JOHN. =1199-1216=.
LEADING DATES
Accession of John 1199
Loss of Normandy 1204
England under an Interdict 1208
Magna Carta 1215
Death of John 1216
1. =The Accession of John. 1199.=--After Richard's death there were
living but two descendants of Henry II. in the male line--John,
Richard's only surviving brother, and Arthur, the young son of John's
elder brother, Geoffrey. The English barons had to make their choice
between uncle and nephew, and, as had been done in the days of AElfred,
they preferred the grown man to the child. It was the last time when
that principle of election was confessedly acted on. Archbishop Hubert
in announcing the result used words which seem strange now:
"Forasmuch," he declared to the people assembled to witness John's
coronation, "as we see him to be prudent and vigorous, we all, after
invoking the Holy Spirit's grace, for his merits no less than his
royal blood, have with one consent chosen him for our king." In
reality, John was of all men most unworthy. He was without dispute the
worst of the English kings. Like William II. he feared not God nor
regarded man. Though William indeed was more vicious in his private
life, John's violence and tyranny in public life was as great as
William's, and he added a meanness and frivolity which sank him far
below him.
2. =John's First War with Philip II. 1199--1200.=--On the Continent
John had a difficult game to play. Normandy and Aquitaine submitted
to him, but Anjou and its dependent territories declared for Arthur,
who was Duke of Brittany in right of his mother. Philip II., who had
long been the rival of Richard, now took the field in =1199= as the
rival of John in support of Arthur; but for the moment he ruined his
chance of success by keeping in his own hands the castles which he
took from John instead of making them over to Arthur. Arthur's
supporters took offence, and in =1200= Philip made peace with John.
Philip acknowledged John as Richard's heir, but forced him in return
to pay a heavy sum of money, and to make other concessions.
3. =John's Misconduct in Poitou. 1200--1201.=--John did not know how
to make use of the time of rest which he had gained. Being tired of
his wife, Avice of Gloucester, he persuaded some Aquitanian bishops to
divorce him from her, though he took care to keep the lands which he
had received from her at her marriage. He then married Isabella of
Angouleme, though she was betrothed to a Poitevin noble, Hugh of
Lusignan. Hugh was enraged, and, together with many of his neighbours,
took arms against John. In =1201= John charged all the barons of
Poitou with treason, and bade them clear their character by selecting
champions to fight with an equal number of English and Norman knights.
4. =The Loss of Normandy and Anjou. 1202--1204.=--The Poitevin barons,
instead of accepting the wager of battle, appealed to Philip as John's
over-lord, and in =1202= Philip summoned John to answer their
complaints before his peers. John not only did not appear, but made no
excuse for his absence; and Philip afterwards pretended that the peers
had condemned him to forfeit his lands. After this Philip, in alliance
with Arthur, invaded Normandy. John's aged mother, Eleanor, who was
far more able and energetic than her son, took up his cause against
her grandson Arthur. She was besieged by Arthur at Mirebeau when John
came to her help, and not only raised the siege, but carried off
Arthur as a prisoner. Many of his vassals rose against him, and
finding himself unable to meet them in the field he wreaked his
vengeance on his helpless prisoner. A little before Easter =1203=
Arthur ceased to live. How the boy died has never been known, but it
was generally believed that he was drowned in the Seine near
Rouen--some said by his uncle's own hands. The murderer was the first
to suffer from the crime. Philip at once invaded Normandy. The Norman
barons had long ceased to respect John, and very few of them would do
anything to help him. Philip took castle after castle. John was indeed
capable of a sudden outbreak of violence, but he was incapable of
sustained effort. He now looked sluggishly on, feasting and amusing
himself whilst Philip was conquering Normandy. "Let him alone," he
lazily said; "I shall some day win back all that he is taking from me
now." His best friends dropped off from him. The only fortress which
made a long resistance was that Chateau Gaillard which Richard had
built to guard the Seine. In =1204= it was at last taken, and before
the end of that year Normandy, Maine, Anjou, and Touraine, together
with part of Poitou, had submitted to Philip.
[Illustration: Effigy of King John on his monument in Worcester
Cathedral.]
[Illustration: Isabella, wife of King John. From her monument at
Fontevrault.]
