The inscription upon his tomb was, in Camden's time, almost illegible, as before mentioned, and the only verse that could be read was,
"Miles eram Martis Mars multos vicerat armis."
All the historians of the period speak in the highest terms of the earl of Pembroke as a warrior[518] and a statesman, and concur in giving him a noble character. Shakspeare, consequently, in his play of King John, represents him as the eloquent intercessor in behalf of the unfortunate prince Arthur.
Surrounded by the nobles, he thus addresses the king on his throne--
"PEMBROKE. I (as one that am the tongue of these, To sound the purposes of all their hearts,) Both for myself and them, (but, chief of all, Your safety, for the which myself and them Bend their best studies,) heartily request The enfranchisement of Arthur; whose restraint Doth move the murmuring lips of discontent To break into this dangerous argument,-- If, what in rest you have, in right you hold, Why then your fears, (which, as they say, attend The steps of wrong,) should move you to mew up Your tender kinsman, and to choke his days With barbarous ignorance, and deny his youth The rich advantage of good exercise? That the time's enemies may not have this To grace occasions, let it be our suit That you have bid us ask his liberty; Which for our goods we do no further ask, Than whereupon our weal, on you depending. Counts it your weal, he have his liberty."
Afterwards, when he is shown the dead body of the unhappy prince, he exclaims--
"O death, made proud with pure and princely beauty! The earth had not a hole to hide this deed.
All murders past do stand excused in this: And this, so sole, and so unmatchable, Shall give a holiness, a purity, To the yet unbegotten sin of times, And prove a deadly bloodshed but a jest, Exampled by this heinous spectacle."
This illustrious nobleman was a great benefactor to the Templars. He granted them the advowsons of the churches of Spenes, Castelan-Embyan, together with eighty acres of land in Eschirmanhir.[519]
By the side of the earl of Pembroke, towards the northern windows of the Round of the Temple Church, reposes a youthful warrior, clothed in armour of chain mail; he has a long buckler on his left arm, and his hands are pressed together in supplication upon his breast. This is the monumental effigy of Robert Lord de Ros, and is the most elegant and interesting in appearance of all the cross-legged figures in the Temple Church. The head is uncovered, and the countenance, which is youthful, has a remarkably pleasing expression, and is graced with long and flowing locks of curling hair. On the left side of the figure is a ponderous sword, and the armour of the legs has a ridge or seam up the front, which is continued over the knee, and forms a kind of garter below the knee. The feet are trampling on a lion, and the legs are crossed in token that the warrior was one of those military enthusiasts who so strangely mingled religion and romance, "whose exploits form the connecting link between fact and fiction, between history and the fairy tale." It has generally been thought that this interesting figure is intended to represent a genuine Knight Templar clothed in the habit of his order, and the loose garment or surcoat thrown over the ring-armour, and confined to the waist by a girdle, has been described as "a flowing mantle with a kind of _cowl_." This supposed cowl is nothing more than a fold of the chain mail, which has been covered with a thick coating of paint. The mantle is the common surcoat worn by the secular warriors of the day, and is not the habit of the Temple. Moreover, the long curling hair manifests that the warrior whom it represents could not have been a Templar, as the brethren of the Temple were required to cut their hair close, and they wore long beards.