Chepstow Castle, South Wales

Chepstow Castle is positioned on top of the cliffs which overlook the Rive Wye, its position allowed the castle to control this important river and so it makes perfect sense that a castle was built here early in the Middle Ages.  Exactly when, and by whom, can also be narrowed down if not definitely answered.  From the earliest castle, only the early Norman Great Tower still stands. It is likely to have been built by William fitz Osbern, a lifelong friend and supporter of William the Conqueror.  Fitz Osbern built many castles in South Wales. Many of them were originally built in wood and only later rebuilt in stone, but the Great Tower at Chepstow was not only built in stone, it was larger than other keeps, which has made some historians think again about its original purpose. Some have surmised that it was perhaps built by the Conqueror himself as a Royal Palace for his visits, the only problem with this theory is we don’t know if he ever did visit. Still, Chepstow could have been the castle where William the Conqueror had planned for the Welsh to visit to do homage to him, as they had done to the Anglo-Saxon kings before him.

William fitz Osbern came to England with William the Conqueror, and provided sixty ships filled with his own men for the invasion.  After the success of the Conqueror in England, the King made fitz Osbern Earl of Hereford and gave him extensive lands including Chepstow, so it is reasonable to think that fitz Osbern built the first castle at Chepstow. A 12th Century monk wrote that: 

‘the king set him (fitz Osbern) up to fight the bellicose Welsh and to built castles in suitable places.’ 

This we know fitz Osbern did, until his death in 1071. The King gave fitz Osbern extensive powers across the marches and in 1067, just after the conquest, the Great Tower at Chepstow was begun.  Chepstow was the first castle to be built in Wales, and perhaps the idea was for it to be a springboard from which the rest of South Wales would be tamed.  Anyone touring the castles of South Wales may come across William fitz Osberns named mentioned, as the man who originally built the castle on the orders of the King, but nowhere else did he built anything like the Great Tower at Chepstow, which is the earliest stone keep to have been built in Wales.

Chepstow did not start out as a motte and bailey castle like many of the others fitz Osbern built.  Perhaps it was due to its location, but it is likely there was another reason which dictated its unique size and layout. The Great Tower measures 36 meters (120 feet) long and 14 meters (45 feet) wide.  The ground floor was originally an undercroft with storage rooms and its own entrance, while the great hall was entered through an elevated and highly carved doorway. To the landside the building had no windows, but on the other side the river was so far below the walls, that large window openings were created. There is a still some Norman arcading and the niches were once decoratively painted. A band of Roman tiles and other Roman stonework were reused in the building of the Great Tower.

William fitz Osbern was only in England for a short time but he managed to put his name to the start of many castles, before his death in 1071.  Upon his death his lands were inherited by his son, Roger de Breteuil, who plotted against the King in 1075 and was captured.  All his estates were foreit to the crown. Chepstow remained in Crown hands until 1115, when Henry I granted it to Walter fitz Richard of Clare, it then passed to his son Richard, better known as Strongbow. He died in 1176, and his son Gilbert in 1185, leaving his unmarried daughter Isabel, who became heiress to his vast estates in Normandy, England, Wales and Ireland.  Isabel was a minor at the time, and so she became a ward of King Henry II.  Her estates were then managed by the Crown, who sent out royal constables to run them on her behalf. Isabel herself was probably brought to the court of Henry II, and it is likely there where she first met her husband, William Marshall.

I have to go back slightly here, as the man known as the Greatest Knight, who faithfully served five Kings, deserves to have his own story brought in here.  William Marshall was born in 1146/1147. He was the second son, in the second marriage, of his father John fitz Gilbert. When William was just 5 years old his life was very nearly cut short, the man who may have very well changed the course of English history, nearly didn’t get to grow up. During the reign of king Stephen and the Anarchy, which saw the fight over the crown of England, William Marshall’s father John fitz Gilbert, was holding the castle of Newbury for Empress Matilda. King Stephen however, demanded that the castle be surrendered to him.  Fitz Gilbert argued that he could not surrender the castle without permission from his overlord, Empress Matilda, and so an agreement of a reprieve of the siege was granted, for fitz Gilbert to request permission. However, the King asked for hostages as surety so that fitz Gilbert would keep his word. Fitz Gilbert gave his five-year-old son William into the Kings keeping. As soon as the King departed, fitz Gilbert reinforced the castle and Stephen was so enraged that fitz Gilbert had not kept his word, that he sent a message to fitz Gilbert threatening to kill his son, the 5-year-old William, and fitz Gilbert is reported to have written back 

‘I do not care about the child for I have the hammer and anvils to produce even finer sons’. 

