Marshal

Marshal family, earls of Pembroke and lords of Leinster, during the first half of the 13th century the most powerful noble house in Britain and Ireland, and a crucial link between the two islands. William Marshal I (d. 1219) rose through royal favour, which in 1189 enabled him to marry Isabel de Clare, Strongbow's daughter and heiress. From 1207 he and then his eldest son William II (d. 1231) spent considerable periods in Ireland, partly because of the loss of their Norman estates and the undermining of their position in Wales after 1212 by Llywelyn the Great. They made grants in Leinster to members of their circle, including John Marshal, William I's bastard nephew, whose descendants held the office of marshal of Ireland; promoted the towns of Kilkenny and New Ross; endowed the abbeys of Tintern and Graiguenamanagh (Duiske); acquired royal charters clarifying their liberty rights in Leinster; and organized the administration of Leinster around their castles of Carlow, Wexford, Kilkenny, Kildare, and Dunamase. William II had no children, and was succeeded in turn by his four childless brothers: Richard (d. 1234), Gilbert (d. 1241), Walter (d. 1245). and Amselm, (d.1245). In 1247 the Marshal lordships underwent the first of several partitions between the heirs of William I's five daughters. This increased the number of English noble houses with Irish interests, bringing Kilkenny to the Clare earls of Gloucester, Carlow to the Bigod earls of Norfolk, Wexford to the Valences, and Kildare to the Vescys. But the successive partitions ultimately weakened the lordship of Leinster.

Robin Frame