• General Notes

  John was born on Christmas Eve 1167, the youngest son of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitane. His parents drifted apart after his birth, and his youth was divided between his eldest brother'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, to Isabel of Gloucester, lasted but ten years and was fruitless; Isabella of Angouleme, his second wife, bore him two sons (Henry and Richard) and three daughters (Joan, Isabella, and Eleanor). He also had an illegitimate daughter, also named Joan, who married Llywelyn the Great, Ruler of All Wales, from which the Tudor line of monarchs was descended.
  The Angevin family feuds left quite a mark on John - he proved his betrayal to both his father and his brother Richard. He and Richard clashed in 1184 when the elder refused to turn Aquitane over to the younger brother, as dictated by Henry II. The following year Henry sent John to rule Ireland, but John alienated 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. Richard, after acceding to the throne in 1189, gave John vast estates to appease his younger brother, but to no avail. He tried to overthrow Richard's administrators during the German captivity, but failed. He conspired with Philip II in another attempt, which again failed. Upon Richard's release in 1194, John was forced to sue for pardon, and spent the next five years in his brother's shadow, staying out of trouble long enough to be named heir to the crown.
  John's reign was full of trouble. A quarrel with the Church resulted in England being placed under an interdict in 1207, with John excommunicated two years later. The dispute, centered around John's refusal to install the papal candidate, Stephen Langdon, as Archbishop of Canterbury, and was not resolved until John surrendered to the wishes of Innocent III, one of the greatest medieval popes.
  A succession dispute with his nephew, Arthur of Brittany, ultimately resulted in the loss French territories, as the king's French vassals preferred Arthur. By spring 1205, John had crossed the Channel back into England as the last of his French possessions fell out of his hands. From 1206 to the end of his reign, John was preoccupied with regaining these territories, levying a number of new taxes upon the landed barons to pay for his campaigns. This would have been satisfactory had John been winning battles, but the French continually trounced him. The discontented rebel barons revolted, capturing London in May 1215. In June, at Runnymeade, John met with the barons and signed the Magna Carta, a feudal rights document stressing three points:
  
  1) the Church was free to make its own appointments,
  
  2) no more than the normal amounts of money could be collected to run the government, unless the king's feudal tenants gave their content, and
  
  3) no freeman was to be punished except in concert with the common law. This document proved to be the forerunner of modern constitutions. John signed the document as a means of buying time, and failed to keep his word. The nobility called for French assistance, and John died in the midst of an invasion.
  
  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 far his actions, he neither came to the crown by justice, nor held it with any honour, nor left it peace." John's treacherous nature was the cause of the greatest loss of English continental territory until Hundred Years' War (1337-1453).
  Source:
  www.britannia.com
  
  
  Magna Carta
  Decreed by King John at Runnymede on 15 Jun 1215
  
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  JOHN, by the grace of God, King of England, lord of Ireland, Duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, and Count of Anjuo: To the archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls, barons, justices, foresters, sheriffs, prevosts, serving men, and to all his bailiffs and faithful subjects, Greeting. Know that we, by the will of God and for the safety of our soul, and of the souls of all our predecessors and our heirs, to the honor of God and for the exaltation of the holy Church, and the bettering of our realm: by the counsel of our venerable fathers Stephen archbishop of Canterbury, primate of all England and cardinal of the holy Roman church; of Henry archbishop of Dublin; of the bishops William of London, Peter of Winchester, Jocelin of Bath and Glastonbury, Hugo of Lincoln, Walter of Worcester, William of Coventry and Benedict of Rochester; of master Pandulf, subdeacon and of the household of the lord pope; of brother Aymeric, master of the knights of the Temple in England; and of the nobel men, William Marshall earl of Pembroke, William earl of Salisbury, William earl of Warren, William earl of Arundel, Alan de Galway constable of Scotland, Warin son of Gerold, Peter son of Herbert, Hubert de Burgh seneschal of Poictiers, Hugo de Neville, Matthew son of Herbert, Thomas Basset, Alan Basset, Philip d'Aubigni, Robert de Roppelay, John Marshall, John son of Hugo, and others of our faithful subjects:
  1. First of all have granted to God, and, for us and for our heirs forever, have confirmed, by this our present charter, that the English church shall be free and shall have its rights intact and its liberties uninfringed upon. And thus we will that it be observed. As is apparent from the fact that we, spontaneously and of our own free will, before discord broke out between ourselves and our barons, did grant and by our charter confirm--and did cause the lord pope Innocent III, to confirm-- freedom of elections, which is considered most important and most necessary to the church of England. Which charter both we ourselves shall observe, and we will that it be observed with good faith by our heirs forever. We have also granted to all free men of our realm, on the part of ourselves and our heirs forever, all the subjoined liberties, to have and to hold, to them and to their heirs, from us and from our heirs:
  
  2. If any one of our earls or barons, or of others holding from us in chief through military service, shall die; and if, at the time of his death, his heir be of full age and owe a relief: he shall have his inheritance by paying the old relief;--the heir, namely, or the heirs of an earl, by paying one hundred pounds for the whole barony of an earl; the heir or heirs of a baron, by paying one hundred pounds for the whole barony; the heir or heirs of a knight, by paying one hundred shillings at most for a whole knight's fee; and he who shall owe less shall give less, according to the ancient custom of fees.
  
  3. But if the heir of any of the above persons shall be under age and in wardship,--when he comes of age he shall have his inheritance without relief and without fine.
  
  4. The administrator of the land of such heir who shall be under age shall take none but reasonable issues from the land of the heir, and reasonable customs and services; and this without destruction and waste of men or goods. And if we shall have committed the custody of any such land to the sheriff or to any other man who ought to be responsible to us for the issues of it, and he cause destruction or waste to what is in his charge: we will fine him, and the land shall be handed over to two lawful and discreet men of that fee who shall answer to us, or to him to whom we shall have referred them, regarding those issues. And if we shall have given or sold to any one the custody of any such land, and he shall have caused destruction or waste to it,--he shall lose that custody, and it shall be given to two lawful and discreet men of that fee, who likewise shall answer to us, as has been explained.
  
  5. The administrator, moreover, so long as he may have the custody of the land, shall keep in order, from the issues of that land, the houses, parks, warrens, lakes, mills, and other things pertaining to it. And he shall restore to the heir when he comes to full age, his whole land stocked with ploughs and wainnages, according as the time of the wainnage requires and the issues of the land will reasonably permit.
  
  6. Heirs may marry without disparagement; so, nevertheless, that, before the marriage is contracted, it shall be announced to the relations by blood of the heir himself.
  
  7. A widow, after the death of her husband, shall straightway, and without difficulty, have her marriage portion and her inheritance, nor shall she give any thing in return for her dowry, her marriage portion, or the inheritance which belonged to her, and which she and her husband held on the day of the death of that husband. And she may remain in the house of her husband, after his death, for forty days; within which her 

Details of John I "Lackland" King of's family with Isabella of Angouleme Taillefer Queen of England