King Stephen had William brought to the gaols but he did not carry out his threat. It was said the William was a charming young boy and won over the King, but whatever the reason, William was spared and would grow up to become the Marshall of England.  He was lucky to have lived, and luck is something that followed him all his life.  

Being fourth in the line of inheritance, William Marshall was unlikely to inherit anything. He had no land and no income, but he did have a noble background. He joined the household of his mother’s cousin, William de Tancarville, in Normandy and there he began his education and training as a squire, with the aim to eventually become a knight, which he accomplished at the young age of 20, in 1166.  William entered the tournament of Le Mans in 1167 and exceeded all expectations. The tournament circuit attracted warriors from across Europe to participate in tournaments which were held across northern France.  These tournaments were far more dangerous than the later jousting tournaments we think of. Early tournaments took place over an area of 30 square miles, and were arranged such that a group of knights would form two teams, essentially as you would on a battlefield. The objective however wasn’t to kill anyone, although that inevitably happened on occasion, the goal was to capture as many other knights as you could and then ransom them for a pre-agreed payment, often of gold, gear or horse. Just one successful tournament could change one’s circumstances.  These men were the footballers of their era, they were looked up to, and large groups of people could come to watch them, this really was the game of war.

William Marshall was very successful in the tournament circuit, where he remained for a few years amassing a large amount of wealth.  Knights who could not fund themselves on the circuit could also look for sponsorship, which may come from wealthy nobles.  Some nobles would recruit their own teams to send to the tournaments.  Men were often recruited into noble households because of their skills in the tournaments, so this was often the way a younger son could make a name for himself, as was the case with William Marshall. 

When William did return to England, he joined the household of his uncle, Earl Patrick of Salisbury, and joined his retinue of knights who served Henry II.  Earl Patrick was the king’s commander in Aquitaine, and assistant to the Queen. William served alongside his uncle, protecting Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine while she toured her lands, but on the 27th of March 1168, while travelling near Poitou, the Queen’s party was ambushed by rebels. The Queen's carriage sped off, while the knights blocked the road and fought off the attackers, but Earl Patrick was struck with a lance while charging the enemy and killed instantly. William fought to avenge him, but was wounded in the thigh and taken prisoner by the rebels. 

While in captivity William may have thought that he would never be rescued, as there wasn’t any surety that his ransom would be paid.  However, Queen Eleanor paid William’s ransom and rewarded him for his service. Whether she felt a responsibility for him, or saw something in him, we can’t be certain, but she did reward him with gifts of money, horses and arms.  She also endowed an anniversary mass, to be said annually, ‘for the soul of Earl Patrick who died in our service’, at the church of Saint Hilaire in Poitiers, where Earl Patrick was laid to rest. William remained in Queen Eleanor’s service. 

William Marshall became a trusted member of the Queens entourage and attended the coronation of her son, Henry the Young King, who was crowned at the age of 15, and during his father, Henry II’s lifetime.  This was a French custom and a way of ensuring the succession, but Henry II was the only English king so do this. In 1170, William was granted the role of tutor in arms to the young King Henry, and he joined the young Kings household shortly after the coronation. 

The young King Henry would have surely heard many stories about William Marshalls time in the tournament circuits, so perhaps it is not all that surprising that by 1179, he and William headed a team of 80 knights and returned to the tournament circuits in France.  It would have been an expensive hobby for the young King to sponsor 80 knights, but he had great success as well. However, it wasn’t just money he was after but the fame and reputation that came with winning at the tournaments. Together they spent some three years traveling the tournament circuits.  

In 1182, William Marshall left the young King’s household, he was either asked to leave, or chose to, depending on the source. This is just after a rumour was circulating about William and the young King’s wife, Margaret of France having committed adultery, a treasonable offence and highly unlikely to have occurred. He first travelled to the Christmas court of Henry II at Caen, where he asked for a trial by combat to prove his innocence, but the King refused. He then either went on a pilgrimage, or became a knight errant, as he is known to have travelled through France and to Cologne.  Leaving the young King's household also meant that William was not present when war broke out between King Henry II and his sons. William returned to the young King’s household in February 1183, but it wasn’t long before the young King died, possibly of dysentery.  William Marshall was at his deathbed and was asked to carry his cloak to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, which William dutifully did. 

