JOHN.—1199 to 1216.
Why King John was called Lackland; how he killed his nephew Arthur,
and how the barons rebelled against him, and made him sign the Great
Charter.
John, the youngest son of Henry Plantagenet, became king after the
death of his brother Richard.
His reign was a bad one for England, for John was neither so wise as
his father, nor so brave as his brother. Besides, he was very cruel.
At first he had been called John Lackland, because his father had
died before he was old enough to get possession of the lands that
his father wished to give him. And not long after he became king he
lost Normandy and all the lands that had belonged to his grandfather,
Geoffrey of Anjou. He did not know how to govern England so as to
repair the ill it had suffered while Richard was absent at the wars,
so that the Pope called upon the King of France to go to England,
and drive John away and make himself king instead; and then John was
so base that he went to a priest called a Nuncio, or Ambassador,
who came from Rome, and really gave him the crown of England, and
promised that England should belong to the Pope, if the Pope would
only keep him safe.
You cannot wonder that John was disliked; but when I have told you
how he treated a nephew of his, called Prince Arthur, you will, I
am sure, dislike him as much as I do. Some people thought that this
Prince Arthur ought to have been King of England, because he was the
son of John’s elder brother, Geoffrey. And John was afraid that the
barons and other great men would choose Arthur to be king, so he
contrived to get Arthur into his power.
[Illustration: Prince Arthur and Hubert.]
He wished very much to kill him at once; but then he was afraid
lest Arthur’s mother should persuade the King of France and the
other princes to make war upon him to avenge Arthur’s death. Then
he thought that, if he put out his eyes, he would be so unfit for a
king, that he should be allowed to keep him a prisoner all his life;
and he actually gave orders to a man named Hubert de Burgh to put his
eyes out, and Hubert hired two wicked men to do it.
But when they came with their hot irons to burn his eyes out, Arthur
knelt down and begged hard that they would do anything but blind him;
he hung about Hubert’s neck, and kissed and fondled him so much, and
cried so bitterly, that neither Hubert nor the men hired to do it
could think any more of putting out his eyes, and so they left him.
But his cruel uncle, John, was determined Arthur should not escape.
He took him away from Hubert, and carried him to a tower at Rouen,
the chief town of Normandy, and shut him up there.
One night, soon afterwards, it is said that Arthur heard a knocking
at the gate; and when it was opened, you may think how frightened he
was to see his cruel uncle standing there, with a servant as bad as
himself, whose name was Maluc; and he was frightened with reason: for
the wicked Maluc seized him by the arm, and stabbed him in the breast
with his dagger, and then threw his body into the river Seine, which
was close to the tower, while King John stood by to see it done.
It was for this wicked action that his grandfather’s estates in
France, as well as the Dukedom of Normandy, were taken away from King
John.
For his faults in governing England so badly, he had a different
punishment. All his subjects agreed that, as he was so cruel as to
put some people in prison, and to kill others, without any reason,
instead of letting the proper judges find out whether they deserved
punishment or not, they must try to force him to govern better. And
for this purpose the great barons and the bishops, and gentlemen,
from all parts of England, joined together, and they sent word to
John, that, if he wished to be king any longer, he must promise to do
justice, and to let the English people be free, as the English kings
had made them before the Conquest.
At first, John would not listen to the message sent by the barons,
and would have made a civil war in the country; but he found that
only seven of the barons were his friends, and there were more than
a hundred against him. Then he said, that if the greatest barons and
bishops would meet him at a place called Runnymede, near Windsor,
he would do what they wished for the good of England. And they met
the king there; and, after some disputing, they showed him a sheet
of parchment, on which they had written down a great many good laws,
to prevent the kings of England from being cruel and unjust, and to
oblige them to let the people be free.[1] King John was very much
vexed when he read what they had written; but as he could not prevail
upon them to let him be their king, if he did not agree to do what
they wished, he put his seal at the end of the writing, and so he was
obliged to do as the barons desired him to do.
This parchment is called the Great Charter, in English. Most people
call it by its Latin name, which is Magna Charta. Now you must
remember this name, and that King John put his seal upon it at
Runnymede—because it is of great consequence, even to us who live
now, that our king should keep the promises John made to the English
people at Runnymede.
A good king would have been glad to promise these things to his
people, and would have liked to keep his word. But as John was
passionate and greedy, it vexed him very much not to be allowed to
put people in prison, or to rob them of their money or their houses,
when he pleased.
[Illustration: King John granting Magna Charta.]
If John had been honest, and had tried to keep his word, he might
have lived happily in England, although he had lost Normandy. But he
was always trying to cheat the people and the barons, and did not
keep the promises he made in Magna Charta; and he made everybody
in England so angry, that they allowed the King of France’s son to
come to England, and make war upon John. So that all the rest of his
reign was very unhappy; for although many of the barons helped him to
defend himself from the French prince, when the Pope, who now thought
that England belonged to him, ordered them to do so, they never could
trust him, and he died very miserable, knowing that he was disliked
by everybody.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] If little Arthur has forgotten what I mean by the people being
free, let him read the eighth chapter over again.