Kingdom of England

Who rules

Name

John (Johannes rex Anglie; called Lackland, Jean sans Terre)

Title

King of England, lord of Ireland, duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, count of Anjou (his style from 1199; Aquitaine is in fact his mother's)

Since

Richard I died at Chalus on 6 April 1199. John was invested as duke at Rouen on 25 April 1199, landed at Shoreham on 25 May and was crowned at Westminster by Archbishop Hubert Walter on Ascension Day, 27 May 1199.

Born

24 December 1166 at Oxford (some sources give 1167). He turned 33 a week before play begins.

Family

Youngest son of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine. Mother: Eleanor, in her late seventies, duchess of Aquitaine in her own right, living in Poitou and at Fontevraud. Living sister: Eleanor, queen of Castile, mother of Blanche. His sister Joan, countess of Toulouse, died at Fontevraud in September 1199. Half-brothers (Henry II's bastards): Geoffrey, archbishop of York; William Longespee, earl of Salisbury by his marriage to Ela (1196); Morgan, a clerk. Nephews: Arthur of Brittany (born 29 March 1187, aged 12) and his sister Eleanor; Otto IV, the Welf king of the Romans. Brother's widow: Queen Berengaria of Navarre.

Confidence

high

Wife: none in practice on 1 January 1200. His marriage of 29 August 1189 at Marlborough to Isabella (also called Hawise), heiress of the earl of Gloucester, was within the forbidden degrees (both were great-grandchildren of Henry I) and never had a papal dispensation. After his accession he had it declared void for consanguinity by bishops of his own lands in Normandy and Aquitaine, not by the pope. Most accounts place the sentence in 1199; the day is not pinned, and some say only that it was done by the spring of 1200.

Isabella went back into royal wardship and John kept her honour of Gloucester in his own hand (see the esw records); she is not his queen and was never crowned. He has no legitimate child. Natural children, born before or during the first marriage: Joan (born perhaps about 1191, later Llywelyn's wife), Richard (later of Chilham, son of Adela de Warenne, a daughter of Earl Hamelin), Geoffrey, Oliver and others; their ages are not pinned.

The heir in dispute is Arthur of Brittany, son of John's elder brother Geoffrey, who is in Philip Augustus's keeping. English and Norman opinion took John in 1199; Breton and Angevin custom preferred Arthur.

Overlord

None for England, which John holds as a crown under God. For Normandy, Anjou, Maine and Touraine he is the vassal of Philip II of France, but on 1 January 1200 he has not done liege homage nor paid relief: that comes at Le Goulet on 22 May 1200. The lordship of Ireland is his own dominion (see the irl records).

What the realm holds

• The shires of England, each under a sheriff who answers at the Exchequer for its farm, the profits of justice and the custody of royal castles and escheats (see each shire record)
• The king's demesne: Westminster, the Tower of London, Windsor, Winchester, Woodstock, Clarendon, Nottingham, York and the other royal castles, palaces, manors and boroughs (the ese, esw, emd and eno demesne records)
• The royal forests under forest law: Essex, Windsor, the New Forest, Dean, Sherwood, Rockingham, Pickering and the rest, under the chief forester Hugh de Neville
• Honours in the king's hand: Gloucester (Isabella's, kept since the annulment), Lancaster, Peverel of Nottingham, Tickhill, Eye, Wallingford, Rayleigh, Berkhamsted and others as they stood (see the regional demesne records)
• The palatine earldom of Chester (realm chester) and the liberty of Durham, where the king's writ runs only through the earl or the bishop
• Overlordship of the Welsh princes and the royal castles in the March (see the wal records)
• The lordship of Ireland (see the irl records)
• The Channel Islands, Normandy, Anjou, Maine and Touraine, and Aquitaine through his mother (see the France map)

How it was acquired

Inherited from Richard I in April 1199 by the choice of the English and Norman barons, against the claim of Arthur. Hubert Walter, William Marshal and Geoffrey FitzPeter secured England for John; they took the barons' oaths at Northampton in April 1199 on the promise that each would have his rights.

Allies and rivals

Allies: his mother Eleanor; Hubert Walter; Geoffrey FitzPeter; William Marshal; William de Braose; the Norman baronage almost entire; Otto IV; Baldwin of Flanders until 2 January. Rivals: Philip Augustus; Arthur and the Breton party; William the Lion over the northern counties; Archbishop Geoffrey of York, his own half-brother, who quarrels with the crown over Yorkshire; the other Welsh princes (see the wal records). At peace with him: Gwenwynwyn of Powys, beaten at Painscastle in August 1198, made his peace with John in 1199; Maelgwn ap Rhys has been the king's client since he sold him Cardigan castle about 22 July 1199.

