General Notes

REFN: 1484AN
REFN: P1484
John fitz Gilbert was the father of William Marshal Earl of Pembro ke.
John was the son of Gilbert, the marshal of the royal household of King
Henry I. The office of the marshal was part of the Curia, with a deputy
in t he Exchequer and one in the King's Bench, as well as one in the Court
of the Marshalsea of the King's household. The office was subordinate to
the office of constable of the royal household.. The office was
responsible for everythi ng connected to the horses of the royal
household, the hawks and the hounds a s well. He had the general duty of
keeping order in the royal court/household , arranging for the billeting
of members of the court, keeping tallies and ot her vouchers of the
expenditures of the household, keeping rolls of all who p erformed their
military service there, and being responsible for the imprison ment of
debtors. The "Constitutio Domus Regis" gives the duties of the master
marshal for King Henry I.
Both John and his father are found in the king’s court before 1130 where
they maintained [probably by trial by battle] their o ffice of master of
the king’s marshalsea against William De Hastings and Robe rt De Venoiz.
On the pipe roll of 1130 John is found paying twenty-two pounds for
seisin to his father’s lands and ministerium and forty marks for the
o ffice of marshal of the court. In this same year John married the
daughter an d heiress of Walter Pipard, a minor Wiltshire landholder. John
was a loyal an d trusted royal official and attested to at least twelve
royal acts of Henry I between 1129-1135, most of them in England but some
in Normandy.
When Step hen (depicted right) took the English throne on the death of
Henry I in 1135, John continued to serve in the office of marshal and
accompanied Stephen to Normandy in 1137. In 1138 John took possession of
the castles of Marlborough and Ludgershall in Wiltshire as castellan and
proceeded to strengthen both. D uring the early years of the war between
King Stephen and the Empress Mathild a, John was more or less content to
wait and watch, increasing the number of knights bound to him and
fortifying his castles. He used his position in Wilt shire to attack and
ravage the lands of those opposing King Stephen, though a ccording to some
of the chronicles of the times, John was not too particular about whom he
attacked.
Below: Lincoln Castle
In February 1141, King Stephe n was captured at the battle of Lincoln by
Robert of Gloucester, natural brot her to the Empress. This event
apparently convinced John that he should be on the Empress’s siDe in the
civil war, and he actively supported her from this time forward. John was
with the Empress at Reading in May, Oxford in July, a nd at the siege of
Winchester in August 1141. When Henry of Blois, bishop of Winchester and
brother to King Stephen, brought troops to relieve the siege o f
Winchester, it was decided that the Empress would flee to John’s castle
o f Ludgershall with John while Robert of Gloucester continued the battle.
At t he village of Wherwell, John sent the Empress on to his castle with
Brian fit z Count, and he stayed with some men to defend her retreat at
the River Test. At the end of this struggle at the river, only John and
one of his knights w ere left standing. They retreated to the church of
Wherwell Abbey, and the en emy set fire to it. The enemy departed from
Wherwell thinking that John had p erished, but he survived and made it to
his castle of Marlborough, losing one eye from melting iron in the fire.
The rising and falling fortunes of neither siDe in this civil war greatly
effected fitz Gilbert’s prosperity; he used h is position and his castles
in Wiltshire to continue to attack the lands of S tephen’s supporters. One
of his frequent victims was Patrick constable of Sal isbury, who was King
Stephen’s man. After several years of this warfare, both men had had
enough of the deprivations resulti