Biography of Isabel Marshal Countess Cornwall, Gloucester and Hertford 1200-1240

Flowers of History 1233. How the marshal was warned of treachery against him.

The earls and barons in grand knightly array proceeded to London on the 1st of August to the appointed conference, and amongst the rest was [her brother] Richard earl marshal (age 42), who took up his abode with his sister (age 32), the wife of [her husband] Richard the king's brother (age 24) ; she then asked him the reason of his journey, to which he replied, that he had come to attend the conference. She then said to him, "Know, my dear brother, that your enemies are plotting to take you prisoner, and they will give you up to the king and the bishop of Winchester, in order that they may serve you the same as they did the earl of Kent (age 63)." The marshal would hardly believe these words of his sister's, until she showed by evident proofs the manner of his capture, and by whom he would be taken. He then began to believe her, and when night came on he took the road, and did not draw rein till he arrived in Wales. There came to the conference the earls of Chester (age 26) and Lincoln (age 41), the earl of Ferrers, and earl Richard the king's brother (age 24), with some other earls and several barons, but nothing was done there on account of the absence of the earl marshal and Gilbert Bassett (age 45), and some other nobles who did not make their appearance ; on which the king, by the advice of Peter bishop of Winchester, and Stephen Seagrave, sent letters to all the nobles of the kingdom who owed him knight's service, inviting them to come, provided with horses and arms, to Gloucester, on Sunday before the Assumption of the blessed virgin Mary. Richard Marshal and some others however, who were confederated, refused to come at the time appointed, and the king, treating them as traitors, burnt their villages, destroyed their parks and warrens, and besieged their castles. The nobles who were confederated with one another, it was said, were the earl marshal, Gilbert Bassett (age 45) and his brothers, all distinguished soldiers, Richard Siward, a man trained to arms from his youth, Walter de Clifford, a chosen knight, and many others who joined their cause ; all of these the king, without any trial in his court by their peers, ordered to be declared banished and proscribed men, and gave their lands to his Poictevin servants, ordering their persons to be seized wherever they were found in the kingdom.