sed her to William Marshal" (p. 76). Encased within this statement is a point beyond the familiar notion of mere royal prerogative, which goes to the meaning behind royal authority in the European feudal period. For the royal line to hold its power and by implication hold the stability of the realm, there must also be stability in the lands that constituted the realm. An important means of assuring such stability was the practice of forming real-property-based alliances by marriage, which would be consistent with the duties and mutual obligations that feudatory lords and vassals followed at the time. Therefore, in the background of the intersection of public and private life in the period is the whole range of associations based on property, military power, and presumptive loyalties that constituted what is referred to as the feudal system.
This extended reference to the structure of the feudal system is important to an understanding of Painter's biography of Marshal because running as a thread of narrative through the chronicle of Marshal's life is a strong suggestion that Marshal understood and appreciated the finer details of feudatory loyalties and obligations. For example, in a discussion of the persistent rivalries between Henry II and eldest son prince Henry, between Henry II and Richard I, between Louis and Philip of France and the various Plantagenets, and between Richard I and John, Painter describes the pull of priorities that confronted William Marshal from time to time in moments of what in later times might be considered state or constitutional crisis.
The manner in which Marshal addressed these moments of personal-professional priority crisis may be said to constitute the background of stature that Marshal attains as a figure of more than passing historical and biographical interest. In 1173, King Louis VII of France intrigued against Henry II of England, over Henry's discretion in granting to his legitimate...