King+John+I

King John I of England By Cara Paolucci  King John I of England, born to King Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitane, was one of the most important and remembered kings in the Middle Ages. At some point, he was Lord of Ireland, King of England, Count of Mortain, Duke of Normandy, and had holdings in Mirebeau, Anjou, Maine, and Poitou, France. He had 2 brothers, Richard and (deceased) Geoffrey, and was nicknamed John Lackland, or //Jean sans Terre// in French. This is because John was his father's favorite, and he had promised John lots of land that John never got. After Henry II passed away, primogenture caused the throne of England to go to Richard even though Henry wanted John to have the throne. For unknown reasons, Richard made the son of his late brother, Arthur, his heir. This angered John, so when Richard was away fighting in the Crusades he joined forces with Phillip II of France to try to take over England. Upon Richard's return, John was banished from England and stripped of all of his lands. John married and had a son with Isabella, heiress to Gloucester. After their divorce, he married Isabella de Angouleme to “solve a problem” between the Angouleme and Lusignan families, but before this Isabella had been betrothed to Hugh IX de Lusignan. Angered by John’s marriage, the Lusignans rebelled and appeared before Phillip II. Phillip ordered John to appear before him, but he refused and started a war. John won at Mirebeau and captured Arthur, but lost Anjou, Maine, Normandy, and parts of Poitou to Phillip. However, In return for paying some funds and giving some territory to Phillip, John was recognized as heir to all of Richard’s French holdings. When an archbishop died in 1205, Pope Innocent III chose Stephen Langton as his replacement. John refused to accept Langton, so the Pope excommunicated John and put an interdict on England. He collected over 100,000 pounds from revenues of empty offices, but it threatened to mess up his plans of recovering his lands in Europe, so John accepted Langton. The interdict was lifted and he was allowed back into the church in 1213. Since he still lost his lands, John taxed the citizens of England uncontrollably, making them pay him more than they agreed to or without reason. This angered the barons in England, and in 1215 John was forced to sign the Magna Carta. He immediately called back the laws, which set off another civil war against the barons, but it stopped when he died unexpectedly a year later (possibly of overeating) INTERESTING FACTS: 1. Even though John knew more about literature, cultures, had been to many places, made many important advances in military and taxation, and was overall smarter than any previous king, he still earned himself a bad reputation. 2. John is suspected of murdering his nephew Arthur, and (fact) starved the wife and son of a “recalcitrant Marcher baron” to death in a royal prison. 3. John and Isabella of Gloucester had a son, whom John named Henry after his father. 4. When King John ascended the English throne in 1199, he gave one of the best Christmas parties ever recorded. 200 gallons of wine, 400 oxen, 1,000 capons, 1,000 eels, and 200 lampreys were eaten.  5. King John didn’t actually sign the Magna Carta; he couldn’t write his name, so he just put his seal on it.

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