William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke

William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke

William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke (1146 or 1147 – 14 May 1219), also called William the Marshal (Norman French: Williame li Mareschal, French: Guillaume le Maréchal), was an Anglo-Norman soldier and statesman during High Medieval England who served five English kings: Henry II and his son and co-ruler Young Henry, Richard I, John, and finally Henry III. Knighted in 1166, William Marshal spent his younger years as a knight errant and a successful tournament competitor; Stephen Langton eulogised him as the "best knight that ever lived." In 1189, he became the de facto earl of Pembroke through his marriage to Isabel de Clare, whose parents were Aoife MacMurrough and Richard de Clare, 2nd Earl of Pembroke. The title of earl was not officially granted until 1199, and is considered to be the second creation of the Pembroke earldom. In 1216, upon the death of King John, William was appointed protector for John's nine-year-old Henry III and regent of the kingdom. Read more on Wikipedia

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke has received more than 2,157,173 page views. His biography is available in 25 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 24 in 2019). William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke is the 561st most popular nobleman (down from 433rd in 2019), the 1,582nd most popular biography from United Kingdom (down from 1,357th in 2019) and the 41st most popular British Nobleman.