William Marshal, 2nd Earl of Pembroke
Encyclopedia
William Marshal, 2nd Earl of Pembroke (French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

:Guillaume) (1190 – 6 April 1231) was a medieval
Middle age
Middle age is the period of age beyond young adulthood but before the onset of old age. Various attempts have been made to define this age, which is around the third quarter of the average life span of human beings....

 English nobleman
Nobility
Nobility is a social class which possesses more acknowledged privileges or eminence than members of most other classes in a society, membership therein typically being hereditary. The privileges associated with nobility may constitute substantial advantages over or relative to non-nobles, or may be...

, and the son of the famous William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke
William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke
Sir William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke , also called William the Marshal , was an Anglo-Norman soldier and statesman. He was described as the "greatest knight that ever lived" by Stephen Langton...

.

Early life

William was born in Normandy
Normandy
Normandy is a geographical region corresponding to the former Duchy of Normandy. It is in France.The continental territory covers 30,627 km² and forms the preponderant part of Normandy and roughly 5% of the territory of France. It is divided for administrative purposes into two régions:...

 probably during the spring of 1190. He was given as hostage to King John
John of England
John , also known as John Lackland , was King of England from 6 April 1199 until his death...

 after his father paid homage to King Philip of France
Philip II of France
Philip II Augustus was the King of France from 1180 until his death. A member of the House of Capet, Philip Augustus was born at Gonesse in the Val-d'Oise, the son of Louis VII and his third wife, Adela of Champagne...

 in 1205 and was from 1205 to 1212 at the court of King John as a guarantee of his father's behaviour. William married Alice de Bethune, daughter of his father's friend Baldwin of Bethune
Baldwin of Bethune
Baldwin of Bethune or Baldwin de Béthune , a knight from the House of Bethune in Artois and a crusader, was close companion to successive English kings and on marriage to Hawise of Aumale became Count of Aumale with extensive estates in England.-Origins:Baldwin was the third son of Robert V of...

, in September 1214. The marriage ended before 1215 when Alice died of unknown causes.

During the baronial rebellion
First Barons' War
The First Barons' War was a civil war in the Kingdom of England, between a group of rebellious barons—led by Robert Fitzwalter and supported by a French army under the future Louis VIII of France—and King John of England...

 of 1215, William was on the side of the rebels while his father was fighting for the king. When Louis of France
Louis VIII of France
Louis VIII the Lion reigned as King of France from 1223 to 1226. He was a member of the House of Capet. Louis VIII was born in Paris, France, the son of Philip II Augustus and Isabelle of Hainaut. He was also Count of Artois, inheriting the county from his mother, from 1190–1226...

 took Worcester
Worcester
The City of Worcester, commonly known as Worcester, , is a city and county town of Worcestershire in the West Midlands of England. Worcester is situated some southwest of Birmingham and north of Gloucester, and has an approximate population of 94,000 people. The River Severn runs through the...

 castle in 1216, however, the younger William was warned by his father to withdraw, which he did just before Ranulph de Blondeville, 4th Earl of Chester
Ranulph de Blondeville, 4th Earl of Chester
Ranulf de Blondeville, 6th Earl of Chester and 1st Earl of Lincoln , known in some references as the 4th Earl of Chester , was one of the "old school" of Anglo-Norman barons whose loyalty to the Angevin dynasty was consistent but contingent on the receipt of lucrative favours...

 retook the castle. In March 1217, he was absolved from excommunication
Excommunication
Excommunication is a religious censure used to deprive, suspend or limit membership in a religious community. The word means putting [someone] out of communion. In some religions, excommunication includes spiritual condemnation of the member or group...

 and rejoined the royal cause. At the Battle of Lincoln
Battle of Lincoln (1217)
The Second Battle of Lincoln occurred at Lincoln Castle on 20 May 1217, during the First Barons' War, between the forces of the future Louis VIII of France and those of King Henry III of England. Louis' forces were attacked by a relief force under the command of William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke...

 he was fighting with his father.

Earl Marshal

At his father's death in 1219 he succeeded the elder William as both Earl of Pembroke
Earl of Pembroke
Earl of Pembroke is a title created ten times, all in the Peerage of England. It was first created in the 12th century by King Stephen of England. The title is associated with Pembroke, Pembrokeshire in West Wales, which is the site of Earldom's original seat Pembroke Castle...

 and as Lord Marshal of England
Earl Marshal
Earl Marshal is a hereditary royal officeholder and chivalric title under the sovereign of the United Kingdom used in England...

. These two powerful titles, combined with his father's legendary status, could not help but make William one of the most prominent and powerful nobles in England. In 1224, William married Eleanor of England, youngest daughter of King John and Isabella of Angoulême
Isabella of Angoulême
Isabella of Angoulême was queen consort of England as the second wife of King John from 1200 until John's death in 1216. They had five children by the king including his heir, later Henry III...

, thereby strengthening the family's connection with the Plantagenets.

In 1223, William crossed over from his Irish
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

 lands to campaign against Llywelyn ap Iorwerth
Llywelyn the Great
Llywelyn the Great , full name Llywelyn ab Iorwerth, was a Prince of Gwynedd in north Wales and eventually de facto ruler over most of Wales...

