General Notes

[inglis family.and Keith .4FBK.ged.FBK.FBK.FBK.FTW]
PEMBROKE CASTLE
The unsurpassed strength of this mighty Norman Castle sited on a high
ridge between two tidal inlets, gave it to the distinction of never
having fallen to the Welch. The strategic position, on a major routeway,
was chosen early in the firstNorman incursions into southwest Wales,
when the castle was founded by Rogerof Montgomery in 1093, and it stood
firm against Welsh counter-attacks in subsequent years,
Pembroke's strategic importance soon increased, as it was herethat the
Normans embarked on their Irish campaigns. In 1189 the castle cameinto
the hands of William Marshall, who, over the next 30 years transformed
the earth-and-timber castle into a mighty stone fortification. First to
be built was the inner ward with it's magnificent round keep,... with a
height over 22m and remarkable domed roof. The original entrance was on
the first floor, approached by an external stair, the present ground
floor entrance being alater insertion. The keep had four floors,
connected by a spiral stair whichled to the battlements. The large
square holes on the top of the outside were to hold a timber board , or
fighting platform. When the castle was attacked, the board could be
erected as an extra defence, outside the battlements butway above the
heads of the attackers.
King, 1978; King and Cheshire 1982
In a room of the Tower of London in August 1189, two people who were
about tobe married met for the first time. This twist of fate ...would
have a far reaching effect on English history. The young lady was Isabel
de Clare, sole heiress of Richard Strongbow  de Clare, Earl of Pembroke
and Striguil, and Aoife, daughter of Dermot MacMurrough, King of
Leinster. The man was William Marshal....There are no accounts of this
first meeting nor of the marriage ceremony, but this was the final step
in the making of one of the greatest knights and magnates in medieval
English history.
William Marshal's life is well documented because less than a year after
his death in 1219, his eldest son William II commissioned a record of his
father's life. "L'Historie de Guillaume leMarechal"...the writer [Jean]
had access to Marshal's squire John D'Erly andhad witnessed some of the
events in Marshal's later life. The events recorded can be verified in
most instances by official records in Pipe Rolls, Charter Rolls, Close
Rolls, Patent Rolls, Oblates Rolls, and chronicles of the times.
William Marshal was born c. 1146, and , as a younger son, becoming a
knight was his natural path to success and survival. Marshal was sent to
his father's
cousin William of Tancarville, hereditary Chamberlain of Normandy, to be
trained as a knight in 1159. He was knighted, probably by his uncle,
in1167.
In 1170 William Marshal was appointed head of the mesnie [military]
household of the young Prince Henry by King Henry II. In 1173, marshal
knighted theyoung prince and led him and his mesnie to many victories on
the tournamentfields of Normandy. It is here Marshal established his
status as an undefeated knight and his friendships with the powerful and
influential men of his day. His character and reputation were built
through his own actions and abilities. He had no lord from whom he could
gain advantage or status.
Upon the death of young Henry, Marshal obtained permission from King
Henry to take youngHenry's cross to Jerusalem, where he spent two years
fighting for King Guy and the Knights Templar.
Henry II granted Marshal his first fief, Cartmel in Lancashire, in1187.
With this fief Marshall became a vassal of King Henry II andswore fealty
to him as his lord and his king. Until Henry II's death in 1188, William
served as knight, counselor, and ambassador. When Richard I came tothe
throne, he recognized Marshal as a brother and equal in chivalry.
Fulfilling a promise made by his father, Richard gave

[1748129.ged]
Custom Field:<_FA#> LORD & EARL de PEMBROKE

Name Suffix:<NSFX> Earl of Pembroke

!3rd Earl of Pembroke, Marshal of England, Protector of the Realm,  Regent of the Kingdom, 1216-19. [Ped. of Charlemagne, p. 163]

MINOR, BURR, NEWLIN, WAITE LINE - 22nd ggrandfather

!Named in the Magna Charta, 1215.  A man of exemplary character. [Magna Charta Sureties]

!Brother and heir-male of John, Baron Marshall, hereditary marshal of the king's household, who bore the great golden spurs of the king at the coronation of Richard I. William first appears in English history as a supporter of Prince Henry, the rebellious son of Henry II.  This prince, upon his death-bed, delivered to his most confidential friend, William Marshall, his cross, to convey to Jerusalem, which commission, however, he personally never fulfilled, as he shortly afterwards married the great heiress, became Earl of Pembroke, and was left at home by Richard Coeur de Lion, when he set out on his journey to the Holy Land, as one of the assistants in the government of the realm during his absence. Upon the decease of his brother John, in 1199, he became lord marshal to King John, and on the day of John's coronation he was invested with the sword of the earldom of Pembroke, being then confirmed in the possession of the said inheritance, and was shortly afterwards appointed high sheriff of the counties of Sussex and Gloucester.  In a few years he had grants from King John of Goderich Castle, in County Hereford, and of the whole province of Leinster, in Ireland. Had 5 sons by the heiress of Clare who each succeeded in his lands and honors and all died without issue, when all his honors became extinct and his great inheritance devolved upon his 5 daughters. [Magna Charta Barons, p. 74, 106, 110, 221]