5. =Causes of Philip's Success.=--It was not owing to John's vigour
that Aquitaine was not lost as well as Normandy and Anjou. Philip had
justified his attack on John as being John's feudal lord, and as being
therefore bound to take the part of John's vassals whom he had
injured. Hitherto the power of the king over his great vassals, which
had been strong in England, had been weak in France. Philip made it
strong in Normandy and Anjou because he had the support there of the
vassals of John. That these vassals favoured him was owing partly to
John's contemptible character, but also to the growth of national
unity between the inhabitants of Normandy and Anjou on the one hand
and those of Philip's French dominions on the other. Normans and
Angevins both spoke the same language as the Frenchmen of Paris and
its neighbourhood. Their manners and characters were very much the
same, and the two peoples very soon blended with one another. They had
been separated merely because their feudal organisation had been
distinct, because the lord over one was John and over the other was
Philip. In Aquitaine it was otherwise. The language and manners there,
though much nearer to those of the French than they were to those of
the English, differed considerably from the language and manners of
the Frenchmen, Normans, and Angevins. What the men of Aquitaine really
wanted was independence. They therefore now clung to John against
Philip as they had clung to Richard against Henry II. They resisted
Henry II. because Henry II. ruled in Anjou and Normandy, and they
wished to be free from any connection with Anjou and Normandy. They
resisted Philip because Philip now ruled in Anjou and Normandy. They
were not afraid of John any longer, because they thought that now that
England alone was left to him, he would be too far off to interfere
with them.
6. =The Election of Stephen Langton to the Archbishopric of
Canterbury. 1205.=--In England John had caused much discontent by the
heavy taxation which he imposed, not with the regularity of Henry II.
and Hubert Walter, but with unfair inequality. In =1205= Archbishop
Hubert Walter died. The right of choosing a new archbishop lay with
the monks of the monastery of Christchurch at Canterbury, of which
every archbishop, as the successor of St. Augustine, was the abbot.
This right, however, had long been exercised only according to the
wish of the king, who practically named the archbishop. This time the
monks, without asking John's leave, hurriedly chose their sub-prior
Reginald, and sent him off with a party of monks to Rome, to obtain
the sanction of the Pope. Reginald was directed to say nothing of his
election till he reached Rome; but he was a vain man, and had no
sooner reached the Continent than he babbled about his own dignity as
an archbishop. When John heard this he bade the monks choose the
Bishop of Norwich, John de Grey, the king's treasurer; and the monks,
thoroughly frightened, chose him as if they had not already made their
election. John had, however, forgotten to consult the bishops of the
province of Canterbury, who had always been consulted by his father
and brother, and they too sent messengers to the Pope to complain of
the king.
[Illustration: Bishop Marshall of Exeter, died 1206; from his tomb at
Exeter, showing a bishop vested for mass.]
7. =Innocent III. and Stephen Langton. 1206.=--The Pope was Innocent
III., who at once determined that John must not name bishops whose
only merit was that they were good state officials. Being an able man,
he soon discovered that Reginald was a fool. He therefore in =1206=
sent for a fresh deputation of monks, and, as soon as they arrived in
Rome, bade them make a new choice in the name of their monastery. At
Innocent's suggestion they chose Stephen Langton, one of the most
pious and learned men of the day, whose greatness of character was
hardly suspected by anyone at the time.
8. =John's Quarrel with the Church. 1206--1208.=--The choice of an
archbishop in opposition to the king was undoubtedly something new.
The archbishopric of Canterbury was a great national office, and a
king as skilful as Henry II. would probably have succeeded in refusing
to allow it to be disposed of by the Pope and a small party of monks.
John was unworthy to be the champion of any cause whatever. In =1207=,
after an angry correspondence with Innocent, he drove the monks of
Christchurch out of the kingdom. Innocent in reply threatened England
with an interdict, and in the spring of =1208= the interdict was
published.
9. =England under an Interdict. 1208.=--An interdict carried with it
the suppression of all the sacraments of the Church except those of
baptism and extreme unction. Even these were only to be received in
private. No words of solemn import were pronounced at the burial of
the dead. The churches were all closed, and to the men of that time
the closing of the church-doors was like the closing of the very gate
of heaven. In the choice of the punishment inflicted there was some
sign that the Papacy was hardly as strong in the thirteenth as it had
been in the eleventh century. Gregory VII. had smitten down kings by
personal excommunication; Innocent III. found it necessary to stir up
resistance against the king by inflicting sufferings on the people.
