In the spring of 1217, the Kingdom of England stood on the brink of dissolution. Its throne was occupied by a nine-year-old boy, its capital and south-east were controlled by an invading French prince, and its baronage was fractured by a bitter civil war. The grand Plantagenet project, forged in the crucible of conquest and empire by Henry II, seemed destined to collapse, with England poised to become little more than an appanage of the French crown. From this dire moment of crisis, however, emerged an unlikely saviour: a man already a legend in his own lifetime, a knight whose career spanned five English reigns, now in his seventieth year. This was William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke, and Regent of England. His final campaign, culminating in the narrow, perilous streets of Lincoln, would not only decide the fate of the nation but would also secure the legacy of Magna Carta and shape the course of English history for centuries to come.
The Kingdom in Crisis: Magna Carta and the Barons' War
The roots of the 1217 crisis lay in the disastrous reign of King John. His failures were manifold and catastrophic. The loss of the duchy of Normandy and most of the Plantagenet's continental possessions by 1204 was a humiliation that struck at the very heart of the Anglo-Norman aristocracy's identity and wealth. His protracted and costly quarrel with Pope Innocent III had led to an Interdict, a spiritual crisis for the kingdom. Most damagingly, John’s rule at home was defined by arbitrary and extortionate financial demands, a flagrant disregard for customary law, and a vindictive style of personal kingship that alienated even his most powerful magnates.
By 1215, baronial discontent erupted into open rebellion. The resulting confrontation produced Magna Carta, sealed at Runnymede on 15 June 1215. Far from the revered constitutional document it would become, the charter was, in its immediate context, a failed peace treaty. It was a radical attempt to codify limits on royal power, but John had no intention of abiding by its terms. With the backing of the Pope, who declared the charter "shameful, demeaning, illegal and unjust," John renounced it within weeks. Civil war was now inevitable.
Desperate, the rebel barons took a momentous and treacherous step: they offered the English crown to Prince Louis, the son and heir of King Philip II of France. Louis had a tenuous claim through his wife, Blanche of Castile, a granddaughter of Henry II. In May 1216, he landed with an army in Kent and was welcomed in London, where he was proclaimed king in St Paul's Cathedral. John's kingdom rapidly unravelled; castles and counties fell to the Franco-rebel alliance. The end of the Plantagenet dynasty seemed imminent.
Then, on the night of 18 October 1216, King John died of dysentery at Newark Castle in Nottinghamshire, his demise hastened by the legendary loss of his baggage train—including the crown jewels—in the treacherous tidal estuary of The Wash in Lincolnshire. His death fundamentally altered the political landscape. The focus of baronial hatred was gone. In his place was John’s innocent heir, the nine-year-old Henry III.
The Marshal Steps Forth: Regent of England
The royalist cause now rested on the shoulders of this child-king. A council of loyal magnates hastily convened at Gloucester Cathedral, where, on 28 October, the young Henry was crowned with a simple gold circlet belonging to his mother. The critical question was who would govern the kingdom in his name. All eyes turned to William Marshal.
The Marshal’s life was already the stuff of chivalric romance. Born a younger son of a minor noble, his peerless skill in the tournament circuit had won him fame and fortune. He had served the young Henry’s great-grandfather, Henry II, his grandfather Richard the Lionheart, and his father, John. He had been a crusader, a diplomat, and through a fortuitous marriage, had become one of the wealthiest earls in the realm. Now, at an age when most of his contemporaries were long in their graves, he was asked to assume the regency—the title given was rector regis et regni (governor of the king and of the kingdom). He accepted the burden, reportedly declaring that even if all others deserted the boy, "I would carry him on my shoulders, from island to island, from country to country, and I would not fail him, not even if I had to beg for my bread."
Marshal's first act was a masterstroke of political pragmatism. In November 1216, acting with the papal legate, Cardinal Guala Bicchieri, he reissued a revised version of Magna Carta. This single act brilliantly reframed the conflict. The war was no longer against a tyrannical king who had broken his oath; it was now a struggle for the rightful inheritance of a boy-king who had himself endorsed the Great Charter. The moral high ground shifted. Marshal offered the rebel barons what they had fought for—the charter—if only they would return to their natural allegiance. Slowly, cautiously, some began to waver in their support for the foreign prince.
The Road to Lincoln
Despite Marshal’s political manoeuvres, the military situation in the spring of 1217 remained perilous. Prince Louis controlled London and the strategically vital south-east. The royalists held the Midlands and the west. The key to the kingdom lay in the north, and its linchpin was the city of Lincoln.
