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Note: s birth; his youth was divided between his eldest brother Henry's house, where he learned the art of knighthood, and the house of his father's justiciar, Ranulf Glanvil, where he learned the business of government. As the fourth child, inherited lands were not available to him, giving rise to his nickname, Lackland. His first marriage lasted but ten years and was fruitless, but his second wife, Isabella of Angouleme, bore him two sons and three daughters. He also had an illegitimate daughter, Joan, who married Llywelyn the Great, Ruler of All Wales, from which the Tudor line of monarchs was descended. The survival of the English government during John's reign is a testament to the reforms of his father, as John taxed the system socially, economically, and judicially.
The Angevin family feuds profoundly marked John. He and Richard clashed in 1184 following Richard's refusal to honor his father's wishes surrender Aquitane to John. The following year Henry II sent John to rule Ireland, but John alienated both the native Irish and the transplanted Anglo-Normans who emigrated to carve out new lordships for themselves; the experiment was a total failure and John returned home within six months. After Richard gained the throne in 1189, he gave John vast estates in an unsuccessful attempt to appease his younger brother. John failed to overthrow Richard's administrators during the German captivity and conspired with Philip II in another failed coup attempt. Upon Richard's release from captivity in 1194, John was forced to sue for pardon and he spent the next five years in his brother's shadow.
John's reign was troubled in many respects. A quarrel with the Church resulted in England being placed under an interdict in 1207, with John actually excommunicated two years later. The dispute centered on John's stubborn refusal to install the papal candidate, Stephen Langdon, as Archbishop of Canterbury; the issue was not resolved until John surrendered to the wishes of Pope Innocent III and paid tribute for England as the Pope's vassal.
John proved extremely unpopular with his subjects. In addition to the Irish debacle, he inflamed his French vassals by orchestrating the murder of his popular nephew, Arthur of Brittany. By spring 1205, he lost the last of his French possessions and returned to England. The final ten years of his reign were occupied with failed attempts to regain these territories. After levying a number of new taxes upon the barons to pay for his dismal campaigns, the discontented barons revolted, capturing London in May 1215. At Runnymeade in the following June, John succumbed to pressure from the barons, the Church, and the English people at-large, and signed the Magna Carta. The document, a declaration of feudal rights, stressed three points. First, the Church was free to make ecclesiastic appointments. Second, larger-than-normal amounts of money could only be collected with the consent of the king's feudal tenants. Third, no freeman was to be punished except within the context of common law. Magna Carta, although a testament to John's complete failure as monarch, was the forerunner of modern constitutions. John only signed the document as a means of buying time and his hesitance to implement its principles compelled the nobility to seek French assistance. The barons offered the throne to Philip II's son, Louis. John died in the midst of invasion from the French in the South and rebellion from his barons in the North.
John was remembered in elegant fashion by Sir Richard Baker in A Chronicle of the Kings of England: ". . .his works of piety were very many . . . as for his actions, he neither came to the crown by justice, nor held it with any honour, nor left it peace.
