The History of the Knights Templars, the Temple Church, and the Temple

by C. G. Addison

William Marshall, commonly called THE YOUNGER, was one of the bold and patriotic barons who compelled king John to sign Magna Charta. He was appointed one of the twenty-five conservators of the public liberties, and was one of the chief leaders and promoters of the barons’ war, being a party to the covenant for holding the city and Tower of London.[527] On the death of king John, his father the Protector brought him over to the cause of the young king Henry, the rightful heir to the throne, whom he served with zeal and fidelity. He was a gallant soldier, and greatly distinguished himself in a campaign in Wales. He overthrew Prince Llewellyn in battle with the loss of eight thousand men, and laid waste the dominions of that prince with fire and sword.[528] For these services he had scutage of all his tenants in twenty counties in England! He was made governor of the castles of Cardigan and Carmarthen, and received various marks of royal favour. In the fourteenth year of the reign of king Henry the Third, he was made captain-general of the king’s forces in Brittany, and, whilst absent in that country, a war broke out in Ireland, whereupon he was sent to that kingdom with a considerable army to restore tranquillity. He married Eleanor, the daughter of king John by the beautiful Isabella of Angoulême, and he was consequently the brother-in-law of the young king Henry the Third.[529] He died without issue, A. D. 1231, (15 Hen. III.,) and on the 14th of April he was buried in the Temple Church at London, by the side of his father the Protector. He was greatly beloved by king Henry the Third, who attended his funeral, and Matthew Paris tells us, that when the king saw the dead body covered with the mournful pall, he heaved a deep sigh, and was greatly affected.[530]

The manors, castles, estates, and possessions of this powerful nobleman in England, Wales, Ireland, and Normandy, were immense. He gave extensive forest lands to the monks of Tinterne in Wales; he founded the monastery of Friars preachers in Dublin, and to the Templars he gave the church of Westone with all its appurtenances, and granted and confirmed to them the borough of Baudac, the estate of Langenache, with various lands, windmills, and villeins of the soil.[531]

Gilbert Marshall, earl of Pembroke, brother to the above, and third son of the Protector, succeeded to the earldom and the vast estates of his ancestors on the melancholy murder in Ireland of his gallant brother Richard, “the flower of the chivalry of that time,” (A. D. 1234.) The year after his accession to the title he married Margaret, the daughter of the king of Scotland, who is described by Matthew Paris as “a most elegant girl,”[532] and received with her a splendid dowry. In the year 1236 he assumed the cross, and joined the king’s brother, the earl of Cornwall, in the promotion of a Crusade to the Holy Land.

Matthew Paris gives a long account of an absurd quarrel which broke out between this earl of Pembroke and king Henry the Third, when the latter was eating his Christmas dinner at Winchester, in the year 1239.[533]

At a great meeting of Crusaders at Northampton, he took a solemn oath upon the high altar of the church of All Saints to proceed without delay to Palestine to fight against the enemies of the cross;[534] but his intentions were frustrated by the hand of death. At a tournament held at Ware, A. D. 1241, he was thrown from his horse, and died a few hours afterwards at the monastery at Hertford. His entrails were buried in the church of the Virgin at that place, but his body was brought up to London, accompanied by all his family, and was interred in the Temple Church by the side of his father and eldest brother.[535]

The above Gilbert Marshall granted to the Templars the church of Weston, the borough of Baldok, lands and houses at Roydon, and the wood of Langnoke.[536]

All the five sons of the elder Marshall, the Protector, died without issue in the reign of Henry the Third, and the family became extinct. They followed one another to the grave in regular succession, so that each attained for a brief period to the dignity of the earldom, and to the hereditary office of Earl Marshall.

Matthew Paris accounts for the melancholy extinction of this noble and illustrious family in the following manner.

He tells us that the elder Marshall, the Protector, during a campaign in Ireland, seized the lands of the reverend bishop of Fernes, and kept possession of them in spite of a sentence of excommunication which was pronounced against him. After the Protector had gone the way of all flesh, and had been buried in the Temple Church, the reverend bishop came to London, and mentioned the circumstance to the king, telling him that the earl of Pembroke had certainly died excommunicated. The king was much troubled and alarmed at this intelligence, and besought the bishop to go to the earl’s tomb and absolve him from the bond of excommunication, promising the bishop that he would endeavour to procure him ample satisfaction. So anxious, indeed, was king Henry for the safety of the soul of his quondam guardian, that he accompanied the bishop in person to the Temple Church; and Matthew Paris declares that the bishop, standing by the tomb in the presence of the king, and in the hearing of many bystanders, pronounced these words: “O William, who lyest here interred, and held fast by the chain of excommunication, if those lands which thou hast unjustly taken away from my church be rendered back to me by the king, or by your heir, or by any of your family, and if due satisfaction be made for the loss and injury I have sustained, I grant you absolution; but if not, I confirm my previous sentence, so that, enveloped in your sins, you stand for evermore condemned to hell!”

The restitution was never made, and the indignant bishop pronounced this further curse, in the words of the Psalmist: “His name shall be rooted out in one generation, and his sons shall be deprived of the blessing, Increase and multiply; some of them shall die a miserable death; their inheritance shall be scattered; and this thou, O king, shall behold in thy lifetime, yea, in the days of thy flourishing youth.” Matthew Paris dwells with great solemnity on the remarkable fulfilment of this dreadful prophecy, and declares that when the oblong portion of the Temple Church was consecrated, the body of the Protector was found entire, sewed up in a bull’s hide, but in a state of putridity, and disgusting in appearance.[537]