Chapter 1
The names of King John and Magna Carta are inextricably linked in history and the story of the thirteenth century. Magna Carta was a product not only of John’s reign, but of John’s actions and personality from his early years onwards. Medieval government in England was led by the king, its style determined by the character of the individual monarch. This is markedly true in the reign of King John. John’s own distrustful nature and paranoia led to a domineering government and John himself coming down through history to be judged as a tyrant. He is still, and has always been seen as, ‘Bad King John’. However, the story of a man – or king – is never so cut-and-dried that we can give him one label which explains the entirety of his life, career, and personality. John was just as complex an individual as any of us are. His nature was not just determined by his birth and family, but also by his life experiences; from being the youngest son of a reigning monarch, Henry II, to seeing his mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, imprisoned, and the rebellions and deaths of his three surviving older brothers, John’s experiences helped create the king he would become.
John, as the youngest son, was never expected to inherit the crown. He was probably born on Christmas Eve 1166, or maybe 1167, at Beaumont Palace in Oxfordshire – the confusion appears to be due to the slack recording of the chroniclers, who had little interest in noting the birth of this younger son. His mother was now in her early forties and he was the last of his parents’ eight children, seven of whom survived into adulthood. The eldest son of Henry and Eleanor, William, had died in his third year. Of the three other boys, Henry, the Young King, was born in 1155, Richard, later King Richard I and known by the soubriquet ‘the Lionheart’, was born in 1157 and Geoffrey, later Duke of Brittany, was born in 1158. John’s oldest sister, Matilda, born in 1156, had already left England before her little brother was born, in preparation for her marriage to Henry V, known as ‘the Lion’, Duke of Saxony and Bavaria, which took place in Minden Cathedral, Germany on 1 February 1168. Another sister, Eleanor (Leonor in her adoptive country of Castile) was born in October 1162 and married Alfonso VIII of Castile in September 1176. Of all his siblings, John was closest in age to Joanna, born in 1165. Given that there were nine years between John and the youngest of his older brothers, he probably had little to do with them growing up, nor they with him.1
John’s lack of importance as a younger son was ably demonstrated by a peace treaty with King Louis VII of France, just a year after John’s birth. In it, Henry II set out the division of his lands, should he die. His eldest surviving son Henry, the Young King, would get Henry’s principal domains of England, Normandy and Anjou; Richard would get his mother’s duchy of Aquitaine and Geoffrey would receive Brittany, which Henry had taken by force in 1166. There was nothing for John, earning him the nickname – which contemporaries believed had been given by his father – of Lackland, a name that has followed him doggedly down through the centuries. It is possible that John had been initially intended for the church; as a child he and Joanna were educated, for a time, at the great abbey of Fontevrault in France. As a consequence, John was literate and developed a love of books, his library included works in both French and Latin. However, little else is known of John’s early childhood and education. His sister, Joanna, spent some time with their mother in Poitou, but John appears to have remained at Fontevrault until brought back to England by his father in 1174. The world surrounding John was far from stable, however; in 1173, when John was 6 years old, a family rift arose that would see the young prince’s parents pitted against each other.
Henry II’s desire to provide for his youngest son by marrying him to the daughter of the duke of Savoy, and giving him the castles of Chinon, Loudun and Mirebeau, spurred his oldest brother Henry, who held those castles, into rebellion. The Young King was encouraged by his father-in-law Louis VII, King of France, who was always happy to foment trouble in the family of his biggest rival for control of France and the current husband of his former wife; the marriage of Eleanor and Louis, had been annulled in 1152 after fifteen years and only two daughters, no son. Louis welcomed the disaffected Angevin prince to his court. Eleanor of Aquitaine, whose relationship with Henry II was strained by this time, to say the least, sided with her sons against her husband and sent 15-year-old Richard and 14-year-old Geoffrey to join their older brother at the French court, while she rallied her barons in Poitou. When the rebellion failed, Henry accepted the submission of his sons, but Eleanor, who was captured as she rode towards safety in France, was not so fortunate. While it was not encouraged for sons to rebel against their father, it was seen primarily as boys flexing their muscles. For a wife to rebel against her husband was practically unheard of, and went against the natural order of society, and therefore deserved harsher punishment. Unforgiven and defeated, she was sent to imprisonment in various castles throughout southern England. Although the terms of her imprisonment would be relaxed in later years, her freedom would only come with Henry II’s death and Richard’s accession in 1189.
