King John possessed wealth, royal authority and a talent for administration, yet failed to command the loyalty his crown depended on. Stephen Church examines how his troubled kingship led to rebellion, Magna Carta and a foreign invasion that threatened his dynasty.
By Stephen Church
Being a successful twelfth-century king was a confidence trick. In theory, the ruler was the font of all power and justice; he enjoyed the ability to distribute magnificent amounts of patronage, and he could command the largest number of troops in the land. And yet, the king enjoyed neither a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence nor complete control over the various legal jurisdictions that existed in his kingdom. Secular leaders travelled as though armed for war, accompanied by bands of equally warlike men, and even religious leaders employed military men to provide them with protection in a world with many dangers. Kings might have been the richest men in their kingdoms, but other men, too, were extraordinarily wealthy.
Powerful nobles, precarious kingship
The Great Seal of King John of England (1199–1216), bearing the inscription IOHANNES DEI GRACIA REX ANGLIE ET DOMINVS HIBERNIE (“John, by the grace of God, King of England and Lord of Ireland”). Guildhall Art Gallery, London. Photo by smallcurio / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)
The English earl of Cornwall, for example, was usually a junior member of the royal family, often of illegitimate descent. John himself had been in control of Cornwall from 1189 until 1199, when he ruled as de facto king in the county. He had his own exchequer to which Cornishmen had to pay their dues, and he ran justice in the territory as a quasi-king. In other words, John enjoyed both fiscal and judicial autonomy from the king of England. With that autonomy came vast riches, much of it from the profits of tin mining.
Although we cannot see the actual amounts of wealth enjoyed by the earls of Cornwall in the twelfth century, it is striking that when the record evidence becomes clearer in the second half of the thirteenth century, the earl of Cornwall, Edmund of Almain (d. 1300), the first cousin of King Edward I (1272–1307), was a substantial lender of money to the crown. When Richard of Cornwall (d. 1272), Edmund’s father and the brother of King Henry III (1216–1272), decided to bid for the German crown in 1257, he had the resources to do so.
Earl Richard’s presence on the English political scene during the long reign of Henry III was always decisive. Managing powerful men such as the Earl of Cornwall was therefore fundamental to successful rulership. One could not simply take these men for granted, nor could one ride roughshod over their wishes and deny their ambitions without consequence.
An administrator without charisma
King John depicted with his crown falling off
Equally important to successful rulership was that thing we label as charisma: the ability to inspire loyalty in others, or perhaps even more than loyalty: devotion. Richard the Lionheart (1189–1199), John’s brother, had the charismatic charm to make men follow him when they might have deserted others. When, for example, Richard was being held captive in Germany in 1193, and news reached John of his brother’s predicament, John immediately went to Alençon in Normandy to meet with the Norman barons and demand that they hand the duchy over to him (Richard was also duke of Normandy).
These Normans, much to John’s annoyance, remained steadfastly loyal to Richard even though it was likely that the king would never be released. John, instead, was forced to appeal to the king of France, whereupon the French king mustered an invasion fleet. That fleet never made landfall on English soil because of the determination of Eleanor of Aquitaine (d. 1204), Richard and John’s mother, and the loyalty of Richard’s subjects to their king.
John was a man who did not excel in the business of man management, nor did he have the charisma to inspire devotion in others. He was sadly lacking in the key attributes required of a twelfth-century ruler. He does not seem to have been personally brave nor accomplished in feats of arms. His elder brothers were all capable fighters: Henry the young king (d. 1183) was a tournament knight of some renown; Richard the Lionheart (d. 1199) was physically impressive and demonstrably brave; Geoffrey (d. 1186) was killed as a result of receiving an injury during a tournament.
