Message #120909

[Knight of Jerusalem]

the Third, when the latter was eating his Christmas dinner at Winchester, in the year 1239. *

At a great meeting of Crusaders at Northampton, he took a solemn oath upon the high altar of the church of All Saints to proceed without delay to Palestine to fight against the enemies of the cross; † but his intentions were frustrated by the hand of death. At a tournament held at Ware, A.D. 1241, he was thrown from his horse, and died a few hours afterwards at the monastery at Hertford. His entrails were buried in the church of the Virgin at that place, but his body was brought up to London, accompanied by all his family, and was interred in the Temple Church by the side of his father and eldest brother. ‡

The above Gilbert Marshall granted to the Templars the church of Weston, the borough of Baldok, lands and houses at Roydon, and the wood of Langnoke. §

All the five sons of the elder Marshall, the Protector, died without issue in the reign of Henry the Third, and the family became extinct. They followed one another to the grave in regular succession, so that each attained for a brief period to the dignity of the earldom, and to the hereditary office of EARL MARSHALL.

Matthew Paris accounts for the melancholy extinction of this noble and illustrious family in the following manner.

He tells us that the elder Marshall, the Protector, during a campaign in Ireland, seized the lands of the reverend bishop of





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[paragraph continues] Fernes, and kept possession of them in spite of a sentence of excommunication which was pronounced against him. After the Protector had gone the way of all flesh, and had been buried in the Temple Church, the reverend bishop came to London, and mentioned the circumstance to the king, telling him that the earl of Pembroke had certainly died excommunicated. The king was much troubled and alarmed at this intelligence, and besought the bishop to go to the earl's tomb and absolve him from the bond of excommunication, promising the bishop that he would endeavour to procure him ample satisfaction. So anxious, indeed, was king Henry for the safety of the soul of his quondam guardian, that he accompanied the bishop in person to the Temple Church; and Matthew Paris declares that the bishop, standing by the tomb in the presence of the king, and in the hearing of many bystanders, pronounced these words: O William, who lyest here interred, and held fast by the chain of excommunication, if those lands which thou hast unjustly taken away from my church be rendered back to me by the king, or by your heir, or by any of your family, and if due satisfaction be made for the loss and injury I have sustained, I grant you absolution; but if not, I confirm my previous sentence, so that, enveloped in your sins, you stand for evermore condemned to hell!"

The restitution was never made, and the indignant bishop pronounced this further curse, in the words of the Psalmist: "His name shall be rooted out in one generation, and his sons shall be deprived of the blessing, INCREASE AND MULTIPLY; some of them shall die a miserable death; their inheritance shall be scattered; and this thou, O king, shall behold in thy lifetime, yea, in the days of thy flourishing youth." Matthew Paris dwells with great solemnity on the remarkable fulfilment of this dreadful prophecy, and declares that when the oblong portion of the Temple Church was consecrated, the body of the Protector

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