Yet there is no evidence of any indignation against the Pope. The
clergy rallied almost as one man round Innocent, and songs proceeded
from the monasteries which mocked the few official bishops who took
John's side as money-makers who cared more for marks than for Mark,
and more for lucre than for Luke, whilst John de Grey was branded with
the title of 'that beast of Norwich.' John taking no heed of the
popular feeling, seized the property of the clergy who obeyed the
interdict. Yet he was not without fear lest the barons should join the
clergy against him, and to keep them in obedience he compelled them to
entrust to him their eldest sons as hostages. One lady to whom this
order came replied that she would never give her son to a king who had
murdered his nephew.
10. =John Excommunicated. 1209.=--In =1209= Innocent excommunicated
John himself. John cared nothing for being excluded from the services
of the Church, but he knew that if the excommunication were published
in England few would venture to sit at table with him, or even to
speak with him. For some time he kept it out of the country, but it
became known that it had been pronounced at Rome, and even his own
dependents began to avoid his company. He feared lest the barons whom
he had wearied with heavy fines and taxes might turn against him, and
he needed large sums of money to defend himself against them. First he
turned on the Jews, threw them into prison, and after torturing those
who refused to pay, wrung from them 40,000_l._ The abbots were next
summoned before him and forced by threats to pay 100,000_l._ Besides
this the wealthy Cistercians had to pay an additional fine, the amount
of which is uncertain, but of which the lowest estimate is 27,000_l._
In =1211= some of the barons declared against John, but they were
driven from the country, and those who remained were harshly treated.
Some of their sons who had been taken as hostages were hanged or
starved to death.
[Illustration: Parsonage house of early thirteenth-century date at
West Dean, Sussex.]
11. =The Pope threatens John with Deposition. 1212--1213.=--In =1212=
Innocent's patience came to an end, and he announced that he would
depose John if he still refused to give way, and would transfer his
crown to his old enemy, Philip II. The English clergy and barons were
not likely to oppose the change. Philip gathered a great army in
France to make good the claim which he expected Innocent to give him.
John, indeed, was not entirely without resource. The Emperor Otto IV.
was John's sister's son, and as he too had been excommunicated by
Innocent he made common cause with John against Philip. Early in
=1213= John gathered an army of 60,000 men to resist Philip's landing,
and if Otto with his Germans were to attack France from the east, a
French army would hardly venture to cross into England, unless indeed
it had no serious resistance to fear. John, however, knew well that he
could not depend on his own army. Many men in the host hated him
bitterly, and he feared deposition, and perhaps death, at the hands of
those whom he had summoned to his help.
12. =John's Submission. 1213.=--Under these circumstances John
preferred submission to the Pope to submission to Philip or his own
barons. He invited Pandulf, the Pope's representative, to Dover. He
swore to admit Stephen Langton as Archbishop of Canterbury, to restore
to their rights all those of the clergy or laity whom he had banished,
and to give back the money which he had wrongfully exacted. Two days
later he knelt before Pandulf and did homage to the Pope for England
and Ireland. He was no longer to be an independent king but the Pope's
vassal. In token of his vassalage he agreed that he and his successors
should pay to Innocent and his successors 1,000 marks a year, each
mark being equal to 13_s._ 4_d._, or two-thirds of a pound. Innocent
had reached his aim as far as John was concerned. In his eyes the
Papacy was not merely the guide of the Church, it was an institution
for controlling kings and forcing them to act in accordance with the
orders of the Popes. It remained to be seen whether the Pope's orders
would be always unselfish, and whether the English barons and clergy
would submit to them as readily as did this most miserable of English
kings.
