A thrillingly intimate portrait of one of history's most
illustrious knights - William Marshal - that vividly evokes the
grandeur and barbarity of the Middle Ages William Marshal was the
true Lancelot of his era - a peerless warrior and paragon of
chivalry -yet over the centuries, the spectacular story of his
achievements passed from memory. Then, in 1861, a young French
scholar stumbled upon the sole surviving copy of an unknown text,
later dubbed the History of William Marshal. This richly detailed
work helped to resurrect Marshal's reputation, putting flesh onto
the bones of this otherwise obscure figure, but even today he
remains largely forgotten. As a five-year-old boy, William was
sentenced to execution and led to the gallows, yet this landless
younger son survived his brush with death, and went on to train as
a medieval knight. Rising through the ranks to serve at the right
hand of five English monarchs, he became a celebrated tournament
champion, baron, politician and, ultimately, regent of the realm.
He befriended the great figures of his day, from Richard the
Lionheart to the infamous King John, and helped to negotiate the
terms of Magna Carta - the first 'bill of rights'. Yet at the age
of seventy he was forced to fight in the frontline of one final
battle, striving to save the kingdom from French invasion in 1217.
In The Greatest Knight, renowned historian Thomas Asbridge draws
upon an array of contemporary evidence, including the
thirteenth-century biography, to present a compelling account of
William Marshal's life and times, from rural England to the
battlefields of France, the desert castles of the Holy Land and the
verdant shores of Ireland. Charting the unparalleled rise to
prominence of a man bound to a code of honour, yet driven by
unquenchable ambition, this knight's tale lays bare the brutish
realities of medieval warfare and the machinations of royal court,
and draws us into the heart of a formative period of our history,
when the West emerged from the Dark Ages and stood on the brink of
modernity. It is the story of one remarkable man, the birth of the
knightly class to which he belonged, and the forging of the English
nation.
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