John of England
John ruled England from 1199 to 1216, lost Normandy, and was forced to seal Magna Carta. Born in 1166, he was the youngest son of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, and was nicknamed Lackland because there was no territory left to give him. He rebelled against his father, and plotted against his brother Richard I while Richard was on crusade and in captivity, for which Richard forgave him. He succeeded in 1199 against the rival claim of his nephew Arthur of Brittany, who was captured in 1202 and disappeared; John was widely believed to have killed him, which cost him support among his continental barons. He lost Normandy, Anjou, Maine and Touraine to Philip Augustus by 1204 — the inheritance his family had held for a century — and spent the next decade taxing England to fund an attempt to recover them, which ended at Bouvines in 1214. He quarrelled with Innocent III over the appointment of Stephen Langton to Canterbury. England was placed under interdict for six years and John was excommunicated; he seized church revenues, and then in 1213 submitted entirely, surrendering the kingdom to the pope and receiving it back as a fief. His government was administratively effective and personally arbitrary — he sold justice, exploited feudal incidents, imprisoned hostages, and starved a noblewoman and her son to death. The barons rose and at Runnymede in June 1215 forced him to seal Magna Carta, limiting arbitrary imprisonment and taxation. He obtained papal annulment within weeks, and civil war followed. He died of dysentery in October 1216, having lost his baggage in the Wash.
- Lived: 1166 CE – 1216 CE
- Nationality: English
- Roles: king, head_of_state