The realm that morning

England is at peace inside its borders and loyal. The king is overseas and the justiciar rules. No castle in England is held against the king. The northern counties are English in fact; the Scots claim them in law. Wales and the March raid each other. Ireland is the irl researcher's. Money is the strain: two years of war have been paid for by scutage, tallage and fines, and more will be asked in 1200.

Wealth

Wool sold to the Flemish cloth towns; tin from the stannaries of Devon and Cornwall; lead from the Peak and the Mendips; salt from Droitwich and Cheshire; the great fairs (Boston, St Ives, St Giles at Winchester, Northampton); the London trade in wine, cloth and furs. The Exchequer draws on the sheriffs' farms, the profits of justice and the forest, scutage and tallage, the Jews, wardships, marriages and reliefs, and vacant bishoprics. No figures given here.

Military

The feudal host and castle-guard; the household knights; paid troops under captains (Mercadier, Lupescar, Martin Algais and others serve in France); the ship service of the Cinque Ports; the royal castles, Dover above all in the south-east. In the field in 1199 the army is in Normandy and Maine, not in England.

Threats

• Philip Augustus and Arthur on the Norman march (see the France map)
• The truce expires on 13 January 1200
• William the Lion's claim to the northern counties, with talk of war if John refuses
• The Welsh princes on the March and Llywelyn's rise in Gwynedd (wal records)
• The war of kings in Connacht and the quarrels of the English lords in Ireland (irl records)
• Money: the cost of the war, and resentment of scutage and overseas service
• Elections and appeals to Rome (Worcester, Hereford, St Davids, Lambeth)
• Archbishop Geoffrey of York, the king's half-brother, at odds with the crown

Officers

Chief justiciar: Geoffrey FitzPeter, since 11 July 1198, earl of Essex since 27 May 1199; he also keeps the Tower of London and is sheriff of Yorkshire. Chancellor: Hubert Walter, archbishop of Canterbury, since 27 May 1199; the clerks of the chancery travel with the king and the seal goes where John goes. Treasurer: William of Ely, since 1196, at the Exchequer of Westminster and the treasury at Winchester. Chamberlains of the Exchequer: two hereditary offices, held in these years by the Mauduit family and by Warin FitzGerald (not re-checked for this winter).

King's chamberlain in the household: Hubert de Burgh, in John's service since before 1198. Master chamberlain of England (hereditary, at coronations): Aubrey de Vere, earl of Oxford. Steward: the hereditary high stewardship is claimed by Robert, earl of Leicester; the household stewards of that winter are not pinned. Marshal: William Marshal, earl of Pembroke, master marshal by inheritance since his brother John's death in 1194.

Constable: Henry de Bohun, hereditary constable (he becomes earl of Hereford on 28 April 1200, not yet). Chief butler (hereditary, at coronations): William d'Aubigny, earl of Arundel. Chief forester: Hugh de Neville, since 1198, also sheriff of Essex and Hertfordshire. Barons of the Exchequer and justices of the Bench at Westminster: the justiciar presides with the treasurer and chamberlains; the justices who sit at Westminster in 1199-1200 include Simon of Pattishall, Richard of Herriard, Osbert FitzHervey and Geoffrey of Buckland (the full board that winter is not pinned).

Keepers of the Jews: names for that winter not pinned. Warden of the stannaries of Devon and Cornwall: William of Wrotham, appointed by Hubert Walter in 1197, also sheriff of Devon and Cornwall in 1198-99; he loses the stannaries and the shrievalty during 1200 after a dispute with Hugh Bardolf, and is later restored (see esw).

Court winter 1199 in 1200

John and his household are in Normandy. He crossed after the coronation (late June 1199) and stays on the continent until late February 1200 (the day of the crossing is not pinned here). Where he kept Christmas 1199 is not pinned in the sources checked; the France map treats it as the campaign's call among the Norman residences (Rouen, Caen, Bur near Bayeux, Argentan, Falaise). In England the government sits at Westminster: the justiciar, the Exchequer (whose great sessions are at Easter and Michaelmas) and the Bench.

Hubert Walter's whereabouts on 1 January are not pinned.