Though he certainly went on campaign, acting, for example, as Richard’s military commander in 1195 as part of his reintroduction to royal circles after a year in exile, there is no evidence that John ever raised a sword in anger against another knight. He was a passable taker of castles, and he seems to have used the laying of siege to castles as a way of demonstrating his manliness. But John had spent the formative years of his childhood being raised in a nunnery, and when he reached puberty, he was schooled in the household of Henry II’s justiciar, Ranulf de Glanville (d. 1190). John’s administrative skills were clear, but administration is not what makes the heart race. And while it is dangerous to make any observations based on such circumstantial evidence, it is clear that John did not inspire admiration in others in a world dominated by men whose fighting capabilities were a source of status.
The performance of royal power
King John – British Library Cotton MS Claudius D II fol. 116
Instead, in order to inspire loyalty, John resorted to pomp and circumstance. After his accession to the throne in 1199, he regularly had the coronation anthem Christus Vincit sung in his presence, and he wore his crown in formal moments often. When, in 1210, he was in the north, he had his most magnificent robes transported from Bristol to York, where he would wear them in a public ceremony. John even had his own lion, whose presence – with his lion tamer, dressed in the same livery as the lion – proclaimed the king’s arrival.
And on his return from campaigning in Scotland in 1209, at the height of the crisis precipitated by the interdict (1208–1214) and the king’s own excommunication (1209–1213), John held a series of public ceremonies where the assembled men were required to swear oaths of loyalty directly to him. At the end of each ceremony, the king bestowed on those present the kiss of peace – presumably, since each assembled throng numbered in the tens of thousands of individuals, a breezily given air kiss.
Towards the last phase in his reign, John became a man devoted to detail, the sort of detail that should not have bothered the mind of a ruler who had much important business to consume his energies. As his regime was collapsing around him, he busied himself with the minutiae of authorising orders for the purchase of wax, wine, and stores for his castles: he was fiddling while his kingdom burned.
A king who failed to protect his kingdom
A statue of King John in King’s Lynn, Norfolk, created by sculptor Alan Beattie Herriot in 2016. Photo by Jim Linwood / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0).
John’s reputation has been sealed by the fact that he not only lost huge swathes of his continental inheritances (Normandy, Anjou, Brittany, and Poitou, all of which he inherited in the wake of Richard’s death), but he also nearly lost his kingdom and came perilously close to crashing his dynasty. And John knew all this so very painfully. Three days before he died, understanding that his end was near, he wrote to Pope Honorius III (1150–1227) offering “our kingdom and our heir in the presence [of the assembled magnates] to … your protection.” John died on the night of 18/19 October 1216 knowing that he was a failure yet still hoping that he might be placed “among the number of the elect.” He may well have found a place in heaven after his death, but his station as a failed king was sealed.
No ruler’s reputation can possibly survive the disaster of losing his kingdom and of failing to protect his people. The very purpose of the king was, as his coronation ritual stressed, to protect his kingdom, his church, and his people. The prayer of the officiating archbishop, which was said over the king-elect, asked for “peace in the kingdom” and that the king “may be a most mighty protector of his country, and a bountiful comforter of the churches, and holy societies, the most valiant of kings; that he may triumph over his enemies, and subdue rebels and infidels.” The sword that was given to the king after his consecration was to symbolise his power to defend his church and people. No one, not even John’s greatest apologist, could imagine that John had succeeded in achieving the goals of kingship set for him at the beginning of his reign.
The crisis in John’s reign was caused by his inability to manage matters as his senior subjects might like, and in 1214, they began to turn determinedly away from their king. John had faced difficulties from within before 1214. He had plunged his kingdom into a contest with the pope over the appointment to the see of Canterbury. That conflict had resulted in an interdict (1208) being placed on the kingdom whereby, in theory at least, the spiritual comforts that the Church Universal gave to the faithful were withdrawn. In Pope Innocent III’s own words, the interdict meant that “no ecclesiastical office was to be celebrated except the baptism of infants and the confession of the dying.” The interdict was still having an impact in 1214.
