William Marshal , 1st Earl of Pembroke Sir William Marshal , 1st Earl of Pembroke ( 1147 – 14 May 1219 ) , also called William the Marshal ( Norman French : " Williame le Mareschal " ) , was an English ( or Anglo - Norman ) soldier and statesman . Stephen Langton eulogized him as the " best knight that ever lived . " He served four kings — Henry II , Richard the Lionheart , John , and Henry III - and rose from obscurity to become a regent of England for the last of the four , and so one of the most powerful men in Europe . Before him , the hereditary title of " Marshal " designated head of household security for the king of England ; by the time he died , people throughout Europe ( not just England ) referred to him simply as " the Marshal " . He received the title of " 1st Earl of Pembroke " through marriage during the second creation of the . He is perhaps the most studied and therefore most famous of the Pembroke Earls in modern popular culture . Early life . William ' s father , John Marshal , supported King Stephen when he took the throne in 1135 , but in about 1139 he changed sides to back the Empress Matilda in the civil war of succession between her and Stephen which led to the collapse of England into " the Anarchy " . When King Stephen besieged Newbury Castle in 1152 , according to William ' s biographer , he used the young William as a hostage to ensure that John kept his promise to surrender the castle . John , however , used the time allotted to reinforce the castle and alert Matilda ' s forces . When Stephen ordered John to surrender immediately or William would be hanged , John replied that he should go ahead saying , " I still have the hammer and the anvil with which to forge still more and better sons ! " Subsequently there was a bluff made to launch William from a pierrière , a type of trebuchet towards the castle . Fortunately for the child , Stephen could not bring himself to harm young William . Knight - Errant . As a younger son of a minor nobleman , William had no lands or fortune to inherit , and had to make his own way in life . Around the age of twelve , when his father ' s career was faltering , he was sent to Normandy to be brought up in the household of William de Tancarville , a great magnate and cousin of young William ' s mother . Here he began his training as a knight . He was knighted in 1166 on campaign in Upper Normandy , then being invaded from Flanders . His first experience of warfare was not a great success . He failed to take advantage of the knights he had managed to overcome in the street skirmish at Neufchâtel - en - Bray . In 1167 he was taken by William de Tancarville to his first tournament where he found his true métier . Quitting the Tancarville household he then served in the household of his mother ' s brother , Patrick , Earl of Salisbury . In 1168 his uncle was killed in an ambush by Guy de Lusignan . William was injured and captured in the same skirmish . It is known that William received a wound to his thigh and that someone in his captor ' s household took pity on the young knight . He received a loaf of bread in which were concealed several lengths of clean linen bandages with which he could dress his wounds . This act of kindness by an unknown person perhaps saved Marshal ' s life as infection setting into the wound could have killed him . After a period of time , he was ransomed by Eleanor of Aquitaine , who was apparently impressed by tales of his bravery . Thereafter he found he could make a good living out of winning tournaments . At that time tournaments were dangerous , often deadly , staged battles , not the jousting contests that would come later , and money and valuable prizes could be won by capturing and ransoming opponents , their horses and armour . His record is legendary : on his deathbed he recalled besting 500 knights during his tourneying career . Royal favour . Upon his return during the course of 1185 William rejoined the court of King Henry II , and now served the father as a loyal captain through the many difficulties of his final years . The returns of royal favour were almost immediate . The king gave William the large royal estate of Cartmel in Cumbria , and the keeping of Heloise , the heiress of the northern barony of Lancaster . It may be that the king expected him to take the opportunity to marry her and become a northern baron , but William seems to have had grander ambitions for his marriage . In 1188 faced with an attempt by Philip II to seize the disputed region of Berry , Henry II summoned the Marshal to his side . The letter by which he did this survives , and makes some sarcastic comments about William ' s complaints that he had not been properly rewarded to date for his service to the king . Henry therefore promised him the marriage and lands of Dionisia , lady of Châteauroux in Berry . In the resulting campaign , the king fell out with his heir Richard , count of Poitou , who consequently allied with Philip II against his father . In 1189 , while covering the flight of Henry II from Le Mans to Chinon , William unhorsed the undutiful Richard in a skirmish . William could have killed the prince but killed his horse instead , to make that point clear . He is said to have been the only man ever to unhorse Richard . Nonetheless after Henry ' s death , Marshal was welcomed at court by his former adversary , now King Richard I , who was not foolish enough to exclude a man whose legendary loyalty and military accomplishments were too useful to ignore , especially in a king who was intending to go on Crusade . During the old king ' s last days he had promised the Marshal the hand and estates of Isabel de Clare ( c . 