The monks of Walden tell us that the above earl of Essex was a religious man, endowed with many virtues.[500] He was married to the famous Roisia de Vere, of the family of the earls of Oxford, who in her old age led an ascetic life, and constructed for herself an extraordinary subterranean cell or oratory, which was curiously discovered towards the close of the last century.[501] He had issue by this illustrious lady four sons, Ernulph, Geoffrey, William, and Robert. Ernulph was exiled as the accomplice of the father in his evil deeds, and Geoffrey succeeded to the title and the estates. The second of the cross-legged figures on the south side, in the Round of the Temple Church, is the monumental effigy of WILLIAM MARSHALL, EARL OF PEMBROKE, Earl Marshall, and Protector of England, during the minority of king Henry the Third, and one of the greatest of the warriors and statesmen who shine in English history. Matthew Paris describes his burial in the Temple Church in the year 1119, and in Camden's time, (A. D. 1586,) the inscription upon his monument was legible. "In altero horum tumulo," says Camden, "literis fugientibus legi, _Comes Pembrochiæ_, et in latere, _Miles eram Martis, Mars multos vicerat armis_."[502] Although no longer, ("the first of the cross-legged,") as described by Stow, A. D. 1598, yet tradition has always, since the days of Roger Gillingham, who moved these figures, pointed it out as "the monument of the protector," and the lion rampant, still plainly visible upon the shield, was the armorial bearing of the Marshalls. This interesting monumental effigy is carved in a common kind of stone, called by the masons fire-stone. It represents an armed warrior clothed from head to foot in chain mail; he is in the act of sheathing a sword which hangs on his left side; his legs are crossed, and his feet, which are armed with spurs, rest on a _lion couchant_. Over his armour is worn a loose garment, confined to the waist by a girdle, and from his left arm hangs suspended a shield, having a lion rampant engraved thereon. The greater part of the sword has been broken away and lost, which has given rise to the supposition that he is sheathing a dagger. The head is defended by a round helmet, and rests on a stone pillow. The family of the Marshalls derived their name from the hereditary office of earl marshall, which they held under the crown.