From Magna Carta to invasion
British Library’s Magna Carta, photo credit Joseph Turp
In 1212, it became apparent that a plot against the king’s life had been underway for some time, and when it was discovered, John’s government was thrown into confusion. The chief culprits were prompted to flee, while those left behind had to bargain for their very survival. After this attempt on his life, John began to relax the iron fist of his rule, and between 1212 and 1214, although relations between the king and many of his major barons remained strained, something of a peace had returned to the kingdom. The unmitigated disaster of John’s campaign in Aquitaine in 1214, however, meant that a new opportunity had arisen for John’s enemies in the kingdom to gather their forces.
By the autumn of that year, they were plotting; in early January 1215, they demanded that John reissue the coronation charter of Henry I, which had promised, amongst other things, good governance; and when John prevaricated, manoeuvred, and made it clear that he had no intention of bowing to the wishes of his subjects, on May 5, 1215, those leading the opposition to John renounced their homage to him. The rebels had thus formalised their resistance to the king, and over the coming weeks, they forced John to negotiate terms of settlement, which came to be enshrined in the document we call Magna Carta (though it did not get that name until after John’s death).
John’s continued resistance to the limits being placed on his rule led, inevitably, to a breakdown of the peace established by Magna Carta, and so, in early September 1215, the rebels declared John deposed and invited the son of the king of the French, Louis, to invade and take the kingdom for himself. Louis arrived in May 1216, and so, when John died in October 1216, not only were his subjects in revolt, there was a foreign army stalking the land. John’s final resting place was Worcester Cathedral, a decision in part dictated by the fact that Beaulieu Abbey, John’s Cistercian foundation and perhaps where he intended to rest, was in enemy hands.
As it happened, John’s dynasty did survive to provide a succession of Plantagenet kings who ruled in a direct line for the next three centuries. But as John lay dying in October 1216, it looked likely that he would be the last of his dynasty to sit atop the English throne, and the success or otherwise of the Plantagenets in continuing the line lay in the hands of others. It is hard to imagine how much worse it could have been for John – and indeed, lest we forget, his subjects.
Stephen Church is Professor in Medieval History at the University of Lincoln
King John possessed wealth, royal authority and a talent for administration, yet failed to command the loyalty his crown depended on. Stephen Church examines how his troubled kingship led to rebellion, Magna Carta and a foreign invasion that threatened his dynasty.
By Stephen Church
Being a successful twelfth-century king was a confidence trick. In theory, the ruler was the font of all power and justice; he enjoyed the ability to distribute magnificent amounts of patronage, and he could command the largest number of troops in the land. And yet, the king enjoyed neither a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence nor complete control over the various legal jurisdictions that existed in his kingdom. Secular leaders travelled as though armed for war, accompanied by bands of equally warlike men, and even religious leaders employed military men to provide them with protection in a world with many dangers. Kings might have been the richest men in their kingdoms, but other men, too, were extraordinarily wealthy.
Powerful nobles, precarious kingship
The English earl of Cornwall, for example, was usually a junior member of the royal family, often of illegitimate descent. John himself had been in control of Cornwall from 1189 until 1199, when he ruled as de facto king in the county. He had his own exchequer to which Cornishmen had to pay their dues, and he ran justice in the territory as a quasi-king. In other words, John enjoyed both fiscal and judicial autonomy from the king of England. With that autonomy came vast riches, much of it from the profits of tin mining.
Although we cannot see the actual amounts of wealth enjoyed by the earls of Cornwall in the twelfth century, it is striking that when the record evidence becomes clearer in the second half of the thirteenth century, the earl of Cornwall, Edmund of Almain (d. 1300), the first cousin of King Edward I (1272–1307), was a substantial lender of money to the crown. When Richard of Cornwall (d. 1272), Edmund’s father and the brother of King Henry III (1216–1272), decided to bid for the German crown in 1257, he had the resources to do so.
Earl Richard’s presence on the English political scene during the long reign of Henry III was always decisive. Managing powerful men such as the Earl of Cornwall was therefore fundamental to successful rulership. One could not simply take these men for granted, nor could one ride roughshod over their wishes and deny their ambitions without consequence.
