Holy Sepulchre and with it pay my debt to God.’ Deeply moved by his lord’s distress, William promised that he would go to the Holy Land in his stead.
After Henry had been buried at Rouen in July 1183, William, already at the relatively mature age of thirty-six or thirty-seven, sought permission from King Henry to go to the East on his son’s behalf. Henry agreed and gave him 100 Angevin pounds ‘to assist him on his journey’. This was a useful gesture of financial support and endorsement, although, as one contemporary biography rather ungratefully commented, the sum involved would barely pay for one of his horses.
Like his late lord, William was a committed crusader. He may even have thought about permanently emigrating to the East – he certainly put his affairs in suspiciously good order before he set off. But, in a military context, his trip was less significant. The pious William seems to have seen it as a personal pilgrimage rather than a full-scale expedition. He took only a small contingent with him, including his squire, Eustace Betrimont.
William travelled to the East on the autumn sea passage, arriving in October or very early November 1183, just before the shipping lanes closed until the weather improved again in the spring. William spent about two years in the Latin East, and we know that he was back in France at the end of 1185 or early 1186.
With his military experience and warlike nature, William would almost certainly have seen as much action as possible during this period. Although there was less fighting than usual in 1184–5, he and his men may well have seen some service. Perhaps they were with the army of Jerusalem in the successful campaign of manoeuvre in the summer of 1184 to fend off Saladin’s attacks on the key castles of Kerak and Belvoir.
William’s military exploits in the Latin East were inevitably curtailed soon afterwards, however. The four-year truce that was subsequently negotiated with Saladin started in the spring of 1185. The enforced peace of a ceasefire probably accounts for the strangely unspecific rhetoric of William’s biographer when describing his activities in the East. In two years, he wrote, William ‘performed more feats of prowess, more acts of daring and largesse, more fine deeds than anyone else had achieved in seven’ – all of which was fine, but there was a noticeable (and deeply suspicious) reticence to specify what those deeds actually were.
Everyone knew that this was just a lull in the fighting, however. Far worse was still to come. William’s biographer was probably being all too accurate when he wrote that the Templars ‘loved him dearly for the great qualities they had found in him: they were very upset to see him go’. The admiration of the Templars was fully reciprocated. William built up an even closer relationship with the brothers and seems to have become a Templar associate himself – before he left Jerusalem, he made a binding commitment to end his life within the order.
The timing of his arrival in the Holy Land was unfortunate. But the Templars on the front line would soon be in grave need of men like William Marshal.
This was not the end of William Marshal’s relationship with the Templars, however.
After the death of King John in October 1216 William became regent of the kingdom and protector for his young son, Henry III. The new regent was, not coincidentally, close friends with Aimery of Saint-Maur, the master of the British Templars. The two men were old and exhausted their last energies in the service of the young king. But together they made a huge difference in keeping the ship of state afloat.
William Marshal and his family had been deeply committed to the Templars for decades. This devotion went far beyond mere talk. William gave the order the very substantial estate of Upleadon in Herefordshire – it was estimated to be worth £28 12s in 1338. As he had promised in the Holy Land, decades earlier, when he was on his deathbed the regent formally became a Templar.
His body was carried in procession and temporarily laid to rest at Reading Abbey, then taken to Staines and on to Westminster Abbey. There a mass and night-time vigil was held to celebrate the life and devotion of the old soldier. His funeral was held at the New Temple, probably on 20 May 1219, in a service led by the Archbishop of Canterbury. His body was laid to rest next to that of his comrade Aimery. Although present at William’s deathbed, Aimery had, with poignant symmetry, preceded his friend in death just a few days earlier.
His tomb can still be seen in the New Temple in London, alongside the memorials to his fellow warriors. By a strange chance, we have a little detail about what his burial service in the New Temple church looked like. When he was in Jerusalem, death and the Templars being uppermost in his mind, he bought two expensive lengths of silken cloth, which he wanted to be used as a shroud for his corpse, and had them transported back to England. Perhaps he is still dressed in what little is left of them.
Despite the best efforts of well-meaning Victorian restorers and the less well-meaning attention of the Luftwaffe, we even have a good idea of which effigy belongs to him. In the nave of the New Temple there is an imposing and extremely unusual effigy. A grizzled warrior, confident and serene, lies in chain mail armour and shield. Under his mailed feet lies a lion whose head is pierced by the knight’s sword.
On the face of it, this is not too unusual. Many knights have similar memorials. This one is subtly different, however. Most effigies portray the deceased in their prime – that is, at the ideal age when their resurrection would occur. But William Marshal was famed for his longevity – he had remained active in the affairs of state into his seventies. This rare feature of his political and military life was reflected in the features of his face – unusually, the effigy portrays an old man with deeply etched lines on either side of his nose and a heavily wrinkled brow. Here was the aged but towering figure that everyone remembered and respected.
The famous old soldier had found a suitably militant home in death as well as life.
See also: The Templars in Britain: A Difficult and Ominous Beginning
You can buy Templars: The Knights Who Made Britain from
Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Amazon.co.uk
Yale University Press
Dr Steve Tibble is a graduate of Jesus College, Cambridge and London University. He is an Honorary Research Associate at Royal Holloway College, University of London. Steve is a leading authority on warfare and violence in the crusading era.
His Templars: The Knights Who Made Britain (Yale) is due out in September 2023, and his two most recent books (‘The Crusader Armies’, Yale 2018, and ‘The Crusader Strategy’, Yale 2020) were received to critical acclaim. The latter was short-listed for the Duke of Wellington’s military history award, 2021.
He is a contributor to ‘The Cambridge History of the Crusades’ and ‘The Oxford Illustrated History of the Crusades’, both forthcoming in 2023. You can learn more about Steve on his personal website, or follow him on X/Twitter or Instagram.
Further Reading:
Asbridge, T., The Greatest Knight, London, 2015
Barber, M., The New Knighthood: A History of the Order of the Temple, Cambridge, 1994
Tibble, S., Templars – The Knights Who Made Britain, London, 2023
Top Image: Photo by JvL / Wikimedia Commons
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