With the revolt suppressed, John was granted the castles that had been the cause of the insurrection, plus substantial revenues. In September 1174 John was given £1,000 in annual revenues from England, plus the castle and county of Nottingham, and the castle and lordship of Marlborough.2 He was also given 1,000 livres in revenues from Normandy and Anjou, and two Norman castles.3 In addition, the death of William, Earl of Gloucester, in 1176, gave Henry II the perfect opportunity to provide for his youngest son, by betrothing him to the late earl’s daughter and co-heiress, Isabella of Gloucester. While an earldom would ordinarily pass intact to the eldest son, when the earl left only daughters the inheritance was usually shared equally among all the surviving sisters. With Gloucester, this did not happen. Henry effectively disinherited Isabella’s older sisters and their husbands, in order that the earldom should pass, intact, through Isabella, to John. Although the wedding did not take place immediately – in fact, it did not happen in Henry’s lifetime – John was allowed to enjoy the use of his betrothed’s lands and money, in anticipation of the marriage.
In May 1177 Henry had John named King of Ireland, and even asked the pope, Alexander III, to provide a crown for the occasion. It was, by all accounts, an empty gesture; John was still very much subject to his father’s authority, being styled in charters as filius regis – ‘the king’s son’.4 King Henry seems to have made a habit of promising lands and titles to his sons, without relinquishing to them any actual authority. Henry also had a habit of changing and rearranging the domains he allowed his sons to possess. The death of the Young King, John’s oldest brother, in 1183, prompted one such change-around and launched John, now about 15, on his first political mission: to wrest Aquitaine from his brother, Richard. Richard had been groomed to be duke of Aquitaine from a young age, but Henry wanted it transferred to John, now that Richard was heir to Henry’s entire empire. With the help of his only other surviving brother, Geoffrey, John launched an attack on Aquitaine, which failed; unsurprising, given that Richard was already an accomplished warrior, while John was an untested youth. Richard kept his mother’s beloved Aquitaine and John remained landless for the moment.
In order to rectify this, John was sent to claim his kingdom of Ireland. The Anlgo-Norman lord, Hugh de Lacy, Lord of Meath, Henry’s representative in Ireland, was enjoying a greater degree of independence than Henry wished, and it was decided that John would mount an expedition to curb Lacy’s ambitions. The young prince was knighted in March 1185, before embarking for the crossing to Ireland. He was accompanied by Ranulf de Glanville, who was appointed as John’s magister in 1183 and may have encouraged and developed John’s later interest in the law. John’s well-equipped and substantial force arrived in Waterford on 25 April.5 The prince was also accompanied by the chronicler Gerald of Wales, who recorded that the ‘undertaking … auspiciously commenced’ when the princes of Ireland made ‘voluntary submission without delay, did homage to the king, and indisputably confirmed his right.’6 However, it was not to last. According to Gerald:
the Irish people, who were so astounded and thrown into such consternation at the arrival of the first adventurers, by the novelty of the thing, and so terrified by flights of arrows shot by the English archers, and the might of the men-at-arms, soon took heart, through delays, which are always dangerous, the slow and feeble progress at the work of conquest and the ignorance and cowardice of the governors and others in command.7
According to Gerald, the Irish became experts with bow and arrow and ‘practised in stratagems and ambuscades by their frequent conflicts with our troops,’ which enabled them to mount a ‘stout resistance’.8 On arrival in Ireland, John built and garrisoned three castles, at Tibrach, Archfinan and Lismore. Unfortunately for John, this did nothing to alleviate the unrest and a series of ambushes followed. The garrison of Archfinan were set upon when out raiding, with nineteen of their number killed, while the men of Meath ‘put one hundred of the invaders to the sword.’9 John de Courcy lost thirteen men-at-arms as they returned to Connacht. Moreover, the Irish kings of Limerick, Connacht and Cork, apparently encouraged by Hugh de Lacy, soon took up arms again, as John started rewarding land grants to his own followers, with complete disregard for existing Irish rights.
