William Marshal's Wife

The real story of Isabel de Clare, William Marshal's wife.

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Isabel de Clare, the descendant of kings, dukes and freebooters, was one of the wealthiest heiresses in Henry II’s kingdom thanks to the ambitions of her father Richard, Strongbow, de Clare and his marriage to Aoife, daughter of the last king of Leinster. Nature gave her beauty and intelligence. Destiny made her a key figure in the history of Ireland, England, Wales and Normandy. Isabel’s role as a daughter, wife, mother and countess in her own right is the story of medieval aristocratic women and the power that they could wield.

Married to a complete stranger when she was just eighteen on the orders of Richard the Lionheart, she found love in the arms of William Marshal - known as the greatest knight who ever lived. Together they established powerbases in Ireland and in Wales, beat off their foes; negotiated the perils of serving King John; and built a powerful kinship network. Marshal declared, ‘I have no claim to anything save through her.’ She was a peerless wife and remarkable woman who played the political game alongside her husband serving successive Plantagenet monarchs, consolidating and extending her inheritance as well as giving birth to ten children.

Like her mother before her and her brood of Marshall daughters after her, she was a prize, not a pawn, who knew how to balance her role as a wife and mother alongside the brutal politics of the period.