, who had attacked his holding of Pembroke
Pembroke, Pembrokeshire
Pembroke is an historic settlement and former county town of Pembrokeshire in west Wales. The town and the county derive their name from that of the cantref of Penfro: Pen = "head" or "end", and bro = "region", "country", "land", and so it means essentially "Land's End".-History:The main point of...

. He was successful, but his actions were seen as too independent by the young Henry III
Henry III of England
Henry III was the son and successor of John as King of England, reigning for 56 years from 1216 until his death. His contemporaries knew him as Henry of Winchester. He was the first child king in England since the reign of Æthelred the Unready...

's regent
Regent
A regent, from the Latin regens "one who reigns", is a person selected to act as head of state because the ruler is a minor, not present, or debilitated. Currently there are only two ruling Regencies in the world, sovereign Liechtenstein and the Malaysian constitutive state of Terengganu...

s. in 1224 Hugh de Lacy
De Lacy
de Lacy is the surname of an old Norman noble family originating from Lassy . The first records are about Hugh de Lacy . Descendent of Hugh de Lacy left Normandy and travelled to England along with William the Conqueror. Walter and Ilbert de Lacy fought in the battle of Hastings...

 began attacking William's and the King's lands in Ireland. William was appointed Justiciar of Ireland, and managed to subdue Hugh. He founded the Dominican
Dominican Order
The Order of Preachers , after the 15th century more commonly known as the Dominican Order or Dominicans, is a Catholic religious order founded by Saint Dominic and approved by Pope Honorius III on 22 December 1216 in France...

 priory of the Holy Trinty in Kilkenny
Kilkenny
Kilkenny is a city and is the county town of the eponymous County Kilkenny in Ireland. It is situated on both banks of the River Nore in the province of Leinster, in the south-east of Ireland...

 in 1225 and began construction of Carlow
Carlow Castle
Carlow Castle is located next to the River Barrow in County Carlow, Ireland. It was built between 1207 and 1213, and is a National Monument of Ireland.-External links:*...

 and Ferns
Ferns, County Wexford
Ferns is a small historic town in north County Wexford, Ireland with a population of about 900. It is 16 km from Enniscorthy, where the Gorey to Enniscorthy N11 road joins the R745 regional road...

 castles.

In 1226 he was ordered to surrender the custody of the royal castles of Cardigan
Cardigan Castle
Cardigan Castle is a castle located in Cardigan, Ceredigion, Wales.-History:The first motte-and-bailey castle was built a mile away from the present site, probably about the time of the founding of the town by Roger de Montgomery, a Norman baron....

 and Carmarthen
Carmarthen
Carmarthen is a community in, and the county town of, Carmarthenshire, Wales. It is sited on the River Towy north of its mouth at Carmarthen Bay. In 2001, the population was 14,648....

, that he had captured from Llywelyn, to the crown. He was also removed from his role as justiciar in 1226 for his opposition to the treatment of Aodh O'Connor during a campaign in Connacht.

William accompanied the king to Brittany in 1230, and assumed control of the forces when the king returned to England. Then, in February 1231, William also returned to England. Here he arranged the marriage of his sister Isabel, widow of Gilbert de Clare
Gilbert de Clare, 5th Earl of Hertford
Gilbert de Clare, 4th Earl of Hertford, 5th Earl of Gloucester was the son of Richard de Clare, 3rd Earl of Hertford, from whom he inherited the Clare estates. He also inherited from his mother, Amice Fitz William, the estates of Gloucester and the honour of St. Hilary, and from Rohese, an...

, to Richard, Earl of Cornwall, brother to King Henry III. William died 6 April 1231. Matthew Paris
Matthew Paris
Matthew Paris was a Benedictine monk, English chronicler, artist in illuminated manuscripts and cartographer, based at St Albans Abbey in Hertfordshire...

 claims that Hubert de Burgh, Justiciar of England, was later accused of poisoning William, but there are no other sources to support this.

Posterity

William had no heirs, and his titles passed to his younger brother, Richard
Richard Marshal, 3rd Earl of Pembroke
Richard Marshal, 3rd Earl of Pembroke was the brother of William Marshal, 2nd Earl of Pembroke, whom he succeeded to the Earldom of Pembroke and Lord Marshal of England upon his brother's death on 6 April 1231....

.

During his lifetime, William Marshal commissioned a biography of his father to be written, called L'Histoire de Guillaume le Mareschal. He was buried in the Temple Church
Temple Church
The Temple Church is a late-12th-century church in London located between Fleet Street and the River Thames, built for and by the Knights Templar as their English headquarters. In modern times, two Inns of Court both use the church. It is famous for its effigy tombs and for being a round church...

 in London, next to his father, where his effigy
Effigy
An effigy is a representation of a person, especially in the form of sculpture or some other three-dimensional form.The term is usually associated with full-length figures of a deceased person depicted in stone or wood on church monuments. These most often lie supine with hands together in prayer,...

may still be seen.
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