History's Toughest Heroes: William Marshal: The Greatest Medieval Knight

History's Heroes

BBC

History, Documentary, Society & Culture

4.8 • 824 Ratings

🗓️ 16 December 2025

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

At the age of 70, does England’s greatest knight still have what it takes to save the realm from invasion?

In History's Toughest Heroes, Ray Winstone tells ten true stories of adventurers, rebels and survivors who lived life on the edge.

The young Sir William Marshal was handsome, charming, captain of the England Tourney team a sporting hero and right-hand man to many a king of England including Henry the Young King, Henry II, Richard the Lionheart and Bad King John. He was a brilliant rider and very good at jousting. He was even famed for having a ‘large crotch’. But towards the end of his life, in his 70s, when he might have wanted to wind down, the realm was in trouble facing the threat of a French invasion. William Marshal was called upon to fight the ultimate battle and save the day in the Battle of Lincoln. A BBC Studios production for BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds. Producer: Suniti Somaiya Development Producer: Georgina Leslie Executive Producer: Paul Smith Written by Imogen Robertson Commissioning editor for Radio 4: Rhian Roberts

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts.
0:07.0	My Christmas Mix is pure 90s festive nostalgia.
0:11.1	You know, the Christmas songs you listen to on repeat.
0:14.0	Ho!
0:14.3	Ho! Ho! No, no, no.
0:17.5	I'm all about the big hitting Christmas anthems.
0:20.4	Come on, guys. What about those tunes that really slay? It's Christmas kitchen disco season, surely. Give me hip-hop Christmas bangers every day. Those Christmas tracks that are straight out of lapland. Get all kinds of Christmassy. Just search Christmas music on BBC Sounds. 1216, England was in crisis.
0:40.7	A bankrupt country, people arguing and divided, and a foreign country had invaded.
0:47.3	Prince Louis of France across the channel with his armies, then he would claim the throne. King John, who everyone hated, had run away to Newark.
1:00.7	Then he died of dysentery and his forces were in a mess. The southeast of England, including London,
1:08.4	is held by the French. If he wanted to conquer the whole country, Louis needed to take the north.
1:16.1	His road to victory led through Lincoln.
1:18.7	Lincoln had been holding out for two years.
1:21.3	They'd taken the town itself.
1:22.8	There was just a castle holding out.
1:25.3	Lincoln Castle had stayed loyal to the crown.
1:28.9	But the new king, Henry III, was only a boy.
1:33.9	He was nine years old.
1:36.3	More and more of the English were switching to the French side.
1:39.9	But one night, William Marshall promised a child king he would fight for him and send Louis Packing back to France.
1:48.9	But he'd have to beat him at Lincoln first.
1:52.0	He had about 360 knights and 400 infantry.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.