Richard had declared his brother John heir to the English throne on his deathbed but the French nobility wanted 12-year-old Duke Arthur of Brittany to be king because he had pledged his support to King Philip II. Philip gave Arthur’s supporters an army and they led it into Anjou and Maine until the Treaty of Le Goulet settled the matter in 1200. Under the terms of the treaty, John recognised Philip as ruler of the Angevin Empire’s continental possessions while Philip recognised John as King of England. Philip was also paid for recognising John’s sovereignty of Brittany and Arthur was handed over to John. He soon returned to Paris, suspicious of John’s motives.
Arthur’s supporters sought their revenge by invading Normandy in 1202 but he and his sister Eleanor were captured at Château de Mirebeau; King John’s mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, was also taken hostage. John wanted the young duke mutilated (probably by blinding), to stop him inheriting the throne, but Hubert de Burgh refused to maim the teenager. Duke Arthur vanished in April 1203 never to be seen again and King John was suspected of arranging his disappearance.
The French attacked Normandy in 1200 and Robert de Beaumont, 4th Earl of Leicester, was captured trying to retake Pacy Castle. William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke, was also forced to negotiate a truce, pay homage to King Philip II, and hand over his son as a hostage, so he could keep his Normandy estates.
Beaumont died in custody in 1204 and his possessions were divided between his two nieces. Amicia was then married to Simon de Montfort, 5th Earl of Leicester, and Margaret was married to Saer de Quincy, Earl of Winchester. But the French renewed their attacks until John ordered Saer de Quincy to surrender Vaudreuil Castle to King Philip II rather than send reinforcements. Saer and his cousin Robert FitzWalter were also forced to pay huge amounts of money so they could keep their estates.
Simon de Montfort was a French noble who joined in the Fourth Crusade in 1202. Pope Innocent III warned the Crusaders not to attack Zara on the Adriatic Sea, but the Venetians wanted the port. Simon urged Zara not to surrender, promising he would convince the Frankish troops not to attack, but they were forced to join the siege because they were in debt to the Venetians. After sacking Zara the crusaders headed for Constantinople rather than the Holy Land, so de Montfort returned home.
Ranulf de Blondeville, Earl of Chester and Lincoln, was suspected of being involved in a Welsh revolt in 1204, so King John confiscated his estates. Ranulf had to promise his loyalty to get his Marcher lands back and he would fight alongside the king during an invasion of Welsh territory in 1209.
Arthur’s disappearance in 1203 left his sister, Eleanor the Fair Maid, heiress to Brittany but the Breton barons were unhappy because they wanted a male duke. King John took Eleanor when he left Normandy in December 1203 and she was imprisoned in Corfe Castle on the Dorset coast. Twenty-five of her squires escaped but most were recaptured and starved to death as a warning.
King Philip II wanted Eleanor to marry his son so he could become Duke of Brittany, but John refused and forced her to entrust the duchy to him in 1208. The Bretons made Eleanor’s young half-sister Alix their duchess to counter the claim, but Philip wanted a strong and loyal ruler for Brittany. He cancelled Alix’s betrothal to Henry of Penthièvre in 1213 and married her to his cousin Peter instead.
King John countered by offering Eleanor’s Earldom of Richmond to Peter, but he refused to take the bribe even after his brother Robert was taken hostage. John took Eleanor with him when he invaded Brittany in 1214, hoping to invest her as the Duchess of Brittany, but his campaign ended at the battle of Roche-au-Moine.
John gave up his claim on Brittany because he had to deal with the First Barons’ War back in England. King Philip’s son Louis of France was then invited to invade England to make a claim on the English throne on behalf of his wife Blanche. It did not help that Pope Innocent III believed Eleanor had a better claim to the throne than John.
The Magna Carta was signed in 1215 and part of the conditions was that John had to release all his hostages. That is all but one, because Eleanor was kept under house arrest and forbidden from marrying. Across in Brittany her rival Alix would die in childbirth in 1221, aged only 20, leaving her baby son John, the new Duke of Brittany.