This catalogue of disasters is explained by Gerald of Wales, who blames Henry II’s failure to answer the pleas of Heraclius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, who sought Henry’s assistance for the beleaguered Holy Land. Instead of launching a crusade the king sent John to Ireland ‘with a retinue and outfit more sumptuous than profitable … for his own aggrandisement, not for the cause of Christ’.10 Further blame is attached to John who, when Irishmen loyal to England came to congratulate him, treated them not only with ‘contempt and derision, but even rudely pulled them by their beards.’11 The Irish judgement of John was not very flattering, Gerald of Wales reports that they ‘found him to be a mere boy, surrounded by others almost as young as himself; and that the young prince abandoned himself to juvenile pursuits.’12 Although Holingshed, in his Chronicles of Ireland, claims John was only 12 years old, he was, in fact, approaching his nineteenth birthday. Still young and experiencing his first real chance to exercise his authority, it seems he was not as mature or sensible as the Irish lords would have liked. Roger of Howden adds that John’s own greed, and failure to pay his troops their due, led to their deserting to the Irish.13
In the end Henry II ‘discarding the new-comers as totally incapable, if not cowardly and resolving to employ men who from the first had acquired experience in the conquest of the island,’ sent John de Courcy to take overall command of the Irish expedition as John returned home.14 A year later the death of Hugh de Lacy, who was ‘treacherously slain and decapitated by the axes of the Irish under his dominion,’ and the arrival of a crown, sent by pope Urban III, saw Henry planning a new expedition to Ireland.15 However, the death of John’s brother Geoffrey, Duke of Brittany, in August 1186, meant the new Irish enterprise was postponed indefinitely and the crown left unused, as Henry saw the opportunity for a far-reaching redistribution of the family domains. John remained ‘lord of Ireland’, a title held by all subsequent monarchs until Henry VIII, but the focus of all interest now rested on the inheritance of King Henry’s vast empire. Henry II had only two living sons remaining: Richard and John. The fact John was widely perceived as the king’s favourite son led to rumours, fuelled by Philip II Augustus, King of France, that Henry planned to disinherit Richard, his oldest surviving son, in favour of John. The fact that Henry refused to allow John to take the cross, when he, Richard and Philip Augustus did so in 1187, and Henry’s own refusal to name Richard as his heir, further added to the speculation that John would supplant his older brother in the succession.
The refusal to name Richard finally pushed the warrior prince into the welcoming arms of Philip Augustus and open revolt against his father in 1188. Henry II’s position rapidly became desperate, and with the fall of Le Mans, on 12 June 1189, John deserted his father to join the winning side. Many contemporaries believed that the news of John’s betrayal was the final straw for Henry II, who died, defeated and all-but deserted, at Chinon Castle on 6 July 1189, apparently crying ‘Shame, shame on a conquered king’ before breathing his last. He was buried at the great abbey of Fontevrault in his native Anjou.16 Richard was now king of England and ruler of the vast Angevin Empire that had been built by his father, with lands stretching 1,000 miles, from the Scottish border in the north to the Pyrenees in southern France. He had also, already, acquired a formidable reputation as a soldier, with one contemporary saying he cared ‘for no success that was not reached by a path cut by his own sword and stained with the blood of his adversaries’.17 Richard was crowned in Westminster Abbey on 3 September 1189, and immediately set about planning his crusade to the Holy Land in earnest.