13. =The Resistance of the Barons and Clergy. 1213.=--At first John
seemed to have gained all that he wanted by submission. Pandulf bade
Philip abandon all thought of invading England, and when Philip
refused to obey, John's fleet fell upon the French fleet off the coast
of Flanders and destroyed it. John even proposed to land with an army
in Poitou and to reconquer Normandy and Anjou. His subjects thought
that he ought to begin by fulfilling his engagements to them. John
having received absolution, summoned four men from each county to meet
at St. Albans to assess the damages of the clergy which he had bound
himself to make good. The meeting thus summoned was the germ of the
future House of Commons. It was not a national political assembly, but
it was a national jury gathered together into one place. The exiled
barons were recalled, and John now hoped that his vassals would follow
him to Poitou. They refused to do so, alleging their poverty and the
fact that they had already fulfilled their feudal obligation of forty
days' service by attending him at Dover. They had, in fact, no
interest in regaining Normandy and Anjou for John. Though the English
barons still spoke French, and were proud of their Norman descent,
they now thought of themselves as Englishmen and cared for England
alone. John turned furiously on the barons, and was only hindered from
attacking them by the new Archbishop, who threatened to excommunicate
everyone who took arms against them. It was time for all Englishmen
who loved order and law to resist John. Stephen Langton put himself at
the head of the movement, and at a great assembly at St. Paul's
produced a charter of Henry I., by which that king had promised to put
an end to the tyranny of the Red King, and declared amidst general
applause that it must be renewed by John. It was a memorable scene. Up
to this time it had been necessary for the clergy and the people to
support the king against the tyranny of the barons. Now the clergy and
people offered their support to the barons against the tyranny of the
king. John had merely the Pope on his side. Innocent's view of the
situation was very simple. John was to obey the Pope, and all John's
subjects were to obey John. A Papal legate arrived in England, fixed
the sum which John was to pay to the clergy, and refused to listen to
the complaints of those who thought themselves defrauded.
14. =The Battle of Bouvines. 1214.=--In =1214= John succeeded in
carrying his barons and their vassals across the sea. With one army he
landed at Rochelle, and recovered what had been lost to him on the
south of the Loire, but failed to make any permanent conquests to the
north of that river. Another army, under John's illegitimate brother,
the Earl of Salisbury, joined the Emperor Otto in an attack on Philip
from the north. The united force of Germans and English was, however,
routed by Philip at Bouvines, in Flanders. "Since I have been
reconciled to God," cried John, when he heard the news, "and submitted
to the Roman Church, nothing has gone well with me." He made a truce
with Philip, and temporarily renounced all claims to the lands to the
north of the Loire.
15. =The Struggle between John and the Barons. 1214--1215.= When John
returned he called upon all his vassals who had remained at home to
pay an exorbitant scutage. In reply they met at Bury St. Edmunds. The
charter of Henry I., which had been produced at St. Paul's the year
before, was again read, and all present swore to force John to accept
it as the rule of his own government. John asked for delay, and
attempted to divide his antagonists by offering to the clergy the
right of free election to bishoprics and abbacies. Then he turned
against the barons. Early in =1215= he brought over a large force of
foreign mercenaries, and persuaded the Pope to threaten the barons
with excommunication. His attempt was defeated by the constancy of
Stephen Langton. The demands of the barons were placed in writing by
the archbishop, and, on John's refusal to accept them, an army was
formed to force them on the king. The army of God and the Holy Church,
as it was called, grew rapidly. London admitted it within its walls,
and the accession of London to the cause of the barons was a sign that
the traders of England were of one mind with the barons and the
clergy. John found that their force was superior to his own, and at
Runnimede on June 15, =1215=, confirmed with his hand and seal the
articles of the barons, with the full intention of breaking his
engagement as soon as he should be strong enough to do so.
[Illustration: Effigy of a knight in the Temple Church, London,
showing armour worn between 1190 and 1225.]
16. =Magna Carta. 1215.=--_Magna Carta_, or the Great Charter, as the
articles were called after John confirmed them, was won by a
combination between all classes of freemen, and it gave rights to them
all.
