+703 i.
King Henry Plantagent III.
+704 ii.
Earl Richard Plantagent.636. King John "Lackland"
Plantegant was born on 24 Dec 1166 in Kings Manor House, Oxford, Oxfordshire,
England. He died on 19 Oct 1216 in Newark, Nottinghamshire, England. He was
buried in Cathedral, Worcester, Worcestershire, England. John was born on Christmas
Eve 1167. His parents drifted apart after his 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."
MAGNA CARTA
The Great Charter of English liberty granted (under considerable duress) by King
John at Runnymede on June 15, 1215 John, by the grace of God King of England,
Lord of Ireland, Duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, and Count of Anjou, to his archbishops,
bishops, abbots, earls, barons, justices, foresters, sheriffs, stewards, servants,
and to all his officials and loyal subjects, greeting.
Know that before God, for the health of our soul and those of our ancestors and
heirs, to the honour of God, the exaltation of the holy Church, and the better
ordering of our kingdom, at the advice of our reverend fathers Stephen, archbishop
of Canterbury, primate of all England, and cardinal of the holy Roman Church,
Henry archbishop of Dublin, William bishop of London, Peter bishop of Winchester,
Jocelin bishop of Bath and Glastonbury, Hugh bishop of Lincoln, Walter Bishop
of Worcester, William bishop of Coventry, Benedict bishop of Rochester, Master
Pandulf subdeacon and member of the papal household, Brother Aymeric master of
the Knights of the Temple in England, William Marshal, earl of Pembroke, William
earl of Salisbury, William earl of Warren, William earl of Arundel, Alan de Galloway
constable of Scotland, Warin Fitz Gerald, Peter Fitz Herbert, Hubert de Burgh
seneschal of Poitou, Hugh de Neville, Matthew Fitz Herbert, Thomas Basset, Alan
Basset, Philip Daubeny, Robert de Roppeley, John Marshal, John Fitz Hugh, and
other loyal subjects:
In French JEAN SANS TERRE king of England from 1199 to 1216. In a war with the
French king Philip II, he lost Normandy and almost all his other possessions
in France. In England, after a revolt of the barons, he was forced to seal the
Magna Carta (1215).
From the Encyclopedia Britannica Online, article titled "John:"
"John's reputation, bad at his death, was further depressed by writers of
the next generation. Of all centuries prior to the present, only the 16th, mindful
of his quarrel with Rome, recognized some of his quality. He was suspicious,
vengeful, and treacherous; Arthur I of Brittany was probably murdered in captivity,
and Matilda de Braose, the wife of a recalcitrant Marcher baron, was starved
to death with her son in a royal prison. But John was cultured and literate.
Conventional in his religion rather than devout, he was remembered for his benefactions
to the church of Coventry, to Reading Abbey, and to Worcester, where he was
buried and where his effigy still survives. He was extraordinarily active, with
a great love of hunting and a readiness to travel that gave him a knowledge
of England matched by few other monarchs. He took a personal interest in judicial
and financial administration, and his reign saw important advances at the Exchequer,
in the administration of justice, in the importance of the privy seal and the
royal household, in methods of taxation and military organization, and in the
grant of chartered privileges to towns. If his character was unreliable, his
political judgment was acute. In 1215 many barons, including some of the most
distinguished, fought on his side."
He was married to Isabella de Clare (daughter of William
FITZROBERT and Hawise de BEAUMONT) on 29 Aug 1189 in Marlborough
Castle, Wiltshire, England. He was divorced from Isabella de Clare in 1199.
Isabella de Clare was born before 1176. She died on 14 Oct 1217.
Countess of Gloucester and Mortain. John divorced her on the ground of consanguinity;
her grandfather Robert being an illegitimate son of Henry I. King John "Lackland"
Plantegant and Isabella de Clare had the following children:
+703 i.
King Henry Plantagent III.
+704 ii.
Earl Richard Plantagent.
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