1172 – 1220 ) , but had not completed the arrangements . King Richard however , confirmed the offer and so in August 1189 , at the age of 43 , the Marshal married the 17 - year - old daughter of Richard de Clare ( Strongbow ) . Her father had been Earl of Pembroke , and Marshal acquired large estates and claims in England , Wales , Normandy and Ireland . Some estates however were excluded from the deal . Marshal did not obtain Pembroke and the title of earl , which his father - in - law had enjoyed , until 1199 , as it had been taken into the king ' s hand in 1154 . However , the marriage transformed the landless knight from a minor family into one of the richest men in the kingdom , a sign of his power and prestige at court . They had five sons and five daughters , and have numerous descendants . William made numerous improvements to his wife ' s lands , including extensive additions to Pembroke Castle and Chepstow Castle . William was included in the council of regency which the King appointed on his departure for the Third Crusade in 1190 . He took the side of John , the king ' s brother , when the latter expelled the justiciar , William Longchamp , from the kingdom , but he soon discovered that the interests of John were different from those of Richard . Hence in 1193 he joined with the loyalists in making war upon him . In spring 1194 , during the course of the hostilities in England and before King Richard ' s return , William Marshal ' s elder brother John Marshal ( who was serving as seneschal ) was killed while defending Marlborough for the king ' s brother John . Richard allowed Marshal to succeed his brother in the hereditary marshalship , and his paternal honour of Hamstead Marshall . The Marshal served the king in his wars in Normandy against Philip II . On Richard ' s death - bed the king designated Marshal as custodian of Rouen and of the royal treasure during the interregnum . King John and Magna Carta . William supported King John when he became king in 1199 , arguing against those who maintained the claims of Arthur of Brittany , the teenage son of John ' s elder brother Geoffrey Plantagenet . William was heavily engaged with the defence of Normandy against the growing pressure of the Capetian armies between 1200 and 1203 . He sailed with King John when he abandoned the duchy in December 1203 . He and the king had a falling out in the aftermath of the loss of the duchy , when he was sent with the earl of Leicester as ambassadors to negotiate a truce with King Philip II of France in 1204 . The Marshal took the opportunity to negotiate the continued possession of his Norman lands . When William paid homage to King Philip , John took offence and there was a major row at court which led to cool relations between the two men . This became outright hostility in 1207 when John began to move against several major Irish magnates , including William . Though he left for Leinster in 1207 William was recalled and humiliated at court in the autumn of 1208 , while John ' s justiciar in Ireland Meilyr fitz Henry invaded his lands , burning the town of New Ross . Meilyr ' s defeat by Countess Isabel led to her husband ' s return to Leinster . He was once again in conflict with King John in his war with the Braose and Lacy families in 1210 , but managed to survive . He stayed in Ireland until 1213 , during which time he had Carlow Castle erected and restructured his honour of Leinster . Taken back into favour in 1212 , he was summoned in 1213 to return to the English court . Despite their differences , William remained loyal throughout the hostilities between John and his barons which culminated on 15 June 1215 at Runnymede with the sealing of Magna Carta . William was one of the few English earls to remain loyal to the king through the First Barons ' War . It was William whom King John trusted on his deathbed to make sure John ' s nine - year - old son Henry would get the throne . It was William who took responsibility for the king ' s funeral and burial at Worcester Cathedral . On 11 November 1216 at Gloucester , upon the death of King John , William Marshal was named by the king ' s council ( the chief barons who had remained loyal to King John in the First Barons ' War ) to serve as protector of the nine - year - old King Henry III , and regent of the kingdom . In spite of his advanced age ( around 70 ) he prosecuted the war against Prince Louis and the rebel barons with remarkable energy . In the battle of Lincoln he charged and fought at the head of the young King ' s army , leading them to victory . He was preparing to besiege Louis in London when the war was terminated by the naval victory of Hubert de Burgh in the straits of Dover . William was criticised for the generosity of the terms he accorded to Louis and the rebels in September 1217 ; but his desire for an expeditious settlement was dictated by sound statesmanship . Self - restraint and compromise were the keynote of Marshal ' s policy , hoping to secure peace and stability for his young liege . Both before and after the peace of 1217 he reissued Magna Carta , in which he is a signatory as one of the witnessing barons . Without his prestige the Angevin dynasty might not have survived the disastrous reign of John ; where the French and the rebels would not trust the English king ' s word , they would trust William . Death and legacy . Marshal ' s health finally failed him early in 1219 . In March 1219 he realised that he was dying , so he summoned his eldest son , also William , and his household knights , and left the Tower of London for his estate at Caversham in Berkshire , near Reading , where he called a meeting of the barons , Henry III , the Papal legate Pandulf Masca , the royal justiciar ( Hubert de Burgh ) , and Peter des Roches ( Bishop of Winchester and the young King ' s guardian ) . William rejected the Bishop ' s claim to the regency and entrusted the regency to the care of the papal legate ; he apparently did not trust the Bishop or any of the other magnates that he had gathered to this meeting . Fulfilling the vow he had made while on crusade , he was invested into the order of the Knights Templar on his deathbed . He died on 14 May 1219 at Caversham , and was buried in the Temple Church in London , where his tomb can still be seen . Descendants of William Marshal & Isabel de Clare . The Fate of the Marshal Family . During the civil wars in Ireland , William had taken two manors that the Bishop of Ferns claimed but could not get back . Some years after William ' s death , that bishop is said to have laid a curse on the family that William ' s sons would have no children , and the great Marshal estates would be scattered . Each of William ' s sons did become earl of Pembroke and marshal of England , and each died without legitimate issue . William ' s vast holdings were then divided among the husbands of his five daughters . The title of " Marshal " went to the husband of the oldest daughter , Hugh Bigod , 3rd Earl of Norfolk , and later passed to the Mowbray dukes of Norfolk and then to the Howard dukes of Norfolk , becoming " Earl Marshal " along the way . The title of " Earl of Pembroke " passed to William of Valence , the husband of Joan Marshal ' s daughter , Joan de Munchensi ; he became the first of the de Valence line of earls of Pembroke .