The historical chronicle of "good old England" brought to us the story of King John of England, nicknamed Landless (1167-1216). He was the son of King Henry II Plantagenet and is best known for being landless at first, and then a king without … a kingdom.
John was 32 years old when he ascended the English throne in 1199. None of the chroniclers of his contemporaries found a kind word for him. The king was a sensual man, lazy and overwhelmed by base passions. He had neither the creative energy of his father, Henry II, nor the brilliant qualities of his older brother, Richard the Lionheart. He was like them only in vices.
Lacking moral and religious principles, he was cunning and cruel; he was a bad man who had become a bad king. His stormy reign was marked by three major clashes: a struggle with the King of France Philip II Augustus, a struggle with the church and, in the end, a struggle with his own barons.
The war with France began immediately after the death of Richard, because Philip II did not recognize John's right to the throne and transferred all continental possessions - Brittany, Anjou, Maine, Touraine and Poitou - to his nephew Arthur. 1200, March - an agreement was signed in Gulet, according to which John gave Philip the county of Evreux and made some other concessions. After which he was recognized as the Duke of Normandy with the supreme right to Brittany.
After a short time, John was able to get the Pope to dissolve the marriage he had concluded 11 years ago and remained childless with his cousin Isabella of Gloucester. Then he took Isabella Tylefer, daughter of Count Émar of Angoulême, from her fiancé, Count of Marsh, and married her in August 1200, the Lusignans were his vassals. The more they felt this resentment and rebelled.
1201 - they appealed to the overlord of their overlord, the king of France. Philip, despite the fact that not so long ago he solemnly received John and his new wife in Paris, was glad to see the opportunity presented, which allowed him to act illegally in compliance with legal forms, and summoned John to trial.
When all the deadlines had passed, and John did not appear in France, the court of peers in April 1202 declared him guilty of treason on the basis of feudal law. This verdict meant that the king of England could no longer own the fiefs of the king of France and that the latter had the right to take by force from him those fiefs that he still illegally retained.
In fact, the French king, relying on this verdict, invaded Normandy and at the same time brought Arthur of Brittany back onto the political stage. But soon the young count was unexpectedly overtaken by his uncle, who arrested him along with most of his people. Reliable information has not reached us about the further fate of the unfortunate young man.
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But there is a legend that from the Falaise castle he was secretly taken to the capital of Normandy. On a dark night in April 1203, John sailed to the Rouen castle, ordered to bring his nephew, thrust a sword into his chest, then into his temple, took the body into a boat and drowned in the river three leagues below Rouen. This assassination gave the French king another plausible excuse to continue the war, rejecting any offer of peace.
The House of French Peers summoned John again to Paris for trial; he, of course, did not appear, was declared guilty of murder and deprived of all fiefs. The French army entered Normandy and began to conquer one city after another. John, meanwhile, was inactive at Caen.
Every day messengers came to him with news of the enemy's successes. He, however, could not do anything, because all the English barons, convinced of the incorrigible baseness of their king, withdrew, leaving him alone in Normandy with a rather insignificant retinue of knights.
When the French arrived at Rouen itself, the king sailed to England. Left without support and help, Normandy, Touraine, Anjou and Poitou, with all the cities and castles, surrendered to the side of the French king. 1206 - a truce was signed for two years. By that time, almost nothing remained of the Plantagenet possessions on the continent.
Meanwhile, John began to quarrel with Pope Innocent III. 1205 - A strong controversy arose over the election of a new Archbishop of Canterbury. With the consent of John, a deputation of 14 monks was sent to Rome, who, not paying attention to the electoral rights of their brethren, allowed in 1207 the pope to arbitrarily appoint the Englishman Stephen Langton, who lived in Rome, as Archbishop of Canterbury.
Upon learning of this, John Landless became very angry. Not recognizing the elections made in Rome, he forbade the deputies to return to England. In response, Innocent imposed an interdict on England in 1208. For 2 years on the island there were no divine services and church services. John severely persecuted the clergy for their stubbornness: he expelled bishops, imprisoned them, confiscated church estates, and once even freed one priest accused of murdering from trial, saying that everyone who killed a clergyman was his friend.
Since the pope threatened with excommunication and permission of his subjects from the oath, John tried to take measures to be able to resist. He surrounded himself with mercenaries, took children hostage from vassals, imposed burdensome taxes and extended his despotism to the point that he persecuted and punished for all resistance, paying no attention to law and law.
Later, in the charges against him, the barons say that he constantly raped noble girls and ladies who were in his hostages. And in fact, in addition to the six legitimate children from Isabella, John left behind many bastard sons and daughters. In doing so, he abused to the extreme the already intolerable laws on forests and hunting. Many of the English barons, bitter by the king's despotism, entered into an agreement with the king of France, and the pope, after prolonged hesitation, decided to take an extreme measure.
1212 - he declared John Landless dethroned and presented the kingdom of England to Philip Augustus. Philip Augustus gladly accepted the Pope's proposal and began to prepare for the crusade. John had gathered no less strength than the French king. However, soon the king's own army began to inspire no less fear than the enemy's.
Everyone in her, from simple warriors to the nobility, was gripped by discontent and inclined to rebellion. Many barons were just waiting for the arrival of the French to join them. Feeling threatened on all sides, John soon realized that the war would be disastrous for him. The king decided not to tempt fate and made peace with the pope.
