The above William Marshall was the son and heir of John Marshall, earl of Strigul, and was the faithful and constant supporter of the royal house of Plantagenet. When the young prince Henry, eldest son of king Henry the Second, was on his deathbed at the castle of Martel near Turenne, he gave to him, as his best friend, his cross to carry to Jerusalem.[503] On the return of William Marshall from the holy city, he was present at the coronation of Richard Coeur de Lion, and bore on that occasion the royal sceptre of gold surmounted by a cross.[504] King Richard the same year gave him in marriage Isabel de Clare, the only child and heiress of Richard de Clare, earl of Pembroke, surnamed Strongbow, and granted him with this illustrious lady the earldom of Pembroke.[505] The year following (A. D. 1190) he became one of the sureties for the performance by king Richard of his part of the treaty entered into with the king of France for the accomplishment of the crusade to the Holy Land, and on the departure of king Richard for the far East he was appointed by that monarch one of the council for the government of the kingdom during his absence.[506] From the year 1189 to 1205 he was sheriff of Lincolnshire, and was after that sheriff of Sussex, and held that office during the whole of king Richard's reign. He attended Coeur de Lion in his expedition to Normandy, and on the death of that monarch by the hand of Bertram, the cross-bow-man, before the walls of Castle Chaluz, he was sent over to England to keep the peace of the kingdom until the arrival of king John. In conjunction with Hubert, archbishop of Canterbury, he caused the freemen of England, both of the cities and boroughs, and most of the earls, barons, and free tenants, to swear fealty to John.[507]