Lincoln was one of England's most important cities. It stood at the crossroads of two great Roman roads, Ermine Street and the Fosse Way, and its formidable Norman castle controlled the surrounding region. The castle itself was held for the king by one of the most remarkable figures of the age, Nicola de la Haye. Nicola had inherited the hereditary post of castellan of Lincoln Castle and had already defended it against a siege in 1191. Now in her sixties, she once again found herself holding the fortress for the Plantagenets against a superior force.
In the spring, a large French army under Thomas, the Count of Perche, joined with rebel northern barons like Robert Fitzwalter and Saer de Quincy, Earl of Winchester, to besiege Lincoln. They quickly captured the city but could not take the castle. Nicola de la Haye and her garrison held firm, but they were isolated and running low on supplies. She managed to get a message to the Regent, pleading for relief.
For William Marshal, this was the decisive moment. A defeat at Lincoln would be catastrophic, likely ending the royalist cause. A victory, however, could break the back of the Franco-rebel alliance. Despite being outnumbered in the field overall, he resolved to risk everything on a single throw of the dice. He mustered the royalist forces at Newark, a mere twenty miles south-west of the besieged city. His army was a coalition of loyalist stalwarts, including Ranulf de Blondeville, the powerful Earl of Chester, and the ruthless but effective mercenary captain, Falkes de Bréauté.
On the morning of 20 May 1217, before marching from Stow, the aged Marshal addressed his troops. As recorded in L'Histoire de Guillaume le Maréchal, the biographical poem commissioned by his family, he framed the coming battle not merely as a feudal obligation but as a holy war to save their homeland. They were fighting, he declared, for "our wives and our children, and for the defence of our country." Cardinal Guala Bicchieri gave the army a crusader’s blessing, absolving all who might fall and solemnly excommunicating Prince Louis and his followers. The royalist army, bearing white crosses on their surcoats, marched towards Lincoln not just as soldiers, but as crusaders.
'The Fair of Lincoln': The Battle of 20th May 1217
The French and rebel commanders at Lincoln were fatally arrogant. When informed of Marshal's approach, they dismissed the threat, believing the royalists would not dare to attack their superior numbers within the city's walls. The Count of Perche scoffed at the idea of engaging the English in the field, opting instead to continue the siege and bottle them up if they tried to enter the city. This was a grave miscalculation.
The royalist plan was audacious, relying on intelligence and a keen understanding of Lincoln's topography. It was a two-pronged assault. The main force, commanded by Marshal and the Earl of Chester, would make a diversionary attack on the city's North Gate, which the rebels had barricaded. Simultaneously, a second detachment, led by the hard-bitten Falkes de Bréauté, would gain entry to the castle through a long-disused postern gate on the west side, which Nicola de la Haye’s men would unblock for them.
The plan worked to perfection. While the Count of Perche’s forces were drawn to the clamour at the North Gate, Falkes and his men slipped into the castle. Emerging onto the battlements, his crossbowmen unleashed a devastating volley of bolts down into the besiegers in the castle bailey. With a roar, Falkes's soldiers then charged out of the main castle gate and crashed into the unprepared rebel rear, creating mayhem in the streets between the castle and the cathedral.
The rebels were now in a trap. Panicked and confused, their attention was divided between Falkes's attack from the castle and the main royalist assault on the North Gate. At this critical juncture, William Marshal, despite his seventy years, seized the moment. Tossing aside his helmet so his men could recognise him, he led the charge himself, his banner streaming as his knights smashed through the barricades at the North Gate.
The battle degenerated into a brutal mêlée in the steep, narrow streets leading up from the gate towards the cathedral. Hemmed in by buildings and unable to deploy their numbers effectively, the Franco-rebel army was cut to pieces. The turning point came with the death of their commander, the Count of Perche. Cornered near the cathedral, he refused to surrender and was killed by a sword thrust through the eye-slit of his helmet.
With their leader dead, the rebel army collapsed. What followed was a complete rout. Rebel knights, desperate to escape, fled down the hill towards the south gate. So many were captured, along with their horses, armour, and vast quantities of supplies and treasure abandoned in the city, that the victorious royalists wryly dubbed the battle "the Fair of Lincoln." It was a stunningly decisive victory, won with remarkably few royalist casualties.
For the ordinary folk of Lincolnshire, including the tenants holding lands for lords in baronies like Brattleby, the battle was a terrifying and transformative event. Their county had become the epicentre of the war for England’s future. The fate of their manors, their allegiances, and their lives was being decided in the streets of their own county town. While the lord of Brattleby at this time, likely a member of the Buslingthorpe family holding from the Bishop of Lincoln, is not explicitly named in the chronicles of the battle, his interests and those of his tenants were inextricably tied to its outcome. Had Louis won, their ultimate overlord would have become a French king, their lands subject to redistribution to his foreign followers. Marshal’s victory ensured the continuity of their tenures under a Plantagenet king and the established English legal framework.