King John - JOHN OF ENGLAND (1167-1216). Vicious, shameless, and ungrateful, King John has been called the worst king ever to rule England. Yet the very excesses of his reign proved positive in that they provoked such a violent reaction that his subjects revolted and forced him to put his seal on the Magna Carta. This document became the safeguard of English liberty. John's nickname was Lackland because at first he owned no land. Later his father, King Henry II, gave him castles, lands, and revenues in both England and France. John plotted against his father, however, and the discovery of this conspiracy was a factor in the king's death. John's brother, Richard the Lion-Hearted, became king and added to John's possessions. While Richard was absent from England on the Third Crusade, John conspired against him also. When Richard died in 1199, the barons selected John to be their king. This denied the royal claim of Arthur, son of another brother, Geoffrey. Two French provinces fought for young Arthur, but the boy fell into the hands of John and died soon after. During the war John lost all his French possessions except Aquitaine. John then quarreled with Pope Innocent III about the appointment of Stephen Langton as archbishop of Canterbury. John was excommunicated, and England was forbidden all religious services except baptism and extreme unction. The growing discontent of his subjects finally forced John to recognize the new archbishop. When John went to France seeking to regain his lands in Normandy, the barons marched against the king and demanded a charter of liberties. All but a handful of followers deserted John. He was forced to meet the barons at Runnymede on June 15, 1215, and to sign the Great Charter. John had no intention of supporting the charter, however. He recruited a new army and destroyed the estates of the barons. The barons then offered the English crown to Louis, a French prince. In the midst of a war for the throne, John died of a fever. The task of restoring the torn kingdom fell to his nine-year-old son, Henry III. John was on the list of those who had plotted against his father, Henry I, but was not successful in plotting against his brother, Richard. Richard gave him lands in Normandy and England, but these were not enough. While Richard was imprisoned, John unsuccessfully rebelled several times. Upon Richard's return, he was reprimanded and kept out of trouble for the last five years of his brother's reign and earned the succession to the throne. John was respected as successor in England, but in Anjou, Maine, and Touraine Arthur, son of Geoffrey of Brittany, was recognized as sovereign. John persuaded Philip II to oust the twelve-year-old Arthur and became Lord of the Angevin Empire. He then annulled his marriage to Isabella of Gloucester, whom Richard had betrothed to him, and, in an effort to unite the two halves of his empire, married Isabella of Angouleme. Unfortunately, John's bride's former fiance appealed to Philip II, and Philip declared all of John's recent acquisitions forfeit. John captured Arthur shortly after his possessions were forfeited. Arthur disappeared and the murder has never been proven. Determined to get his territory back, John levied high taxes on his nobles. This also came at the time of a conflict with Pope Innocent III. John refused to accept the papal appointment to the position of Archbishop of Canterbury. The pope punished John by placing England and Wales under an interdict and excommunicating John a year later John, however, needed papal support to win his invasion of France. John made England a papal fief and invaded. In 1214, John lost the Battle of Bovines and the English barons had enough. In 1215, the barons seized London and forced John to sign the Magna Carta at Runnymead. John had no intention of living up to the document, and the barons looked to Louis of France, Philip's son, for aid. Louis invaded England in 1216. John died that year in October with a nine-year old son as his successor. John (reigned 1199-1216) was an able administrator interested in law and government but he neither trusted others nor was trusted by them. Heavy taxation, disputes with the Church (John was excommunicated by the Pope in 1209) and unsuccessful attempts to recover his French possessions made him unpopular. Many of his barons rebelled and in June 1215 they forced the King to sign a peace treaty accepting their reforms. This treaty, later known as Magna Carta, limited royal powers, defined feudal obligations between the King and the barons, and guaranteed a number of rights. The most influential clauses concerned the freedom of the Church; the redress of grievances of owners and tenants of land; the need to consult the Great Council of the Realm so as to prevent unjust taxation; mercantile and trading relationships; regulation of the machinery of justice so that justice be denied to no one; and the requirement to control the behavior of royal officials. The most important clauses established the basis of habeas corpus ('you have the body'), i.e. that no one shall be imprisoned except by due process of law, and that 'to no one will we sell, to no one will we refuse or delay right or justice'. The Charter also established a council of barons who were to ensure that the Sovereign observed the Charter, with the right to wage war on him if he did not. Magna Carta was the first formal document insisting that the Sovereign was as much under the rule of law as his people, and that the rights of individuals were to be upheld even against the wishes of the sovereign. As a source of fundamental constitutional principles, Magna Carta came to be seen as an important definition of aspects of English law, and in later centuries as the basis of the liberties of the English people. A peace treaty Magna Carta was a failure and the rebels invited Louis of France to become their king. When John died in 1216 England was in the grip of civil war.
Note: John was born on Christmas Eve 1167. His parents drifted apart after hi
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