Richard’s accession saw John given possession of those lands and castles long promised to him by their father; the county of Mortain in Normandy and the honours and castles of Peverel, Lancaster, Marlborough and Ludgershall in England. He was also given the English honours of Tickhill and Wallingford and the counties of Derby and Nottingham, though without their castles. Even before Richard’s coronation, John’s long-proposed marriage to Isabella of Gloucester was finally solemnised, the wedding taking place on 29 August 1189. It was not without controversy, however, as the archbishop of Canterbury categorically opposed the match on the grounds of consanguinity; John and Isabella were both descended from King Henry I of England. A papal legate recognised the marriage as lawful, pending John’s appeal to Rome against the Archbishop’s prohibition; however, the fact that John never actively pursued the appeal meant the legality of the marriage remained conveniently ambiguous, therefore both lawful and voidable at any time.
The Gloucester estates included Bristol and the marcher lordships of Glamorgan and Newport. As a result, Richard provided John with an army and sent him to relieve the Welsh castle of Carmarthen, besieged by the Welsh prince Rhys ap Gruffudd, known as the Lord Rhys. Although John came to terms with Rhys and brought him to Oxford in October, Richard refused to meet him, suggesting he found the outcome of John’s campaign unsatisfactory. However, Richard’s generosity continued and in December 1189, John was given the counties of Cornwall, Devon, Somerset and Dorset, bringing his English revenues to somewhere within the region of £4,000 a year. John now had considerable landholdings, both in Normandy and England, and managed them efficiently from Marlborough.18 The chronicler William of Newburgh suggests that Richard’s love for his brother had led to such generosity, though Richard obviously did not trust his brother completely. In March 1190 he extracted an oath from not only John, but also his illegitimate half-brother, Geoffrey, making them both swear to stay out of England for three years, while the king was on crusade. It is possible Richard also recognised John as heir to the duchy of Normandy at the same time, though not England; and he did later lighten the restriction by allowing that his justiciar, William de Longchamp, could choose to release John from the oath if he saw fit to do so.
Although it seems highly unlikely that Longchamp released John from his oath, the prince was back in England by 1191; possibly on the insistence of his mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine. Now freed from captivity, the queen mother was once again in a position of trust and power, watching over her favourite son’s domains while he was away on crusade. However, events took a turn when Richard himself recognised Arthur, still only a child of 5 years, as his heir, in peace negotiations with Tancred of Lecce in Sicily in 1190, in which he also agreed that Arthur would marry one of Tancred’s three daughters. Richard was eager to continue on crusade and wanted a speedy resolution to the diversion that saw him rescuing his sister, Joanna, and settling the Sicilian succession crisis which had arisen on the death of Joanna’s husband, William, King of Sicily. He may have only wanted to make Arthur a more attractive marriage prospect, dangling the possibility of his daughter becoming queen of England before Tancred. Richard’s recognition of Arthur as his heir was a closely guarded secret; the only person in England who was meant to know was William Longchamp. However, it seems that Longchamp may have sounded out others to measure the level of support for Arthur. According to the chronicler William of Newburgh he passed on the information to the king of Scots, at least, and possibly some of the Welsh princes.19 In early 1191 the news was widely leaked, and John came to hear of it.
According to William of Newburgh, John had ‘expected to become the successor to the kingdom, should the king, perchance, not survive his laborious and perilous undertaking.’20 Indeed, Richard’s advancement of his brother since his accession, in giving John lands in England and arranging his marriage to an English bride, all seemed to support this expectation. Richard’s actions in naming Arthur his heir, and Longchamp’s support for this, threatened to undermine John’s own claims and rights. In the late twelfth century, primogeniture was far from established in the rules of inheritance, and the son of a king (John) was often seen as having a greater right to a throne than the grandson (Arthur) of the same king, even if he was the son of the king’s elder son. It did not hurt, either, that John was a grown man and would be able to take personal control, while Arthur was still a very young child and would be in need of regents.