An administrator without charisma
Equally important to successful rulership was that thing we label as charisma: the ability to inspire loyalty in others, or perhaps even more than loyalty: devotion. Richard the Lionheart (1189–1199), John’s brother, had the charismatic charm to make men follow him when they might have deserted others. When, for example, Richard was being held captive in Germany in 1193, and news reached John of his brother’s predicament, John immediately went to Alençon in Normandy to meet with the Norman barons and demand that they hand the duchy over to him (Richard was also duke of Normandy).
These Normans, much to John’s annoyance, remained steadfastly loyal to Richard even though it was likely that the king would never be released. John, instead, was forced to appeal to the king of France, whereupon the French king mustered an invasion fleet. That fleet never made landfall on English soil because of the determination of Eleanor of Aquitaine (d. 1204), Richard and John’s mother, and the loyalty of Richard’s subjects to their king.
John was a man who did not excel in the business of man management, nor did he have the charisma to inspire devotion in others. He was sadly lacking in the key attributes required of a twelfth-century ruler. He does not seem to have been personally brave nor accomplished in feats of arms. His elder brothers were all capable fighters: Henry the young king (d. 1183) was a tournament knight of some renown; Richard the Lionheart (d. 1199) was physically impressive and demonstrably brave; Geoffrey (d. 1186) was killed as a result of receiving an injury during a tournament.
Though he certainly went on campaign, acting, for example, as Richard’s military commander in 1195 as part of his reintroduction to royal circles after a year in exile, there is no evidence that John ever raised a sword in anger against another knight. He was a passable taker of castles, and he seems to have used the laying of siege to castles as a way of demonstrating his manliness. But John had spent the formative years of his childhood being raised in a nunnery, and when he reached puberty, he was schooled in the household of Henry II’s justiciar, Ranulf de Glanville (d. 1190). John’s administrative skills were clear, but administration is not what makes the heart race. And while it is dangerous to make any observations based on such circumstantial evidence, it is clear that John did not inspire admiration in others in a world dominated by men whose fighting capabilities were a source of status.
The performance of royal power
Instead, in order to inspire loyalty, John resorted to pomp and circumstance. After his accession to the throne in 1199, he regularly had the coronation anthem Christus Vincit sung in his presence, and he wore his crown in formal moments often. When, in 1210, he was in the north, he had his most magnificent robes transported from Bristol to York, where he would wear them in a public ceremony. John even had his own lion, whose presence – with his lion tamer, dressed in the same livery as the lion – proclaimed the king’s arrival.
And on his return from campaigning in Scotland in 1209, at the height of the crisis precipitated by the interdict (1208–1214) and the king’s own excommunication (1209–1213), John held a series of public ceremonies where the assembled men were required to swear oaths of loyalty directly to him. At the end of each ceremony, the king bestowed on those present the kiss of peace – presumably, since each assembled throng numbered in the tens of thousands of individuals, a breezily given air kiss.
Towards the last phase in his reign, John became a man devoted to detail, the sort of detail that should not have bothered the mind of a ruler who had much important business to consume his energies. As his regime was collapsing around him, he busied himself with the minutiae of authorising orders for the purchase of wax, wine, and stores for his castles: he was fiddling while his kingdom burned.
A king who failed to protect his kingdom
John’s reputation has been sealed by the fact that he not only lost huge swathes of his continental inheritances (Normandy, Anjou, Brittany, and Poitou, all of which he inherited in the wake of Richard’s death), but he also nearly lost his kingdom and came perilously close to crashing his dynasty. And John knew all this so very painfully. Three days before he died, understanding that his end was near, he wrote to Pope Honorius III (1150–1227) offering “our kingdom and our heir in the presence [of the assembled magnates] to … your protection.” John died on the night of 18/19 October 1216 knowing that he was a failure yet still hoping that he might be placed “among the number of the elect.” He may well have found a place in heaven after his death, but his station as a failed king was sealed.
