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• King John ruled England at a difficult time. He faced wars with France, a shortage of money and clashes with powerful English barons.
• The barons became increasingly angry with John and eventually forced him to agree to changes in how England worked, written down in the Magna Carta.
• The Magna Carta is seen as the basis of many English laws and helped to influence the US constitution, which was written over 500 years later.

John was crowned King of England in 1199. Richard I had died without any legitimate heirs, so John inherited the throne as Richard’s only surviving brother.

When Richard was king, he had spent a significant amount of time and money fighting wars against France and going on Crusades. On his return from fighting in the Crusades he was captured and held to ransom in what is now modern-day Germany by Henry VI, the Holy Roman Emperor. He was released once this was paid in 1194, which further affected England's finances. During Richard’s time as a captive, John worked with King Philip II of France to try and seize the throne of England. This was unsuccessful but Richard and John made peace with each other on Richard’s return to England.

During his reign, which lasted just under ten years, Richard had spent only six months in England. Fighting in the Crusades had been expensive, and England was heavily in debt. King John’s reign has often been criticised, but he had to manage clashes with the Pope, France and his own barons. He had to deal with all these problems without the finances he needed to successfully manage them. John undoubtedly made some mistakes during his reign, but he did inherit several challenges on taking over from Richard I.

Tensions with the Church

John had a dispute with the church over the appointment of a new Archbishop of Canterbury in 1207. John’s preferred appointment was ignored by the Pope, who was the head of the Catholic Church. John refused to allow the Pope’s appointed archbishop, Stephen Langton, to enter England. This resulted in the Pope removing the rights of priests and bishops to conduct church services in England. Langton was eventually allowed to come to England in 1213, and worked with barons in opposing John, leading to the creation of the Magna Carta in 1215.

Battles with France

King John fought several battles with King Philip II over land in France. When he came to the throne, England controlled large amounts of territory in France. However John gradually lost this, including Normandy in 1204. This failure damaged John’s reputation. He was nicknamed ‘softsword’ due to the perception that his military leadership was so weak.

To try and win Normandy back, John needed to raise money. To do this, he increased taxes on the nobility. Despite several attempts to reclaim Normandy, John never succeeded and the failure of his campaign in the 1214 Battle of Bouvines led to further criticism from barons in England. Some barons who refused to pay taxes were imprisoned, along with other members of their families.

In May 1215, a group of barons formed an army in the north of England and travelled south towards London. John had no choice but to offer them talks about changes to the way the country was ruled. He met with the barons at Runnymede, just outside London.

King John and the barons came to an agreement that would take some power away from the king and mean he would have to work more with the barons. This agreement was the Magna Carta, which means ‘Great Charter’ in Latin. It contained a total of 63 different clauses, setting out rules concerning land ownership, taxes and people’s legal rights.

Some of the main points were:

• Someone accused of a crime could not be imprisoned or punished without having a fair trial first.
• The king could not raise new taxes unless he had the agreement of the barons.
• A council of 25 barons was set up to ensure the king followed the rules the charter put in place.

Short term

The Magna Carta was designed as a peace agreement between King John and the barons. It failed to achieve this, and the two sides were at war with each other within three months of it being signed. Historians believe that both sides were unhappy with the 1215 agreement and probably had no intention of sticking to its terms.

John died in 1216 and was succeeded by his son, Henry III, who was nine years old. The Magna Carta was changed and amended, with a final version being agreed and signed with the barons in 1225.

Long term

People have referred back to the Magna Carta at different points in history and some sections of it are still relevant to English law today. The Magna Carta was quoted during the events leading up to the English Civil Wars by those who insisted that citizens should have rights against a powerful ruler. It was also used as a basis for parts of the US constitution in 1788.

The right to a fair trail by jury was outlined in clause 39 of the Magna Carta and is still an important right today. However many rules from the Magna Carta, such as a ban on certain fishing methods and requirements relating to the clothing of monks, are not relevant today. There are four remaining copies of the original Magna Carta document. Two are held by the British library, one is at Salisbury Cathedral and one at Lincoln Cathedral.

In the years following his rule, John was portrayed as being greedy and selfish. Matthew Paris was a 13th century chronicler who was brutal in his criticism of John, saying of his death: ‘Hell itself is made fouler by the presence of John'.

This perception was reinforced by William Shakespeare’s play ‘King John’, which suggested that John had stolen the throne from his nephew and was a weak king. In Disney’s 1973 animated film, Robin Hood, King John is shown as being obsessed with money and power.

Modern historians have re-evaluated John’s rule. Some have praised him for his attempts to make reforms and suggested that he made the best of the problems he faced, arguing that he was in no position to fight a successful war in France. They have also argued that John was unfairly judged by chroniclers in the Middle Ages. Many of these chroniclers, including Matthew Paris, were also monks, and so they may have been biased against John because of the tensions between him and the Church.

Historian W.L. Warren, in his biography of John, said: “A peace policy at the beginning of the new reign was closer to necessity even than to prudence… John’s mustering of forces in 1199 was impressive.”

Many historians now believe that John had strengths and weaknesses as a king. It is their role to evaluate the evidence available to come up with their own interpretation of his reign.

John was a tyrant rather than a king, an oppressor of his own people… owing to his idleness, he had lost Normandy and many other of his territories, and moreover was eager to lose or destroy the kingdom of England; and he was an insatiable extorter of money, and an invader and destroyer of the possessions of his own countrymen.

Matthew Paris was a monk and chronicler who was born c.1200 and died in 1259. He wrote the above quotation in his history of England, Historia Anglorum.

If John is guilty of cruelty, then what of Richard I in 1191 when, following a dispute about the terms upon which Acre had been surrendered, he ordered the killing of 2,700 Muslim prisoners? What of Henry V, who during the battle of Agincourt in 1415 ordered the killing of several thousand French prisoners?

Graham E. Seel is a modern historian who wrote the above quotation in his 2012 book King John: An Underrated King.