A meeting between John and Longchamp, in March 1191, failed to resolve the issue and John set about building up his own support. According to Richard of Devizes ‘certain nobles became busy’. The chronicler reported that ‘castles were strengthened, towns were fortified, ditches were dug.’21 In June of 1191 Longchamp demanded that Gerard de Canville, sheriff of Lincolnshire, relinquish his custody of Lincoln Castle and swear allegiance to the justiciar. Canville refused and instead paid homage to John, recognising him as heir presumptive. John moved north to support Canville, quickly taking the ill-prepared royal castles of Tickhill (in Yorkshire) and Nottingham and demanding that Canville be reinstated. As Canville joined John at Nottingham, Longchamp laid siege to Lincoln Castle, which was under the command of Canville’s wife, Nicholaa de la Haye, during his absence. In the meantime, having heard of the growing unpopularity of Longchamp, King Richard had despatched Walter de Coutances, Archbishop of Rouen, who was with the king in Sicily, back to England to restore peace. Coutances brought the two sides together at a conference in Winchester in July, though both John and Longchamp each brought a large number of troops with them, just in case.
Settlement was reached whereby John would return the castles he had taken, Gerard de Canville was reinstated, and Longchamp would withdraw his support of Arthur as Richard’s heir and recognise John as heir presumptive. Longchamp would, however, remain in power; moreover, according to Richard of Devizes, King Richard had sent orders that his brother must obey Longchamp.22 This uneasy peace was not to last the year, and when Geoffrey, the newly consecrated archbishop of York, was arrested for entering England on 18 September 1191, John exploited public opinion. Presenting himself as the champion of English liberties and raising a coalition against the foreign justiciar, he wrote to the bishop of London, who was acting as go-between for John and Longchamp:
John count of Mortain to Richard bishop of London, greetings. As you love the honour of God and the Church and the king and kingdom and me, be present at the bridge over the Loddon on 5 October, between Reading and Windsor, because, God willing, I will meet you there to confer about certain important and serious matters concerning the king and kingdom.23
The mutual distrust on both sides saw skirmishes between retainers, on the road to Windsor, and one of John’s knights was killed. Longchamp refused to meet John, claiming the prince was intending to usurp the throne. Within days John was being welcomed into London, recognised as heir presumptive and ‘declared supreme governor of the realm, and ordered that all castles should be turned over to whomever he wanted.’24 A conference was held in the Tower of London on 10 October, during which Longchamp resigned as justiciar and was replaced by Walter de Coutances. Coutances was no pushover, however, and John was denied full authority, having to work alongside the new justiciar.
In the meantime, Richard had reached the Holy Land in the summer of 1191 and enjoyed some notable victories; he had captured Acre in July and defeated Saladin at the battle of Arsuf in September, writing home that he hoped ‘to recover the city of Jerusalem and the Holy Sepulchre within twenty days after Christmas, and then return to our own dominions.’25 However, Richard had also begun to alienate his allies, especially Philip II Augustus of France. Richard’s marriage to Berengaria of Navarre, while en route to the Holy Land, had finally ended his long-standing betrothal to Philip Augustus’ sister, Alix. Claiming that Alix had had an affair with his father, Richard paid Philip Augustus 10,000 marks in compensation; but the humiliation caused a rift that was not so easily repaired. The two kings continued to quarrel as they arrived in the Holy Land, taking opposing positions in political disputes and unable to agree on how to divide the spoils of war. Claiming he was too ill to continue the war, Philip Augustus left the crusade in August 1191 and was home in France by Christmas. With his rival still in the Holy Land, Philip saw an opportunity to cause trouble for Richard; by nurturing a friendship with John, who he promised to recognise as ruler of the Angevin lands in France, in return for John marrying Alix, Richard’s discarded fiancée. The fact John was already married to Isabella of Gloucester was seen as no hindrance, given the ambiguity of the marriage and the archbishop of Canterbury’s declaration of its invalidity shortly after the nuptials. Ever one to grasp an opportunity, John was preparing to leave for France when his mother arrived in England. It took several meetings between Eleanor of Aquitaine, John and the king’s ministers to persuade the prince that his interests lay in England; the threat of losing all his English lands and castles finally persuading John that it was in his best interests to remain there.