!England, 12 Nov 1216 -- The regent, William Marshal, and the papal legate, Cardinal Guala, reissue a slightly revised Magna Carta.  [Chronicle of the Royal Family, p. 56]

!London, Nov 1217 -- King John's dying wish is the the Earl of Pembroke, William Marshal, the most powerful and chivalrous of his knights, should care for the boy king Henry.  William was reluctant to take on what must have appeared as a hopeless cause until he saw the helpless child.  He shares the regency with Hubert de Burgh.  William's career is a remarkable story of romance and chivalry befitting a Norman nobleman.  He was trained as a squire, ransomed as a knight by Eleanor of Aquitaine and fought both for and against Henry II. [Chronicle of the Royal Family, p. 56]

!With Queen Eleanor when she was attacked by the Lusignan brothers. He was then a young knight who fought "like a wild board besieged by hounds" but had nevertheless been captured.  Then 22, he was one of those landless younger sons, son of the same John Marshal whose complaints had brought Becket to Northampton.  Knighted only a few months earlier, he had already distinguished himself in several tournaments.  Eleanor arranged for his ransom and release as well as bestowing gifts of horses, gold, rich garments and brought him into her family as tutor, guardian, friend, and companion for Prince Henry, thus paving the way for Marshal's rise from knight-errant to, five decades later, regent of England. [Eleanor of Aquitaine, p. 241]

1st Earl of Pembroke; m. Isabel de Clare; father of Eve Marshall. [Royal Descents, p. 421]

The posterity of the great William Marshal, earl of Pembroke, was singularly unfortunate: his 5 sons succeeded each other in turn, all dying childless, and the estates were divided bet. the lines of his 5 daus. [Angevin England, p. 78]

b. 1144 [Judy Martin]

b.c. 1145, d. 14 May 1219 at Caversham, bur. in the Temple Church, London; 3rd Earl of Pembroke, Marshal of England, Protector, Regent of the Kingdom 1216-19; son of John Marshal and Sibyl de Salisbury; m. Isabel de Clare; father of Eve/Eva Marshal. [Ancestral Roots, p. 69]

Probably the greatest lay subject of the Middle Ages. The earliest masonry of Pembroke Castle is certainly his work, and virtually the whole of the defences appear to have been completed by him or by his sons, the last of whom died in 1245. With his wife's enormous inheritance, to which were later added his own family lands and the lordship of Goodrich, the Marshal was a very rich man indeed; and very much the largest, and possibly the most valuable part of his property lay across the Irish Sea, in the form of the vast fief of Leinster: five modern counties and part of a sixth, held by the service of 100 knights. In the 30 years of the Marshal's rule (1189-1219) there was one irruption of royal authority, between 1207 (when the earl, going to Leinster against the will of King John, was obliged to surrender to the king all his castles in England and Wales) and 1211, when the king received the Marshal back into favour; it is unlikely that much work was then going on at Pembroke, or elsewhere among the earl's castles. [Pembroke Castle, pp. 7-8]

Chepstow has been a strategic fortress for hundreds of years and it demonstrates perhaps better than any other site the changes in mediaeval military fortification. Chepstow is ususual among British Castles in that it was built largely of stone from the first, with no primary timber phase. The barbican was a significant addition made by the sons of William Marshall, its tower and gateway deserving careful scrutiny. [The Gwent Collection brochure]

Chepstow's vulnerable east face was strengthened by William Marshal, earl of Pembroke, in abt 1200 with a curtain wall and two flanking towers equipped with arrowslits, in the new defensive mode of the 13th century. As such it is one of the earliest examples of this new style of fortification in the country. William Marshal's sons greatly enlarged the castle, adding the gatehouse, through which the visitor now enters, and the ward behind it. They also heightened fitz Osbern's keep and built a strongly-defended barbican at the upper end of the castle. [Chepstow Castle, p. 3]

