THE GREAT EARL OF PEMBROKE
It really seemed, after the death of John, as if the Plantagenets had
ceased to reign in England, and that all hope of a great national
royalty had vanished. It was difficult, indeed, to believe that the
monarchy could be preserved, surrounded as it was by foreign and
domestic foes leagued for its destruction, and who held most of the
chief castles and cities in the kingdom, the capital included. One man
of high rank, destined to save all by his moderation and
energy--moderation in the midst of violence, and energy in spite of old
age--remained faithful and firm. This was William Marshal, Earl of
Pembroke, a man whose hair was white, and who had seen many years; but
whose frame time had not bent, and whose spirit trouble had not broken.
The name of the great earl--albeit of European renown in his own
day--does not occupy a very large space in English history, considering
the service he rendered England. But the effects of his prudent conduct
and disinterested patriotism are visible in the England in which we
live. Indeed, the influence which he exercised was immense; and it is
necessary, in order to comprehend the events which rendered the year
1217 so memorable, to know something of the career and character of the
warrior-statesman on whom devolved the responsibility of redeeming the
errors--so numerous, and glaring, and gross--that had been committed
both by his friends and by their foes. Personal foes he appears to have
had none; and what was said by Lord Clarendon of the great Duke of
Ormond might with justice be said of Pembroke, “that he either had no
enemies, or only such as were ashamed to profess that they were so.”
The family of which Pembroke was the chief derived the surname of
Marshal from an office held by them from the time of Henry Beauclerc,
and of that family he became the head on the death of his elder brother
in the reign of Cœur-de-Lion. At that time, however, he was no longer
a stripling, but had been for many years mixed up with public affairs,
and had taken part in important transactions.
It seems that early in life William Marshal was attached to young Henry
Plantagenet, that son of Henry II. and Eleanor of Guienne, who, after
being crowned in his father’s lifetime, died of fever on the Continent,
under somewhat melancholy circumstances. Being very penitent for the
part he had acted, the prince on his deathbed expressed strong
contrition for arming against his sire, and in token thereof delivered
to William Marshal, “as his most familiar friend, his cross to carry to
Jerusalem,” which was done in accordance with the ill-starred prince’s
request.
Returning to England on the accession of Richard, William Marshal, being
in favour with the young king, bore the royal sceptre of gold at
Cœur-de-Lion’s coronation, and soon after received in marriage
Isabel, daughter and heiress of Richard de Clare, Earl of Pembroke
(surnamed Strongbow), by Eva, daughter of an Irish king, at whose
instance Strongbow embarked for the conquest of Ireland. With Isabel he
got the earldom of Pembroke, and immense possessions in England,
Ireland, and Normandy. So he was already one of the wealthiest of
English magnates, when, on the death of his brother, he succeeded to the
office of King’s Marshal.
After the return of King Richard from his crusade and his captivity,
Pembroke fought with him and for him in France, Normandy, and in
Ireland; and on John’s accession he had made his name known to fame as
one of the noblest men and foremost warriors in Christendom. Naturally
enough, he was generally recognised as the most honourable and most
sagacious person of rank in England at the time when the quarrel between
the barons and the king reached a crisis.
Pembroke, as a man of pure patriotism and clear intelligence, could not,
of course, sympathise strongly with either party. Probably he was
equally shocked by the gross selfishness and hypocrisy of Fitzwalter’s
confederates and the unworthy treachery of John. But, whatever his
disgust, he did not desert his country in her hour of need; nor did he
spare any effort to avert the horrors of civil war. Indeed, he did all
he could to accommodate matters; but he spoke to men on whom moderate
counsels were wasted, and who, reason or none, were bent on violent
courses. It was in vain, therefore, that the great earl, having the good
of his country sincerely at heart, played the part of mediator. He
might as well have talked to the wild winds as either to the barons or
the king.
Approving neither of the conduct of the barons nor the conduct of the
king, the position of William Marshal was trying. But, believing that,
whatever John’s faults and failings, the interests of the English people
were bound up with the interests of the Plantagenet monarchy, nothing
could allure him from his fidelity to the crown; and in the midst of
John’s distresses, when he was deserted by all whom he had most
delighted to honour, Pembroke continued faithful and true, because he
deemed that it was his duty so to do.
Nor when John departed this life, and there was every prospect of Prince
Louis and the Anglo-Norman barons completing the work they had so
vigorously begun, did the great earl despair. Even then he saw the
possibility of saving the crown from the grasp of a foreign conqueror,
and, exposing himself to terrible hazard in case of failure, instantly
took steps to secure the succession of Henry of Winchester, the eldest
of John’s two sons by Isabel of Angoulême.
But the aspect of affairs was most forbidding. Only one circumstance
occurred about this time to encourage Pembroke in the patriotic course
he pursued. Many of the barons who had originally invited Louis to
England, or subsequently done homage to him as their sovereign, were
deeply disgusted with the French prince’s hauteur and with the airs and
insolence of his followers. Some of them had even sent messengers to
John at Newark, offering, on certain conditions, to return to their
allegiance. The king was too near the gates of death either to see the
messengers or hear the conditions. But Pembroke perceived that such a
fact as their having sent at all in the circumstances favoured his
policy, and no sooner did he receive intelligence of John’s death than
he summoned several prelates, and nobles, and knights to Gloucester, and
when Peter, bishop of Winchester, and Sylvester, Bishop of Worcester,
and Ralph, Earl of Chester, and William, Earl Ferrars, came thither, as
also Philip de Albini, a knight of fame, and John Marshal, Pembroke’s
cousin, the earl at once proposed to crown the boy Henry, and to
proclaim him king.
It was, however, a perilous step to take, and the prelates, nobles, and
knights gasped and stared at the idea of a boy of ten occupying a
throne that was menaced by royal and feudal warriors who had hosts of
fighting men at their backs, nearly every English county at their feet,
and the King of Scots and the Prince of Wales as their humble servants.
But it was a step which Pembroke did not fear to take. His brave heart
did not fail him in the day of trial, and he was ready to do all, dare
all, and risk all, rather than witness the realisation of the vision
which his patriot soul abhorred--the vision of a French prince enthroned
at Westminster, and lording it over England with the insolence of a
conqueror.
Well was it for England that there was one man at that terrible crisis
who had the capacity to think and the courage to act.