No ruler’s reputation can possibly survive the disaster of losing his kingdom and of failing to protect his people. The very purpose of the king was, as his coronation ritual stressed, to protect his kingdom, his church, and his people. The prayer of the officiating archbishop, which was said over the king-elect, asked for “peace in the kingdom” and that the king “may be a most mighty protector of his country, and a bountiful comforter of the churches, and holy societies, the most valiant of kings; that he may triumph over his enemies, and subdue rebels and infidels.” The sword that was given to the king after his consecration was to symbolise his power to defend his church and people. No one, not even John’s greatest apologist, could imagine that John had succeeded in achieving the goals of kingship set for him at the beginning of his reign.
The crisis in John’s reign was caused by his inability to manage matters as his senior subjects might like, and in 1214, they began to turn determinedly away from their king. John had faced difficulties from within before 1214. He had plunged his kingdom into a contest with the pope over the appointment to the see of Canterbury. That conflict had resulted in an interdict (1208) being placed on the kingdom whereby, in theory at least, the spiritual comforts that the Church Universal gave to the faithful were withdrawn. In Pope Innocent III’s own words, the interdict meant that “no ecclesiastical office was to be celebrated except the baptism of infants and the confession of the dying.” The interdict was still having an impact in 1214.
From Magna Carta to invasion
In 1212, it became apparent that a plot against the king’s life had been underway for some time, and when it was discovered, John’s government was thrown into confusion. The chief culprits were prompted to flee, while those left behind had to bargain for their very survival. After this attempt on his life, John began to relax the iron fist of his rule, and between 1212 and 1214, although relations between the king and many of his major barons remained strained, something of a peace had returned to the kingdom. The unmitigated disaster of John’s campaign in Aquitaine in 1214, however, meant that a new opportunity had arisen for John’s enemies in the kingdom to gather their forces.
By the autumn of that year, they were plotting; in early January 1215, they demanded that John reissue the coronation charter of Henry I, which had promised, amongst other things, good governance; and when John prevaricated, manoeuvred, and made it clear that he had no intention of bowing to the wishes of his subjects, on May 5, 1215, those leading the opposition to John renounced their homage to him. The rebels had thus formalised their resistance to the king, and over the coming weeks, they forced John to negotiate terms of settlement, which came to be enshrined in the document we call Magna Carta (though it did not get that name until after John’s death).
John’s continued resistance to the limits being placed on his rule led, inevitably, to a breakdown of the peace established by Magna Carta, and so, in early September 1215, the rebels declared John deposed and invited the son of the king of the French, Louis, to invade and take the kingdom for himself. Louis arrived in May 1216, and so, when John died in October 1216, not only were his subjects in revolt, there was a foreign army stalking the land. John’s final resting place was Worcester Cathedral, a decision in part dictated by the fact that Beaulieu Abbey, John’s Cistercian foundation and perhaps where he intended to rest, was in enemy hands.
As it happened, John’s dynasty did survive to provide a succession of Plantagenet kings who ruled in a direct line for the next three centuries. But as John lay dying in October 1216, it looked likely that he would be the last of his dynasty to sit atop the English throne, and the success or otherwise of the Plantagenets in continuing the line lay in the hands of others. It is hard to imagine how much worse it could have been for John – and indeed, lest we forget, his subjects.
Stephen Church is Professor in Medieval History at the University of Lincoln
Further reading
Church, Stephen. King John: England, Magna Carta, and the Making of a Tyrant. Pan Macmillan, 2015. Published in the USA as King John and the Road to Magna Carta, Basic Books, 2015.
Carpenter, David. Magna Carta. Penguin Books, 2015.
Crouch, David. William Marshal: Court, Career, and Chivalry in the Angevin Empire, 1147–1219. 3rd ed. Routledge, 2016.
Holt, J. C. The Northerners: A Study in the Reign of King John. Clarendon Press, 1961.
Subscribe to Medievalverse
Related Posts