John

John (1199-1216), King of England, b. Oxford.

King John was surnamed 'Lackland' because his father, King Henry II, left him no land to rule.

His eldest brother, King Richard I was missing from England after the Third Crusade and John tried to seize the throne. For this, he was exiled. Yet, on his deathbed, Richard said that John should be the next king. The rightful heir was the young Prince Arthur, son of John's older brother, Geoffrey.

John captured Arthur and he was murdered. Some people said that the King himself murdered him. There followed war with King Philip Augustus of France. In this, nearly all England's lands in France were lost.

John then quarrelled with Pope Innocent III and for a time, was barred from the Christian Church.

Next the barons of England protested against the way he was ruling the country. On 15 June, 1215, in a meadow at Runnymede, on the Thames near Staines, Middlesex, they forced him to sign Magna Carta. In this famous document John made sixty-three promises about the rights of his people. But John did not keep his promises. Civil war broke out and the barons invited Prince Louis of France to lead them. He landed with an army in May 1216. The war ended five months later when John died at Newark, Nottinghamshire.