THE SCENE: There is poetic justice in the idea that a capable but ruthless man like Robert Marmiun should ultimately meet his end as a product of bad luck, stupidity, and some obscure nameless adversary.
THE TEXT: Robert, surnamed Marmiun, who expelled the monks, and invaded and polluted the church of Coventry [also outrage the church] was crushed by the weight of the divine judgment. Robert Marmiun was a man warlike and ferocious, crafty, bold, and almost without compeer in his day; at length, after gaining notoriety for his wide-extended successes, and profaning that noble church by the introduction of the servants of the devil, he harassed the earl of Chester, to whom he was more particularly inimical, with frequent and dreadful assaults, and went purposely to attack the earl as he was advancing with considerable forces; but while proudly riding on a fiery steed, in the sight of both of the contending parties, forgetful of his own stratagem — for he had intersected the ground with ditches to keep off or annoy the enemy — he unconsciously fell, by the judgment of God (I say), into the pitfall which his artifice and labor had made; and being incapable of extricating himself, in consequence of the fracture of his thigh, his head was cut off, in the presence of all, by an obscure soldier of the adverse party.
– History of English Affairs, William of Newburgh, 12th Century AD
