John, king of England, the youngest of the five sons of Henry II. and Queen Eleanor, was born at Oxford, 24th December 1167. At his birth his father, who had provided for his elder brothers, called him John Lackland, and the name stuck to him. But the boy was Henry's darling, and he betrothed him to his wealthy cousin, Hawisa of Gloucester, made the new feudal tenants of Ireland do homage to John as well as himself in 1177, and sent him to Ireland as governor in 1185. Although John's misconduct and wanton insolence soon compelled his recall, Henry obtained the pope's consent to his being crowned king of Ireland; but the coronation never took place, and in 1189 the announcement that John was among his enemies gave the king his death-blow. Richard on his accession bestowed four English shires and other lands on John, and married him to Hawisa. No sense of gratitude, however, held John from endeavouring to seize the crown during Richard's captivity in Austria; but he was pardoned and treated with great clemency, and was nominated his successor by his brother on his deathbed. In the 12th century the principle of primogeniture was but imperfectly adopted, and although Arthur, the twelve-year-old son of John's elder brother Geoffrey, appears to modern eyes beyond question the rightful heir to the throne, the general opinion of his own day was in favour of John, who had the nomination of the late king. Moreover, at his coronation at Westminster, which took place on 27th May 1199, the old English doctrine of election to the crown was for the last time formally asserted, nor did any man dissent. On the Continent, however, the barons of Anjou, Maine, and Touraine acknowledged Arthur, whose claims were supported by Philip of France. But Aquitaine was secured to John by the energy of his mother Eleanor, and in May 1200 he succeeded in buying off Philip, married his niece Blanche to Philip's son Louis, and received Arthur's homage for Brittany. But in the same year he persuaded his Aquitanian and Norman bishops to annul his marriage with his cousin, and married Isabel, the child-heiress of Angoulême; by which action he offended both the house of Gloucester and the powerful family of La Marche, one of whom was betrothed to the heiress. In the war that ensued, Arthur, while endeavouring to capture his grandmother Eleanor, at the castle of Mirabeau, was surprised by John and taken prisoner. Before Easter 1203 he was dead; murdered by John's orders, if not by the king's own hand, men said. This crime cost John his continental dominions. Philip at once marched against him, captured city after city, and finally, in March 1204, after a seven months' siege, took King Richard's 'saucy castle,' the Château-Gaillard itself, John making scarcely an effort against him. Only a portion of Aquitaine was left to the English king, nor could he recover more by the short campaigns he made in Poitou in 1206 and 1214.
The first period of John's reign thus ends with the separation of Normandy (1204), which compelled those who held lands in both countries to make choice of one: henceforward the barons of England are English. Immediately after, in 1205, John entered on his quarrel with the church, the occasion being a disputed election to the archbishopric of Canterbury. The matter was referred to the pope, Innocent III., and in 1207 he had Stephen Langton, an English cardinal at Rome, a man of great learning and piety, elected, and consecrated him when John had furiously declined to receive him. In 1208 the kingdom was placed under the Interdict (q.v.). John retaliated by confiscating the property of the clergy who obeyed the interdict, and driving the bishops into exile. Otherwise, too, he acted vigorously. He compelled William, king of Scotland, who had joined his enemies, to do him homage (1209), put down a rebellion in Ireland (1210), and subdued Llewellyn, the independent prince of Wales (1212). Meanwhile John had been solemnly excommunicated (1209), and now, in 1212, the pope issued a bull deposing him from his kingdom, and absolved his subjects from their allegiance; a crusade was proclaimed, and to Philip was intrusted the execution of the sentence. John, outlawed by the church, and hated for his cruelty and tyranny by his subjects, found his position untenable, and was compelled to make abject submission to Rome. On 15th May 1213 he resigned his crown to the pope's envoy at Dover, and agreed to hold the kingdoms of England and Ireland henceforth as fiefs of the papacy, and to pay a thousand marks yearly as tribute. This shameful submission closes the second part of John's reign. For Innocent the degrading exaction was a false step. From this period may be dated the hostility to the papacy which culminated in the Reformation.
Philip, wrathful and disappointed, turned his forces against Flanders; but an English fleet surprised the French fleet at anchor and with only the sailors on board, and captured 300 vessels and burned 100 more. This put an end to all talk of invasion, and in 1214 John made a campaign in Poitou. Most of the barons, however, refused to serve abroad, and, Philip having crushed the emperor and his allies at Bouvines (27th July), John returned to enter on the struggle with his subjects which occupied all the remainder of his reign; and now for the first time in English history we see the barons, clergy, and people ranged side by side against the tyranny of the king. A demand that John should keep his oath and restore the laws of Henry I. was scornfully rejected. John relied mainly upon the support of the pope, but he also took the white cross, and endeavoured to detach the clergy with the heavy bribe of free election to bishoprics—but vainly, to their honour be it said. Preparations for war began on both sides. About Easter 'the army of God and Holy Church,' under four great earls and forty barons, assembled at Stamford and marched to London; they met the king at Runnymede, and on the 15th June 1215 was signed the Great Charter (Magna Charta), the basis of the English constitution. In August the pope annulled the charter, and the war broke out again. John had a share of the military talent of his family, and the first successes were all on his side, until the barons called over the dauphin of France to be their leader. Louis landed in May 1216, and John's fortunes became desperate. Yet the English leaders had already begun to distrust their foreign allies, and a number were even preparing to renew their allegiance, when death overtook the king at Newark, on 19th October 1216, in the forty-ninth year of his age.
For John's character, see the excellent accounts of his reign in Pearson's History of England (vol. ii. 1867), Green's Shorter History, and Stubbs's preface to Walter of Coventry (vol. ii. 1873). See also Stubbs's Constitutional History (vol. i.), and The Early Plantagenets in 'Epochs of Modern History'; Pauli, Geschichte von England (vol. iii. 1858); and, down to the loss of Normandy, Norgate, England under the Angevin Kings (vol. ii. 1887).