John Marshal may
have been stuck with his son, William, after King Stephen reneged on his threat
to catapult the 5 year old boy over the castle wall (see http://gordon-feil-history-observations.blogspot.ca/2017/01/william-marshal-child.html),
but he didn’t have to leave him an inheritance. William learned to earn his own way, and he
did so by creating a name for himself with Queen Eleanor (former wife of French
King Louis the Monk and now married to Henri Plantagenet, 10 years her junior) and
by fighting in the jousting tournaments.
In those days,
jousting was a winner take all event. If you were unseated, you lost your horse
to the victor and often your equipment. Some of the tournaments were done over
many hectares of land…multiple contestants participating in a battle
royal. William cleaned up. Nobody ever unseated him. Ever.
His reputation as a combatant and warrior was so high that at the age of
66 when he challenged that black sheep of the Plantagenets, King John Lackland,
to combat and permitted John to choose TWO proxies to simultaneously battle William,
John was unable to find anyone willing.
The story
behind that challenge deserves a post of its own, so perhaps next time….(
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