(_a_) _Its Concessions._--The Church was to be free, its privileges
were to be respected, and its right to free elections which John had
granted earlier in the year was not to be infringed on. As for the
laity, the tenants-in-chief were to pay only fixed reliefs when they
entered on their estates. Heirs under age were to be the king's wards,
but the king was to treat them fairly, and do nothing to injure their
land whilst it was in his hands. The king might continue to find
husbands for heiresses and wives for heirs, but only amongst those of
their own class. The tenants-in-chief again were bound to pay aids to
the king when he needed ransom from imprisonment, or money to enable
him to bear the expenses of knighting his eldest son or of marrying
his eldest daughter. For all other purposes the king could only demand
supplies from his tenants-in-chief with the consent of the Common
Council of the realm. As only the tenants-in-chief were concerned,
this Common Council was the Great Council of tenants-in-chief, such as
had met under the Norman and Angevin kings. A fresh attempt, however,
was made to induce the smaller tenants-in-chief to attend, in addition
to the bishops, abbots, and barons, by a direction that whilst these
were to be summoned personally, the sheriffs should in each county
issue a general summons to the smaller tenants-in-chief. Though the
sub-tenants had no part in the Common Council of the realm, they were
relieved by a direction that they should pay no more aids to their
lords than their lords paid to the king, and by a general declaration
that all that had been granted to their lords by the king should be
allowed by their lords to them. The Londoners and other townsmen had
their privileges assured to them; and all freemen were secured against
heavy and irregular penalties if they committed an offence.
(_b_) _Its Securities._--Such were the provisions of this truly
national act, which Englishmen were for ages engaged in maintaining
and developing. The immediate question was how to secure what had been
gained. The first thing necessary for this purpose was to make the
courts of law the arbitrators between the king and his subjects. In a
series of articles it was declared that the sworn testimony of a man's
peers should be used whenever fines or penalties were imposed, and
this insistence on the employment of the jury system as it then
existed was emphasised by the strong words to which John placed his
seal: "No freeman may be taken, or imprisoned, or disseised, or
outlawed, or banished, or in any way destroyed, nor will we go against
him, or send against him, except by the lawful judgment of his peers,
or by the law of the land. To none will we sell or deny or delay right
or justice." It was a good security if it could be maintained, but it
would avail nothing against a king who was willing and able to use
force to set up the old tyranny once more. In the first place John
must dismiss all his foreign mercenaries. So little, however, was John
trusted that it was thought necessary in the second place to establish
a body of twenty-five--twenty-four barons and the Mayor of
London--which was to guard against any attempt of the king to break
his word. If John infringed upon any of the articles of the Charter
the twenty-five, with the assistance of the whole community of the
kingdom, had the right of distraining upon the king's lands till
enough was obtained to make up the loss to the person who had suffered
wrong. In other words, there was to be a permanent organisation for
making war upon the king.
17. =War between John and the Barons. 1215--1216.=--John waited for
the moment of vengeance. Not only did he refuse to send his
mercenaries away, but he sent to the Continent for large
reinforcements. Pope Innocent declared the barons to be wicked rebels,
and released John from his oath to the Great Charter. War soon broke
out. John's mercenaries were too strong for the barons, and in the
beginning of =1216= almost all England with the exception of London
had been overrun by them. Though the Pope laid London under an
interdict, neither the citizens nor the barons paid any attention to
it. They sent to Louis, the eldest son of Philip of France, to invite
him to come and be their king in John's stead. Louis was married to
John's niece, and might thus be counted as a member of the English
royal family. The time had not yet come when a man who spoke French
was regarded as quite a foreigner amongst the English barons. On May
21, =1216=, Louis landed with an army in the Isle of Thanet.
[Illustration: A silver penny of John, struck at Dublin.]
18. =Conflict between Louis and John. 1216.=--John, in spite of his
success, found himself without sufficient money to pay his
mercenaries, and he therefore retreated to Winchester. Louis entered
London in triumph, and afterwards drove John out of Winchester.
Innocent indeed excommunicated Louis, but no one took heed of the
excommunication. Yet John was not without support. The trading towns
of the East, who probably regarded Louis as a foreigner, took his
part, and many of his old officials, to whom the victory of the barons
seemed likely to bring back the anarchy of Stephen's time, clung to
him. One of these, a high-spirited and strong-willed man, Hubert de
Burgh, held out for John in Dover Castle. John kept the field and even
won some successes. As he was crossing the Wash the tide rose rapidly
and swept away his baggage. He himself escaped with difficulty. Worn
out in mind and body, he was carried on a litter to Newark, where on
October 19, =1216=, he died.