John, King of England,

b circa 1167, probably at Oxford; d. 1216

The youngest son of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, nicknamed John Lackland, though in fact he acquired large estates by gift and by his first marriage. In 1185 he was sent as governor to Ireland, but his administration was not a success, and he was soon recalled. John's coalition with his brother Richard and Philip Augustus of France, in 1189, in circumstances of peculiar treachery, was traditionally regarded as Henry II's deathblow. During Richard's absence in the Holy Land John plotted against him continually and is said to have joined Philip Augustus in opposing Richard's release for ransom by the Emperor Henry VI.

In 1199 John became king, and the death of Arthur, son of his elder brother Geoffrey, in 1203 - probably murdered on John's orders - removed his closest rival to the crown. His foreign wars were disastrous, although John himself was an able soldier. Philip Augustus annexed Normandy, Anjou, Maine, and Touraine without great difficulty. In 1205 began the great struggle between John and the Pope, Innocent III, over the election to the archbishopric of Canterbury, which led to the interdict of 1208, the deposition of 1211, and the excommunication of 1212. Eventually John submitted, agreed to hold his kingdom as a fief of the papacy and to accept the Pope's nominee, Stephen Langton as archbishop.

His arbitrary rule at home coupled with the defeat of his forces at Bouvines (1214) by Philip and the loss of Poitou, stirred the barons to revolt, and, led by Stephen Langton, they forced the king to sign Magna Carta Runnymede (15 June 1215). From the start John probably had no intention of keeping his promises and he induced the Pope to annul the charter. The barons appealed to Philip Augustus of France, and the Dauphin Louis had landed in England when John suddenly died at Newark.

He married firstly Isabella of Gloucester; and secondly Isabella of Angoulême. John had great ability and his reign was not, as has sometimes been supposed, an unqualified disaster. During the interdict he was able to appropriate for himself large ecclesiastical revenues which compensated for the moneys he had been unable to obtain from his lay subjects, and by the end of his reign he had papal backing against his enemies. He appears to have been unusually unscrupulous in an unscrupulous age, and his opportunism succeeded less well than it might have done, because he pursued it in virtual isolation and left the way open for his enemies to combine against him.

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