JOHN, KING OF ENGLAND

Reigned 1199 to Oct. 19, 1216; b. Oxford, England, Dec. 24, 1167; d. Newark, England. The youngest son of King henry ii of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine, he was called John Lackland since his father did not at first grant him an appanage on the Continent. Upon the death

of his brother King richard i the Lion–Hearted, John became King of England and lord of the "Angevin empire" in France, even though his young nephew Arthur had by right of primogeniture a stronger claim to the throne. John eventually had Arthur murdered (1203).

John's marriage in 1200 to Isabella of Angoulême, who was betrothed to Hugh of Lusignan, led to a judicial action initiated by the Lusignans at the court of King phil ip ii augustus, their common suzerain in France. This action resulted in open warfare between John and his feudal overlord (Philip) and John's ultimate forfeiture and loss of normandy as well as of the Angevin possessions on the Continent (roughly Brittany, the Loire country, and Aquitaine) to the French Crown. After the death of Abp. hubert walter (1205) a disputed election to Canterbury was settled in Rome by Pope innocent iii, who chose stephen langton for the see. This led to a quarrel between Innocent and John when the King refused to recognize Langton. After two years of dispute Innocent placed England under interdict; then in 1209 he excommunicated the King. In 1212 he deposed him, released his subjects from their oath of allegiance, and threatened to elect a new king. Philip Augustus was already preparing an invasion of England to execute the papal sentence when John, faced with the united opposition of Innocent, Philip Augustus, and various of his own dissatisfied barons, decided to capitulate to the Pope. He submitted to the papal demands on May 12, 1213, and three days later accepted the Kingdom of England as a fief of the Apostolic See in return for an annual tribute to his new suzerain. While this capitulation earned him the future protection of the Pope and undermined both the Capetian justification for aggression and the baronial justification for rebellion, it did not reconcile the barons to John's despotic government and arbitrary scutages, or to his military ineptitude, which led to the brilliant French victory at Bouvines in 1214. In June 1215 a considerable number of barons, with the moral support of Langton, met the King in arms at Runnymede and exacted his agreement to magna carta, which severely limited his exercise of the royal authority and placed the Crown under the control of an oligarchic committee of his vassals. John, however, as a papal vassal, enjoyed the support of Innocent III, who annulled Magna Carta. In the course of the civil war precipitated by this maneuver and the French invasion that followed in its wake, King John died of a surfeit of peaches, leaving the throne and the confusion to his young son, King henry iii of England.

Bibliography: gervase of canterbury, Gesta Regum, ed. w. stubbs [Rerum Britannicarum medii aevi scriptores, 244 v., 73.2. (1879) ]. ralph of coggeshall, Chronicon Anglicanum, ed. j. stevenson [Rerum Britannicarum medii aevi scriptores, 244 v., 66, (1875) ]. walter of coventry, Memoriale, ed. w. stubbs, 2v. [Rerum Britannicarum medii aevi scriptores, 244 v., (1872, 1873) ]. roger of wendover, Flores Historiarum, v. 1–3 of Chronica Majora, ed. h. r. luard [Rerum Britannicarum medii aevi scriptores, 244 v., 57, (1872–83) ]. Annales Monastici, ed. h.r. luard, 5 v. [Rerum Britannicarum medii aevi scriptores, 244 v., 36, (1864–69) ] v.1 De Margam, Theokesberia, et Burton, v.3. De Dunstaplia et Bermundeseia. k. norgate, John Lackland (London 1902). z. n. brooke, The English Church and the Papacy from the Conquest to the Reign of John (Cambridge, Eng. 1931). c. e. petit–dutaillis, The Feudal Monarchy in France and England…, tr. e. d. hunt (New York 1964). s. painter, The Reign of King John (Oxford 1949). a. l. poole, From Domesday Book to Magna Carta, Oxford History of England, ed. g. n. clark, 14 v. (2d ed. Oxford 1955) 3. j. t. appleby, John, King of England (New York 1959). w. l. warren, King John (New York 1961).

[j. brÜckmann]