John refused to accept Stephen Langton as Archbishop of Canterbury, so Pope Innocent III placed England under an interdict in March 1208 and excommunicated the king in November 1209. Ranulf de Blondeville, Earl of Chester and Lincoln, eventually secured a peace with the Pope in 1214.
King John had confiscated Simon de Montfort’s Earldom of Leicester so he joined the Albigensian Crusade against the heretic Cathars in southern France in 1209. He became notorious because of his cruelty but he was also a successful commander and was rewarded with territories north of the Pyrenees. Montfort then headed north and seized Normandy from King John. Pope Innocent III wanted Montfort to lead the next crusade but he was too busy defending his new territories. He defeated Peter II of Aragon at the battle of Muret in 1213, but he was killed trying to capture Toulouse in 1218.
King John marched his army north to Berwick in August 1209 but William the Lion bribed him to withdraw, promising his daughters would marry English nobles. The controversial Treaty of Falaise was renewed in 1212 and William’s only son and heir Alexander was married to John’s eldest daughter Joan, uniting the English and Scottish royal families.
John wanted to retake Normandy so he allied with King Otto of Germany in 1214. Otto invaded the north of France but John’s Poitou mercenaries refused to fight King Philip’s son Louis. John then offered Peter, Duke of Brittany, the Earldom of Richmond, but he too refused to help. While John struggled to capture Nantes, the invasion ended when Otto and John’s armies were routed at Bouvines on 27 July 1214.
King John returned from Normandy to learn the northern barons were organising a rebellion. John negotiated with them and promised to go on crusade but he was secretly recruiting mercenaries while he waited for a letter of support from Pope Innocent III. It arrived in April but it was too late to stop the barons meeting at Northampton in May to renounce their feudal ties to John.
Ranulf de Blondeville, Earl of Chester and Lincoln, and William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke, were just two of the few barons who remained loyal to the king. The rest joined Robert FitzWalter, who was still angry about losing his Normandy estates, when he led his Army of God south to seize London. John was forced to sue for peace and he met the barons at Runnymede near Windsor Castle on 15 June 1215. They agreed on a proposal for the rights of free men, the protection of church rights, fair justice and the baron’s consent to taxation.
But neither John nor the rebels appointed to a ruling council tried to implement the Great Charter, later renamed the Magna Carta. John again asked Rome for help and the Pope declared the charter ‘not only shameful and demeaning, but illegal and unjust’. He excommunicated the rebel barons and they would soon be rising up against John again.
Loyalties were always suspect under King John. William de Forz, 3rd Earl of Albemarle, was loyal to him until London’s leaders opposed the king. He joined the executors of the Magna Carta but he was the only one who supported the king when he fought with the barons. That was until Louis captured Winchester in 1216 and he again joined the barons. He would switch sides two more times. He was ‘a feudal adventurer of the worst type’ who always made sure he was on the winning side.
Saer de Quincy, Earl of Winchester, and his cousin Robert FitzWalter, had been humiliated by King John’s order to surrender Normandy to King Philip II. So they invited the French Dauphin, Louis, to claim the English throne on behalf of his wife Blanche of Castile. A storm scattered John’s fleet when it sailed out to intercept Louis’ fleet in May 1216 and the French landed in Kent.
Several barons, including William de Forz, 3rd Earl of Albemarle, and Robert de Vere, Earl of Oxford, joined Louis when he captured Winchester. Then King Alexander II of Scotland crossed the border, captured Carlisle, and headed to Dover in 1216 to meet Louis. Even William Longespée, Earl of Salisbury and Wiltshire, turned his back on his half-brother the king.
John went on the counter-attack in September, retaking key rebel areas, but he died of dysentery in October and there were rumours he had been poisoned. William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke, made sure John’s 9-year-old son Henry became king and he proved to be a popular choice. The English barons united behind their new sovereign, so the Scottish and French armies returned home.