William Marshall was one of the outstanding men of his day, a landless son of an English, knightly family, who had made a name for himself in Angevin France by his formidable fighting ability and by his uncompromising loyalty to those he served. He stayed loyal to the old king, Henry II, when almost all others deserted him for his rebel sons. Richard Lionheart, one of these sons, respected Marshal both for his loyalty to his father and for his skill as a soldier (he had unhorsed Richard in a skirmish, but spared his life). When Richard became king he married William to the heiress Isabella de Clare.
   William fitz Osbern's castle had now stood unchanged for nearly a century and a half. William Marshal, however, was a notable castle builder who remodelled several strongholds in the up to date techniques of military architecture familiar to him from his career in France. His most impressive work is the great round keep at Pembroke, guarding the sea route between his British and Irish lands. Marshal also built the castle at Usk, NW of Chepstow. [Chepstow Castle, p. 6]

m. Isabel de Clare de Strigoil; father of 5 sons and 5 daus. [Charlemagne & Others, Chart 2945]

4th Earl of Pembroke; 4th son of John, 2nd son by #2 wife, Sibyl de Salisbury d'Evereux b. 1146; in 1152 his father gave him as hostage to Stephen at the seige of Newbury. Later, his father sent him to William de Tancarville, hereditary Master Chamberlain of Normandy for 8 years. Knighted in 1167; was at the deathbed of Henry II in Chinon and escorted the body back to England; m. Aug 1189 in London, Isabel, Countess of Pembroke; d. 1219 at Caversham; bur. Temple Church, London. [Charlemagne & Others, Chart 2944]

Earl of Pembroke; son of John the Marshall Fitzgilbert and Sibilia/Sibyl de Salisbury. [WFT Vol 6 Ped 1382]

Son of John Fitz Gilbert and Sybill of Salisbury; m. Isabel de Clare; father of Isabell Marshall who m. Gilbert III de Clare. [GRS 3.03, Automated Archives, CD#100]

Arrived in Ireland in 1207. [The Oxford Illustrated History of Ireland, p. 66]

William de Braose quarrelled with his royal master and fled to Ireland, where he was sheltered by William Marshal and the powerful de Lacy brothers in defiance of the king's justiciar. King John came to Ireland a second time with an avenging army in 1210. William Marshal, lord of Leinster, succeeded in making his peace, but the honor of Limerick, the lordship of Meath, and the earldom of Ulster were all declared forfeit to the king. [The Oxford Illustrated History of Ireland, p. 66]

1st Earl of Pembroke. Had 5 sons each of whom succeeded in turn to the Earldom and died childless; had 5 daus/co-heiresses, each of whom m. and had children, [The Plantagenet Ancestry, p. iii]

In abt 1182 William was suspected of having an affair with Marguerite of France, wife of Henry the Young King. This may have been a plot to discredit William, not based on any real indiscretion on his part. In any case, it led to Henry the Young King repudiating his wife and sending her back to her brother Philip Augustus. He also withdrew his friendship from William, who left young Henry's court. William went to Henry II to prove his innocence by trial in combat, but Henry II refused to judge the quarrel. William left court again, and young Henry eventually begged him to return because of William's qualities. This must have all happened not long before young Henry's death. [Georges Duby, William Marshal: The Flower of Chivalry, as quoted by Suzanne Doig <smd49@*!*its.canterbury.ac.nz]

The first stone castle at Kilkenny was built about 1190 by Strongbow's son-in-law, William Marshall, Earl of Pembroke. This was a square-shaped castle with towers at each corner: three of these original four towers survive today. [Kilkenny Castle]

Knights travelled throughout Europe to take part, and some made their living from the spoils.
"The famous English jouster of the 12th century, William Marshall, did," confirms John Wller. "He and his colleague would hang about on the edges of the tournament waiting to see someone get tired, then go in and knobble him. You could gang up on someone like that. It was always dangerous. People always got killed." ["Jousting" by Sian Ellis, BRITISH HERITAGE, Aug/Sep 2001, pp. 32-37]

William the Marshal was the greatest soldier of his time and a man of untarnished reputation: he was given the title and responsibility of 'governor of king and kingdom'. Despite his 70 years, and having served under Henry II, Richard and John, few men would willingly face him in battle. The Marshal carried with him the goodwill of the majority of the people of England. [Lincoln Castle, p. 34]

Goodrich Castle is mentioned in 1204 when King John gave it to William Marshal on his marriage to the heiress of the earldom of Pembroke. Pembroke was the medieval route to Ireland, and the earls had great estates there after the Norman Conquest in the late 12th century. William had risen from humble origins because of his support for four kings: Henry II, Richard I, John and finally Henry III. [Goodrich Castle, p. 21]

The Marshal of England. Pembroke, Netherwent, Leinster, Orbec, Bienfaite,
half Giffard.