The Greatest Knight: The Remarkable Life of William Marshal, the Power behind Five English Thrones

A great book about a great man !Safely received , thank you .

This work concerning the life and times of William Marshal includes both prologue and epilogue, as well as a preface, extensive index, helpful notes, a chronology, cast of characters, genealogies, five useful maps and two sections of interesting colour pictures. There are 14 chapters divided into four sections entitled: Part 1: Childhood and Youth: Becoming a Knight. Part 2: Adulthood: A Knight's Service. Part 3: Middle Age: A Knight of the Realm. Part 4: Old Age: England's Great Magnate. The author, Thomas Asbridge, adopts a well phrased, easy to read, readily assimilated style better than that found in many novels, causing the reader to persevere in order to find out more about this fascinating medieval character known as William Marshal, who lived during the reign of five kings: Stephen, Henry II, Richard I, John and Henry III. During part of the reign of Henry II he also served that king's oldest son known as Henry the Young King because he was crowned king during his father's lifetime, which means that, for quite a number of years, England had two kings at the same time until the young Henry died, after which his brother, Richard Coeur de Lion, became next in line to succeed to the throne of England along with its French possessions. Having two kings at the same time was never repeated with the subsequent creation of the office of Prince of Wales for the male heir to the throne by Edward I proving to be a much more workable idea.William Marshal served with the Young King Henry until he died, which could have put him at odds with Henry II because the Young King was prone to falling out with his father in a variety of ways. Fortunately, it didn't and William lived on to give excellent service, not only to Henry II, but also to Richard I, John and Henry III during his early years as king when he was only a boy. Amongst many other interesting facts the evolution of the cult of knighthood is described in much interesting detail and we learn all about how the young William 'won his spurs' and subsequently developed into, not only 'the greatest knight of all time' but also into a 'right hand man' of four kings. The reader obtains a helpful insight into workings of the medieval world in France and England and a few other places during a key period in the evolution of the Middle Ages. It's easy to carp and make comparisons saying that Asbridge is not as good as some other authors dealing with this period; but, if readability is paramount for you, then this is your book, besides which what he has to say gives all the appearances of being well researched and accurately presented.It needs to be realised that the action covered in the book all took place before the invention of canon, the full development of the long bow, the advent of friars and, of course, there were no potatoes or turkeys in Europe in those days and no sugar to help rot people's teeth.. The Church had become very powerful, not least because few people other than the clergy (and not all of them) could read and write. William Marshal probably couldn't. Here we are also in the period when big changes were taking place in the status of the secular clergy who were no longer allowed to marry as they had been for well over a thousand years, besides which marriage in church was coming into vogue, which it had not used to be with it being simply a civic contract that could later on have a religious blessing. The religious orders for monks and nuns were based on the rule of Saint Benedict (circa 480-547) and there were also kinds of monks known as Augustinian Canons whose rule was ostensibly based on that of Augustine of Hippo, the well known misogynistic, anti-Semetic, anti-Pelagian bishop of Hippo in North Africa 354-430. As a child of his time William Marshal had little choice but to comply with current Church teaching and custom as Henry II found out to his cost over the damaging Thomas of Canterbury fracas. Unless it is realised how powerful the influence of the Church was in those days it cannot be properly understood why Richard I and other leaders acted in the way they did especially concerning the Crusades.This work also gives an interesting insight into the role of women in those days, which covered the lives of two famous women Eleanor of Acquitain (mentioned), who lived until she was 81 and Hildegard of Bingen, 1098-1179, (unmentioned) the famous German abbess, writer and composer, who also lived into her eighties, remarkable ages for those days. William Marshal was in middle age before he married a lady by the name of Isabel of Clare. Although they were well suited to each other and had several children, none of this prevented the Marshal dynasty from dying out. All told, we have here a great read thoroughly to be recommended.

William Marshal is a hard problem for any historian to solve. The facts of his life are too outrageous to allow of easy neutrality: his youthful sacrifice as a hostage by his ruthless warlord father, who then abandoned him to death, his rescue by the impulse of a weak king, his second hostage experience (this time to save the more grateful Eleanor of Aquitaine), his glittering career as a tournament knight under the Young King and warrior alongside Coeur de Lion, his life at the heart of the Angevin court under all the kings between Henry II and Henry III, marriage to a rich heiress, and final years as saviour of England from the French. Add the hagiographic account of his life commissioned by his children and supporters and it becomes immensely difficult to resist either accepting the shimmering hero of the biography, or playing flat against the image - showing up the gaps and outright lies in that book and inflating them to create a brutish and illiterate baron, not much better than his father.Thomas Asbridge has (unsurprisingly) done an immensely skilful job in navigating the path between these extremes. Where David Crouch's equally thoughtful and fair book took the narrative of Marshal's life quite briefly, before going on to interesting thematic considerations, Asbridge has given Marshal what he has long lacked - a careful narrative biography brought into context and informed by deep scholarship. So the nature of knighthood at this particular period (so different from its later development) is carefully set in place to show what kinds of expectation there were of knightly behaviour amongst Marshal's peers (as opposed to the knights of de Charny's day). Marshal's decision to take the regency after the death of John is tellingly contextualised. Rather than assume his support as a given, and concentrate on whether Marshal "edged out" Ranulf of Chester, Asbridge shows that with the war with the Capetians where it was, the smart money was actually on leaving little Henry to his fate, making Marshal's decision to fight for him one of the most outstanding of his demonstrations of loyalty to his Angevin patrons.What is more, Asbridge manages to do all this in a way which keeps the tale every bit as lively, page turning and appealing as it should be. I have been stealing time away from other things for "just a few more pages", and reached the end with great regret. I will certainly be rereading it in the not too distant future. The introduction alone, telling the thrilling story of the discovery of the thirteenth century hagiography, will bring a tear to any history lover's eye.Of course I have one or two small grouches. While dutifully highlighting the less appealing sides of the Marshal, which we must conclude existed, he does so very much in passing, and the impression which I took from the bulk of the book was more positive than the summary at the end. I therefore felt that the "dark side" of the Marshal could have had more air time - the faults are interesting ones, after all, and translate well to modern celebrity. And really, the suggestion that William Marshal is little known outside academic circles! I fear Asbridge may be shockingly unfamiliar with the work of two of the greatest historical novelists of our time - Elizabeth Chadwick and Sharon Kay Penman, who have ensured that every reader of the genre carries a bit of a torch for this particular hero ...