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John
Quarrel with the church

John’s attention was diverted and his prestige disastrously affected by relations with the
papacy. In the disputed election to the see of Canterbury following the death of Hubert
Walter, Pope Innocent III quashed the election of John’s nominee in procuring the election
of Stephen Langton (December 1206). John, taking his ground on the traditional rights of
the English crown in episcopal elections, refused to accept Langton. In March 1208,
Innocent laid an interdict on England and excommunicated John (November 1209). The
quarrel continued until 1213, by which time John had amassed more than £100,000 from
the revenues of vacant or appropriated sees and abbeys. But such a dispute was a dangerous
hindrance to John’s intention to recover his Continental lands. In November 1212 he agreed
to accept Langton and the pope’s terms. Apparently at his own behest, he surrendered his
kingdom to the papal nuncio at Ewell, near Dover, on May 15, 1213, receiving it back as a
vassal rendering a tribute of 1,000 marks (666 pounds 13 shillings 4 pence) a year. He was
absolved from excommunication by Langton in July 1213, and the interdict was finally
relaxed a year later. John thus succeeded in his aim to secure the papacy as a firm ally in the
fight with Philip and in the struggle already pending with his own baronage. But his
treatment of the church during the interdict, although arousing little if any opposition
among the laity at the time, angered monastic chroniclers, who henceforth loaded him with
charges of tyranny, cruelty, and, with less reason, of sacrilege and irreligion.

Baronial rebellion and the Magna Carta

In August 1212 recurrent baronial discontent had come to a head in an unsuccessful plot to
murder or desert John during a campaign planned against the Welsh. Pope Innocent’s terms
had included the restoration of two of those involved, Eustace de Vesci and Robert
Fitzwalter, and, although the barons soon lost papal support, they retained the protection of
Stephen Langton. John, skillfully isolating the malcontents, was able to launch his long-
planned campaign against the French, landing at La Rochelle in February 1214. He
achieved nothing decisive and was forced to accept a truce lasting until 1220.

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15/06/2021 John -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia

Returning to England in October 1214, he now had to

face much more widespread discontent, centred
mainly on the northern, East Anglian, and home
counties. After lengthy negotiations in which both
sides appealed to the pope, civil war broke out in May
zoom_in
John; Magna Carta 1215. John was compelled to negotiate once more
King John signing the Magna Carta on
when London went over to the rebels in May, and on
June 15, 1215, at Runnymede,
England. June 15 at Runnymede he accepted the baronial terms
© Photos.com/Thinkstock
embodied in a document known as the Articles of the
Barons. On June 19, after further revisions of the document, the king and the barons
accepted the Magna Carta, which ensured feudal rights and restated English law. This
settlement was soon rendered unworkable by the more intransigent barons and John’s
almost immediate appeal to Pope Innocent against it. Innocent took the king’s side, and in
the ensuing civil war John captured Rochester castle and laid waste the northern counties
and the Scottish border. But his cause was weakened by the arrival of Prince Louis (later
Louis VIII) of France, who invaded England at the barons’ request. John continued to wage
war vigorously but died, leaving the issues undecided. His death made possible a
compromise peace, including the restoration of the rebels, the succession of his son Henry
III, and the withdrawal of Louis.

Citation Information
Article Title:
John
Website Name:
Encyclopaedia Britannica
Publisher:
Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
Date Published:
14 January 2021
URL:
https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-king-of-England
Access Date:
June 15, 2021

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