William Marshall returned to England in 1186 and presented himself to King Henry II, who appointed him as a member of his household. So, we know that both William and Isabel de Clare were at court in 1186. William excelled at court life, and the King granted him an estate of 28,000 acres at Cartmel in Lancashire. Henry also gave him the custody of Helois of Lancaster, one of the King’s wards and heiress to the Barony of Kendal, in Lancashire and Westmoreland.  As her custodian, he would have the right to marry the girl and continue to run her estates as her husband, and this may well have been what the King intended, in order to have a trusted man in the north. This is not what happened however. So we have to ask, did he not marry his ward because he had met Isabel, was this a love match from the beginning, or was Isabel simply a wealthier heiress than his ward and thus more desirable?  By the time Henry II died in 1189, he had already promised William a marriage to Isabel de Clare. Richard I upheld the arrangement, and William Marshall was wed to his heiress Isabel in August of 1189. She brought to the marriage lands and castles in Oxford, Reading, Ireland and Wales, which included the castle at Chepstow.

Often, we know almost nothing about medieval women, but in the case of Isabel de Clare we have a bit more information.  She was described as: ‘the good, the fair, and the wise courteous lady of high degree’.  We also know that she was educated, and is said to have been fluent in French, Irish and Latin.  William and Isabel seem to have had a happy marriage, we know that they had 10 surviving children, 5 sons and 5 daughters, with the first two born being named William and Richard. It is thought that all of their children survived childhood which was rare at this time period. We know that they travelled together, through their estates, often visiting Ireland where they set up new towns, which Isabel took an active part in. At one point when Isabel was in Ireland and on her own, she led a force against an uprising herself. William is said to have told his men: ‘as we well know I have no claim to anything here save through her.’ If they hadn’t married for love, it certainly seems that they did find it. 

By the time of William and Isabel’s marriage in 1189, Chepstow Castle was looking a bit dated, and the Marshall’s started work on the lower bailey around this time. The twin towered gatehouse at the front of the castle dates from this period, and was a revolutionary design for the time. The towers themselves are not symmetrical, but in the front of the towers there would have been a gated passageway, giving further protection to the front doors, although no evidence of this now remains. The Marshalls seem to have been at the forefront of castle design, possibly due to the extensive traveling William had done, but the gatehouse at Chepstow could well be the first twin towered gatehouse built in Britain. 

Chepstow Castle also contains the oldest surviving castle doors in Britain, which were still in use on the main gatehouse until 1962.  A copy now takes their place so they can remain out of the weather.  Dendrochronology has proven that the doors were made by 1190, at the time when William and Isabel were making changes to Chepstow Castle. The wooden lattice frame on the back of the doors is also the earliest evidence of developed mortice and tenon joints in Britain.

In January 1215, William Marshall fell ill on his arrival at Westminster.  He was now 72 years of age, and his biographer tells us that: ‘he was plagued by illness and pain’. In the weeks that followed, it became clear that his body was failing him. His wife, Lady Isabel, travelled to be by his side. By March William realised that his end was approaching and decided to leave London: ‘for if death was to be his lot he preferred to die at home than elsewhere.’  William and Isabel were taken by boat up the Thames to their manor at Caversham on the 20th of March.  Extraordinarily there is a contemporary biography which was written about the life of William Marshall, which was commissioned by a member of the Marshall family shortly after his death.  Unseen for nearly 600 years, it was discovered and translated at the end of the 19th Century. Although a reliable source, we still have to remember that the account is biased and was written to present William Marshall as the perfect knight. Much of our knowledge about his life comes from this account. 

Perhaps part of the reason that we still think of William has a hero today, is because he lived a life in the way in which we all hope to.  He had many adventures, he found love, had a family, made a difference, and at the end when he knew his time was limited, he still had the presence of mind to be able to sort out his affairs before his demise. In March 1219, he summoned his eldest son, William Marshall the younger, to his side as well as household knights. He summoned a meeting of the magnates of the realm including King Henry III, the papal legate and the royal justiciar.  He entrusted the young Kings care to the papal legate, and resigned as regent of England. Most bequests were not arranged by will, but by law and custom of inheritance, but he did write out secondary bequests. 