The Aftermath and the Treaty of Lambeth
The Battle of Lincoln broke the back of the rebellion. Prince Louis, who had been besieging Dover, saw his English support evaporate. The captured rebel barons, fearing for their lives and lands, were quick to seek terms. The final blow to Louis’s ambitions came not on land but at sea. In August 1217, a fleet carrying vital French reinforcements was intercepted and decisively defeated off the coast of Sandwich by an English fleet under the command of Hubert de Burgh. Louis was now completely cut off.
With his cause hopeless, the French prince agreed to negotiate. The resulting Treaty of Lambeth (also known as the Treaty of Kingston), signed in September 1217, was a monument to William Marshal’s wisdom and statesmanship. Louis agreed to renounce his claim to the English throne and depart from England. In return, he received a large sum of 10,000 marks—ostensibly to pay his debts, but in reality, a golden handshake to ensure he left swiftly.
Crucially, Marshal showed remarkable clemency to the vanquished English rebels. There were no mass executions or sweeping confiscations of land. The treaty included a general amnesty, allowing the rebels to be restored to their lands and titles upon payment of a fine and a renewal of homage to King Henry. This policy of reconciliation, rather than retribution, was Marshal's greatest triumph. He understood that to heal the fractured kingdom, he had to win the peace as decisively as he had won the war. By bringing the rebels back into the political fold, he stabilised the realm and rebuilt the consensus upon which the Plantagenet throne depended.
The Old Knight's Legacy
William Marshal did not live long to enjoy the peace he had secured. Having fulfilled his duty to his young king, he retired from the regency in the spring of 1219, his health failing. He died on 14 May 1219, almost two years to the day after his great victory at Stow. He was buried in the Temple Church in London, where his effigy can still be seen today.
His legacy was profound. By saving the throne for Henry III, he not only preserved the Plantagenet dynasty but also ensured England's continued existence as an independent kingdom with its own unique political and legal trajectory. His shrewd decision to reissue Magna Carta in 1216, and its subsequent confirmation in 1217 and again in 1225 as the price for a parliamentary tax grant, cemented the charter's place at the heart of English governance. The principle that even the king was subject to the law, and that the consent of the realm was required for taxation, was now firmly established.
William Marshal's final campaign was the magnificent culmination of an extraordinary life. It was a masterclass in military strategy, political acumen, and conciliatory statesmanship. At a moment of supreme national peril, when the kingdom was on the precipice of collapse, the "greatest knight" proved to be its greatest servant. The charge he led through the North Gate of Lincoln was more than just a cavalry attack; it was a charge that secured the future of a king, a dynasty, and a nation.
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Sources & Further Reading
Primary Sources:
L'Histoire de Guillaume le Maréchal. Edited and translated by A.J. Holden, S. Gregory, and D. Crouch. 3 vols. Anglo-Norman Text Society, 2002-2007. (The contemporary biography, a vital though partisan source for Marshal’s life and the battle.) Roger of Wendover, Flores Historiarum. Included in Matthew Paris's English History. Translated by J.A. Giles. 3 vols. H.G. Bohn, 1852-1854. (Provides a key chronicle account of the war and the battle.) The Domesday Book Online, Lincolnshire. (For pre-Conquest landholding in Brattleby, held by the Bishop of Lincoln.) Calendar of the Patent Rolls, Henry III. (For official government acts during the minority.) Stubbs, William, ed. Select Charters and Other Illustrations of English Constitutional History*. 9th ed. Clarendon Press, 1913. (Contains the texts of the 1215, 1216, and 1225 versions of Magna Carta.)
Secondary Sources:
Asbridge, Thomas. The Greatest Knight: The Remarkable Life of William Marshal, the Power Behind Five English Thrones. Simon & Schuster, 2014. (An excellent and accessible modern biography.) Carpenter, David. The Minority of Henry III. University of California Press, 1990. (The definitive academic study of the period and the most detailed scholarly analysis of the Battle of Lincoln.) Carpenter, David. Magna Carta. Penguin Classics, 2015. (Provides context for the charter and its role in the war.) Crouch, David. William Marshal: Knighthood, War and Chivalry, 1147-1219. 3rd ed. Routledge, 2016. (A leading scholarly biography.) Painter, Sidney. William Marshal: Knight-Errant, Baron, and Regent of England. The Johns Hopkins Press, 1933. (The classic 20th-century biography.) The Victoria History of the County of Lincoln. Vol. II. Edited by William Page. Archibald Constable & Co., 1906. (Provides background on the religious and political structures of the county.) Warren, W. L. King John*. Yale University Press, 1978. (The standard modern biography of King John, essential for understanding the causes of the war.)