1213, May 13 - in the presence of his nobles, he swore in the Gospel that he obeyed the verdict of Innocent. The monarch recognized Stephen Langton as Archbishop of Canterbury, promised to abolish the restrictive measures against the church and return all the possessions taken from her. He also recognized the kingdom of England as papal fief and promised to pay the pope 1,000 marks of silver in tribute.
On May 20, Langton, who arrived in Winchester, solemnly removed the church's excommunication from the king. At the same time, John Landless promised to restore the good laws of his predecessors, and especially the ancient liberties of the Saxon king Edward the Confessor. He made this promise with a light heart, not suspecting what a great importance it would have for himself and his descendants.
1213, August 23 - A large meeting of the barons took place in London, at St. Paul's Church. Although the reason for this was of little importance - consideration of some canonical rules, but at a secret meeting of the chief statesmen, the archbishop expressed the following: “You know that in the conditions of the removal of the excommunication from the king, the destruction of bad laws and the restoration of the good laws of King Edward the Confessor in everything state. Now the charter of King Henry I, the English king, has been found, and the possibility of restoring the primitive liberties so often violated is presented!"
And he read the charter he found. At that time, not rich in ideas, they constantly referred to the laws of Edward, they grieved about them, but no one knew them. Langton's discovery was received with enthusiasm. The vague demands, which did not bother John, now received precise and definite expressions, the English nation acquired rights that the barons were ready to defend to the last drop of their blood. This was the beginning of the Magna Carta War.
Meanwhile, in February 1214, John sailed to La Rochelle with part of the fleet and an army, most of which consisted of mercenaries. The war with the French was at first successful, but ended in complete failure: John Lackland had to recognize the French king as the sovereign of all possessions in France that had previously belonged to the Plantagenets.
Embittered by the defeat, he returned to England in October. Before the outbreak of war, many of the barons of the northern counties refused to accompany John to France. The king now began to demand from them a monetary reward for the fact that they did not take part in the campaign. In response, the barons gathered at Bury St Edmonds to decide how to end the monarch's autocracy and restore the old laws.
At Christmas, the nobles in full armor arrived in London, came to John and, on the basis of the old letter found by the archbishop, began to demand that John renounce autocracy: he did not force the nobles to participate in foreign wars, abolished burdensome taxes, expelled foreign mercenaries from the kingdom, did not distribute fiefs foreigners and confirmed the laws of Edward, to which he himself swore at Winchester. The king did not dare to answer with a decisive refusal, promised to consider their demands and give an answer at Easter.
On time, the nobles of Northern England and many barons from other parts of the kingdom assembled at Brackley. With them were about 2,000 knights and a very large number of soldiers. In May, they approached the walls of Northampton. At the same time, ambassadors from London arrived in their camp and announced that the townspeople were taking their side.
On May 24, the barons occupied the capital. Lincoln and many other cities fell asleep from the king. Payments of taxes to the treasury stopped. John Landless fled London, while the ranks of his supporters thinned to a noticeable extent. When he arrived in Odigam, only 7 knights remained in his retinue.
Despite the hatred simmering in his chest, John Landless realized that he needed to make concessions. He sent the earl of Pembroke to the barons with the news that he agreed to accept all their demands. On June 15, he arrived at the camp of the barons on the banks of the Thames near Windsor and signed a treaty in the Ronnymeid meadow, later known as Magna Carta.
For several centuries, it became the basis of the rights of the English people and the basic law of government. In essence, it did not change the previous letters, but it precisely defined what they expressed only in general form. In addition to other regulations, she protected personal freedom, deciding that no one can be arrested, detained, subject to personal or property punishment, except on the basis of the law and by the verdict of his peers.
The significance of the Magna Carta can be defined in this way: the monarch renounced for himself and for his successors all restrictions on anyone's rights made by the Norman kings before him, and especially by himself, and undertook to restore in full measure the order of government and legal proceedings based on customs.
Of the individual articles of the Magna Carta, the most important were those that dealt with the personal freedoms of citizens, and those that precisely defined taxes. So that the king could not later abandon his concessions, the barons took measures to protect the Charter. The monarch promised to disband all mercenary detachments that were the mainstay of his tyranny, and agreed to the election of a committee of 25 barons. These barons had to strictly monitor the observance of the Charter and call the nation to revolt if, within 40 days, the violated right was not restored.
The barons had every reason to be apprehensive. A little time passed, and the Magna Carta was already under the threat of cancellation. Rather than sending out the mercenaries, John tried to surreptitiously increase their numbers by recruiting soldiers in France and Brabant.
The barons gathered near Oxford and appealed to Philip for help against John Lackland, asking for help against John Lackland and his mercenary forces. They announced that they were ready to recognize as monarch the son of Philip, Louis, married to the niece of John Blanca of Castile.
1216, January - The king went to the northern counties to suppress the revolt in its very center. Flaming villages, devastated fields and looted castles showed the path his mercenaries followed. But things soon changed. On May 21, Prince Louis landed on the Isle of Thanet at the mouth of the Thames, and from there he crossed over to Kent.
On June 2, with the cheers of the people, he entered London. John Landless fled to the north of the country. While crossing Veland, his wagon train, heavily laden with gold, dishes and jewelry, died in the waves of the sea tide. The king received this news at Schwensched Abbey. Then, says the chronicler, his grief over the loss of such wealth created a terrible fever in him. The poison of the disease was further intensified by excessive and unhealthy diet. Barely alive, John was taken to the castle of Novar. Here he died on the night before the feast of St. Luke the Evangelist.
K. Ryzhov