Meanwhile, Richard’s crusade had stalled. At Christmas 1191, he was camped within twenty miles of Jerusalem, but did not have the men or machines to take the Holy City and so withdrew to Ascalon. A second attempt to take Jerusalem, in the summer of 1192, was again called off due to lack of resources and renewed negotiations with Saladin resulted in a four-year truce, which meant Richard could return home to deal with his recalcitrant brother. However, Richard had made many enemies in the Holy Land and his route home was problematic. He needed to avoid territories over which Philip Augustus had influence; his ships were driven ashore by storms on the north-east coast of Italy and he was arrested as he headed north, having strayed into Austrian territory.26 Captured by his erstwhile ally, Duke Leopold of Austria, who was another powerful supporter he had offended in the Holy Land, Richard was handed over to Leopold’s overlord, Henry VI, the Holy Roman Emperor.
News of Richard’s capture and imprisonment in Germany saw the tables turned again. Philip Augustus renewed his overtures to John, who grasped the opportunity with both hands and met with Philip in Paris; in January 1193 he sealed a treaty by which he relinquished the Norman Vexin to Philip and agreed to marry Alix. While Philip took Gisors, the capital of the Norman Vexin, and gathered an invasion fleet together, John returned to England to gather support for his enterprise. However, the king of Scots was not receptive to his overtures, unwilling to join a rebellion against a crusader king. Despite his predicament, Richard was dismissive of the threat John posed, saying, ‘My brother John is not the man to seize any land by force, if anyone meets his attack with even the slightest resistance.’27
In the end, John could do little but hire some Welsh mercenaries, with whom he garrisoned the castles at Windsor and Wallingford. John tried to persuade the king’s ministers that Richard was dead, but they were not deceived by the ruse. They besieged John’s castles and prepared to defend England against Philip Augustus’ impending invasion. Seeing England prepared, the French king abandoned his plans. Loyalties were still conflicted, however, and in the north some magnates refused to join the siege against John’s castle at Tickhill, Yorkshire, claiming to be his liegemen. It was a delicate balancing act for Richard’s ministers. They had to keep John in check in order to protect King Richard’s throne, but always had to keep in mind that, should anything happen to Richard, John was likely to be their next king. John was keenly aware of the quandary which faced the king’s ministers and appears to have taken advantage of the situation whenever and wherever he could.
In April 1193 Hubert Walter returned from Germany, with the terms for Richards release; the huge sum of 100,000 marks was demanded in ransom.28 Military action against John was draining the treasury and in order to facilitate the collection of the vast ransom, peace needed to be established as John and Philip Augustus were still conspiring against Richard. Together Philip and John offered a bribe to Henry VI, Richard’s captor, to keep the English king in prison, or hand him over to them; John’s contribution was to be 5,000 marks.29 However, Richard himself deflected this counter-offer by offering a further 50,000 marks for his release. As news of this latest twist reached Philip Augustus, he sent a message to John, saying ‘Look to yourself, the Devil is loosed!’30
Despite Philip Augustus’ dramatic exclamation, Richard was not yet free as the ransom was still to be raised and paid. Frustrated at being forced to relinquish a number of his castles, John turned once again to Philiip Augustus who gave him the castles of Arques, Drincourt and Evreux. Despite the two offering Emperor Henry further payments to keep Richard imprisoned, the king of England was freed on 4 February 1194. When Richard arrived back in England in March, John was given forty days to present himself before the king, or he would forfeit any future claim to the kingdom. Richard then rode south, he was crowned for a second time, at Winchester Cathedral, on 17 April, and crossed to Normandy four weeks later, where John and Philip Augustus had captured more castles and were in the process of besieging Verneuil.
As Richard’s army camped overnight at Lisieux, John came to meet his brother face-to-face. John fell at the king’s feet in supplication. Raising him up, Richard gave his younger brother the kiss of peace, and despite John being 27 years old, he told his brother ‘have no fear, John, you are a child and were left with bad guardians.’32 Although Richard dismissed John’s actions as those of a misguided youth, his reputation was badly scarred by his attempts to usurp his brother’s throne; that he was trying to steal the lands of an imprisoned crusader king was unforgivable. In the call to crusade, the pope specifically promised that the property of crusaders would be preserved and protected while they responded to the church’s call. John had broken this guarantee in a dramatic way; and had failed spectacularly. Where his failures in Ireland could be seen as youthful folly, and he was even praised for acting against the excesses of the unpopular justiciar William Longchamp, his betrayal of his crusading sibling exposed him as a disloyal, faithless brother. As William of Newburgh put it, John was ‘heaping up endless curses on his own perfidious head.’33
Although Richard publicly forgave his brother, John’s lands and castles were not returned to him, and his supporters lost their positions; Gerard de Canville was replaced as sheriff of Lincolnshire and castellan of Lincoln Castle. John’s position as heir to the throne remained ambiguous. In 1190 Richard had named Arthur, but in 1191 the English council had recognised John. Nothing more was said on the matter, leaving John in a state of limbo. Perhaps, now reunited with his wife, Berengaria of Navarre, Richard hoped to produce a son and heir of his own?
