![]() ![]() Marshal’s education as a knight began when he was only 13. Drawing on the 13th-century manuscript, Asbridge has fashioned a rare and fascinating tale: a biography of a medieval knight told with all the rich detail, dialogue, and action that is usually possible only for figures from later periods. Thomas Asbridge’s new book, The Greatest Knight: The Remarkable Life of William Marshal, the Power behind Five English Thrones, aims to introduce Marshal to a wider audience. Though this singular source was found in the 19th century, William Marshal has remained relatively unknown beyond academic circles. In the middle of the 19th century, a French scholar discovered the sole surviving manuscript of a 13th-century biography in verse of William Marshal: the "History of William Marshal." Commissioned by one of Marshal’s sons, the work celebrates the glorious achievements of Marshal’s life. ![]() But if Marshal had not survived a different type of existential threat, the bulk of his exploits would be forgotten. This boyhood brush with mortality was just the first of many dangers he confronted over a long career. The king could not bring himself to kill his hostage, and William was eventually returned to his family. He asked to play with a guard’s spear on the way to the gallows, and he even leapt happily into the sling of a catapult, imagining it was a swing. But whenever he tried to execute William, the boy’s youthful innocence proved disarming. King Stephen threatened to hang the child, use him as a human shield during a frontal assault, and catapult him at a fortress. This seeming indifference might have been a bluff, but it placed the young hostage in tremendous danger. But William’s father promptly broke his word, resumed hostilities, and told the king he was perfectly content to lose his son, “since he still had the anvils and the hammers to forge even finer ones.” His father gave young William to King Stephen as a war hostage in 1152, a common method of pledging good faith to guarantee the terms of a truce. Almost a third of children did not survive childhood in the 12th century, but few faced a demise as dramatic as five-year-old William Marshal. The man who became the greatest knight of medieval England nearly died long before he ever swung a war hammer in a melee or unhorsed an enemy at a joust. “The struggle goes on.”Ukrainians and anti-war Russians can also take heart in his message. Rushdie, recipient of an award for courage, the gala was an opportunity to stand up to the tyranny of his foes. Anti-Russian sentiment has also gripped the West, leading to the cancellation of performances by Russian artists.The Ukrainian writer-soldiers said that they faced legal and ethical restrictions that prevented their participation, and that they weren’t “boycotting.” But the end result was the same: a curtailing of speech by PEN America, ironic for an organization founded to defend free expression.For Mr. Many Ukrainians now have a deep aversion to all things Russian – language, literature, performing arts. Russia’s invasion isn’t just territorial it’s also cultural. “Don’t these folks realize they are on the same side? Literally no one involved in this whole dispute supports Putin or his war, so what are they fighting about?”The sensitivities are understandable. ![]() Suzanne Nossel, the organization’s CEO, called it “a no-win situation.”To Americans who care deeply about Ukraine while also seeking to defend Russians who have nothing to do with the war or outright oppose it, the PEN America situation is exasperating.“The relentless zero-sum approach is just awful,” says an analyst with long experience in the post-Soviet world, speaking not for attribution. PEN canceled the panel that included Russians.Acclaimed Russian émigré journalist Masha Gessen quit as vice president of the PEN America board over the episode. The Russians oppose President Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine and had left their country shortly after last year’s invasion, but the Ukrainians – both active-duty soldiers – stood firm. Rushdie, who has faced death threats since the 1988 publication of his novel “The Satanic Verses,” deemed by Iran’s ayatollahs to be blasphemous toward Islam.A clash over free speech had earlier marred PEN America’s World Voices Festival, when two Ukrainian authors threatened not to appear after learning that two Russian writers were participating in a different panel. Salman Rushdie’s surprise appearance at last night’s PEN America Literary Gala – a celebration of free expression – ended a week of controversy on a high note.It was the author’s first public appearance since he was attacked and gravely wounded last August at a literary festival in western New York.“It’s nice to be back,” said Mr. ![]()
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