By the time of William Marshall’s death, his children had already had their life paths set out. His wife Isabel would hold, during her lifetime, her own inheritance of Chepstow, Pembroke and Leinster, as well as the honour of Giffard. His eldest son, William, would inherit his father’s lands and titles. Their second son, Richard, would have the Norman lordship of Longueville, and the Giffard lands after Isabel’s lifetime. Gilbert, their third son, was to be a churchman and Walter, then still a boy, was given an unknown amount of land.  Anselm, their youngest son, received Irish lands worth 140 pounds (an ordinary knight’s fee was worth £20).  At this time, only one of their daughters, Joan, remained unmarried, so the others would have already been given their dowries at the time of their marriages. A stipulation was set out for Joan, who was to receive lands worth £30 a year and a cash sum of £133. Legacies were also left to monasteries, with £33 going to Notley Abbey and £6 to the Cathedral of Leinster. Before Williams death he took the orders of a Knight Templar and arranged to be buried in the New Temple Church in London. He also gave a manor in Hertfordshire to the Templar order as a gift. 

William Marshall died peacefully at Caversham, surrounded by his family and having had the time to sort his affairs, on the 14th of May 1219. His body was laid to rest in the round Temple Church in London on the 20th of May, where his effigy can still be seen today. There was much more to the life of William Marshall than I can put in a few paragraphs about one of his castles.  He served five Kings, and we have only just discussed, briefly, the reign of two.  William Marshall lived during the height of the idea of chivalry, and he has come down to us as a virtual Lancelot, the perfect knight. He certainly had a knack for being in the right place at the right time.  His loyalty also paid off, and against the odds he manage to navigate the turbulent times he lived through, including the reign of King John, which would prove to be his ultimate challenge. He could very well be the reason that Britain today speaks English and not French, as without his support for the young King Henry III, we could have had a very different history.

Isabel died only a year after William’s death, and was buried at Tintern Abbey. Chepstow Castle was then inherited by each of their five sons, in turn, up until 1245.  Many of them carried on building and improving the castle at Chepstow.  In 1228, William Marshall the younger received a gift of 10 oak trees from the King, for works to the tower at Chepstow.  After his death in 1231, Henry III visited Chepstow Castle when William’s second son, Richard, was the lord there in December of 1232. He was succeeded by his brother, Gilbert, who had intended on an ecclesiastical career, before inheriting the Marshall estates. Gilbert was gifted by the King ‘fifty good oaks’, for joisting the great tower.  The west end of the Great Tower was raised at this time also, to provide additional accommodation. A few months later he was gifted another 25 oaks, to repair the palisade. Gilbert died in 1241 after being wounded in a tournament in Hertfordshire.  He was succeeded by his brothers Walter and Anselm, both of whom died in 1245. All of William Marshall’s sons died without issue, and so the Marshall estates were split amongst his five daughters or their descendants.  Chepstow Castle was inherited by the eldest daughter, Maud, who married Hugh Bigod, Earl of Norfolk. It was their son, Roger, who made the next impact on the castle.

Roger Bigod made Chepstow his main residence, and further developed the Marshall’s fortress. There are some records of these works between 1271 and 1304, which tell us that he did general repairs to the existing castle. He then chose to create a new suite of apartments, on the cliff side of the lower bailey, which were designed by master mason Ralph Gogun of London, and made the most of the changes in level across the site and provided access to the castle from boats on the river.  Although we don’t have all the records, we know that he built a new hall, cellar and service rooms as well.  The buildings were completed by the time King Edward I and Queen Eleanor visited for four days in 1284. 

Upon Roger Bigod’s death, the castle reverted to the crown.  Edward II vested his half-brother, Thomas of Brotherton, with the lordship of Chepstow.  Documents tell us of the continuing and expensive program of repairs, as well as the garrisoning and provisioning of the castle to accommodate up to 12 knights and sixty footmen.  The Kings favourite, Hugh Despenser, was later granted the castle and all its lands in 1324.  In October 1326, King Edward II and Hugh Despenser fled to Chepstow Castle which was well provisioned for them, where they stayed and avoided facing the rebel forces led by Queen Isabel and Roger Mortimer. 

During the Wars of the Roses and the reign of Edward IV, Chepstow was the refuge of Richard Woodville, Earl Rivers, and his son Sir John Woodville, the father and brother of the Queen.  They fled to Chepstow after the Yorkists were defeated at the Battle of Edgecote in 1469.  The Earl of Warwick, the Kingmaker, pursued them to Chepstow, where the garrison surrendered them without a fight, after which they were taken to Kenilworth Castle and executed.