William Marshal: the Architect of Magna Carta?

William Marshal, earl of Pembroke – one of the greatest knights of Middle Ages – was the first baron named in the 1215 Magna Carta. An ally of King John, and bastion of the royalist cause, Marshal would go on to champion young Henry III’s claim to the crown. Marshal undoubtedly played a critical role in saving the Plantagenet dynasty, but in the past, historians have argued that the earl was also one of the prime architects of the settlement brokered at Runneymede on 15 June 1215. In this lecture, Dr Thomas Asbridge (Queen Mary, University of London) charts Marshal’s remarkable rise to power – from landless younger son to regent of England – and explores his influence over the formulation of Magna Carta.