Richard’s immediate concern, however, was the recovery of the lands in Normandy, lost to Philip Augustus – with the collaboration of John – during his imprisonment. John was sent to retake Evreux, a task apparently made easier by the fact the defenders did not know John had changed sides, and the garrison were slaughtered. Although he enjoyed limited military success in the reconquest of Normandy, Richard recognised his brother’s assistance and in 1195 ‘forgave his brother all the wrath and displeasure he felt towards him,’ and restored some of his lands and titles.34 John was once again Earl of Gloucester and Count of Mortain and was promised an income of £2,000 annually. John’s ambiguous position as Richard’s possible heir was given a boost in 1196 when Richard failed to gain custody of the alternative claimant, Arthur Duke of Brittany. Despite an invasion of Brittany, Arthur slipped through Richard’s grasp and was spirited away to the French court by the Breton nobles. Richard could hardly promise his throne to Arthur now that he was in the hands of his greatest rival, Philip II Augustus.
By 1197 it was becoming obvious that the king was not going to father a son of his own, and so John’s standing, though never officially recognised as heir, was once again in the ascendancy. However, relations between Richard and John again cooled in 1198 when the king received a missive from Philip Augustus, claiming that John was once more plotting with him. Chroniclers are divided on whether Philip Augustus was telling the truth, or merely attempting to sow discord. Richard, at least, found the claims credible and John was again deprived of his lands and titles. The brothers were still not reconciled when Richard began the siege of Chalus in 1199. On 26 March, while inspecting the progress made by his troops, protected only by helmet and shield, Richard was hit in the shoulder by a crossbow bolt fired from the ramparts. The wound turned gangrenous and he died on 6 April 1199; his mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, was at his bedside. Richard I was buried at Fontevrault Abbey, beside his father, Henry II. Roger of Howden claimed that, on his deathbed, Richard named John as his heir.35
On hearing the news, John acted quickly and raced to Chinon to secure the Treasury. Although Arthur had substantial support in Anjou, England, Normandy and Poitou immediately recognised John as king – as did his mother and her duchy of Aquitaine. John’s succession was not without concerns, however, and the Histoire de Guillaume le Maréchale tells us of a keen debate between William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke, and Hubert Walter, Archbishop of Canterbury, when the news of Richard’s death reached them in Rouen four days later. According to the Histoire, while the archbishop backed Arthur as having the greater right, William gave his full support to John, arguing against Arthur due to his close links with the king of France.36 More with a nod to hindsight (the Histoire was written in the 1220s), than the skill of prophecy, the archbishop cautioned: ‘This much I can tell you, you will never come to regret anything you did as much as what you’re doing now.’37
John was invested as Duke of Normandy in Rouen before departing for England and his coronation; he was crowned in Westminster Abbey on 27 May 1199. The fifth and youngest son of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, John was never expected to become king. The early deaths of three older brothers, and Richard’s own inability to produce a son and heir had dangled the possibility tantalisingly in front of him. His own betrayals of his brother counted for nothing in the grand scheme of things and, in the end, John acceded to the throne with the support of his mother and the great magnates of Normandy and England. John’s perfidy and self-interest, however, during the reign of his brother, had not gone unnoticed; his reputation as a ‘mad-headed youth’ who had become ‘nature’s enemy’ not forgotten. Many must have looked forward to the new reign with mounting trepidation.