Runnymede and Lincoln Fair: A Story of the Great Charter

by John G. Edgar

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.