Treaties and truces

• Truce with Philip II, agreed in the autumn of 1199 and running to about 13 January 1200; in force on 1 January. A papal-sponsored meeting between the kings follows in mid-January 1200 (France map).
• Alliance with Count Baldwin IX of Flanders, made with Richard and renewed with John in 1199: Baldwin makes his own peace with Philip at Peronne on 2 January 1200, the day after play begins.
• Kinship alliance with Otto IV, John's nephew, who wants Richard's legacy paid; John is slow to pay.
• Scotland: the Quitclaim of Canterbury (1189) freed William the Lion from the feudal subjection of 1174. William claims Northumberland, Cumberland and Westmorland and sent envoys after John's accession; John has put him off and no settlement exists. William does homage to John for his English lands at Lincoln on 22 November 1200 (not yet).
• Wales: no general peace. Gwenwynwyn of Powys was beaten at Painscastle in August 1198; the princes' dealings with John are in the wal records.

Rome and the Church

Innocent III is pope. No sentence lies on John or England; the interdict decreed in December 1199 falls on Philip's lands over Ingeborg, not on John's. The points of friction are elections and money: the Worcester election of Mauger, the king's physician, which Innocent quashed for illegitimacy; the vacant see of Hereford (since 24 December 1198); St Davids, where the chapter chose Gerald of Wales against Hubert Walter and the crown; Hubert Walter's college of canons at Lambeth, which his own Christ Church monks fought and Innocent ordered pulled down; Queen Berengaria's dower and pension, which John is not paying and which Innocent will later press him to pay under threat of interdict; Richard's legacy to Otto IV, which Otto wants paid; and the crusade fortieth on clerical income ordered at the end of December 1199, which English clergy will be asked to pay in 1200.

Hubert Walter as chancellor is a bishop in secular office, which Innocent dislikes.

Coinage

The short-cross silver penny, introduced by Henry II in 1180, still struck in Henry's name (HENRICVS REX) under Richard and John; sterling is the only coin in England. Most of the striking is done at London and Canterbury. John's great recoinage comes in 1205, not yet.

Scutage and host

The host is raised by knight service from the barons' fees (their returns of 1166, the Cartae Baronum, are the register). Many commute service to scutage. John took a scutage in 1199, his first, for the war in Normandy (rate on the Pipe Roll of 1 John). Overseas service is resented: at Oxford in December 1197 Bishop Hugh of Lincoln refused Richard's demand for it. Every freeman is bound by Henry II's Assize of Arms (1181) to keep arms suited to his wealth.

A carucage, a tax on ploughlands, is levied after John returns in the spring of 1200 (not yet).

Jewry

The Jews are the king's own, under his protection and taxed at his will. Since the ordinance of 1194 their loans are recorded in chirograph chests (archae) kept in the chief towns and supervised by the Exchequer of the Jews at Westminster. In 1199 John named Jacob of London presbyter of the Jews of England, the first known holder of that office, and gave him a safe-conduct. The great general charter to the Jews is dated 10 April 1201: not yet.

The coronation riot in London (September 1189) and the York massacre (March 1190) are within living memory. In the south-east the communities are London (the largest), Canterbury and Colchester.

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

In 1200

1. 13 January 1200The truce with Philip runs out. Talks follow in mid-January between Les Andelys and Le Goulet, where the heads of peace are agreed.Depends on: Both kings wanting peace Stopped by: Either king raising his price, or a new campaign
2. 20 January 1200Odo, abbot of Battle, dies; the abbey's patronage falls to the king (GM Church notes).Depends on: Natural death Stopped by: Nothing likely
3. Late February 1200 (day not pinned here)John crosses to England. He orders a carucage on ploughlands, takes money from boroughs and individuals for charters and favours, and goes north to York in late March to meet William the Lion, who does not come.Depends on: The peace talks holding in Normandy Stopped by: A French attack on the march
4. Spring 1200Archbishop Geoffrey of York forbids the carucage in his lands; John seizes his estates. The quarrel runs on through 1200.Depends on: The carucage Stopped by: John not taxing, or Geoffrey yielding
5. 28 April 1200Henry de Bohun, the hereditary constable, is made earl of Hereford.Depends on: John's favour Stopped by: John changing his mind
6. Late April or early May 1200John crosses back to Normandy.Depends on: The peace negotiations Stopped by: Trouble in England or Scotland
7. 22 May 1200Treaty of Le Goulet: John does liege homage to Philip, pays a relief and cedes Evreux and the Norman Vexin; Philip recognises him as Richard's heir and drops Arthur, who is to hold Brittany of John. Louis marries Blanche of Castile on 23 May.Depends on: Both kings willing to settle Stopped by: A player breaking either king's will to settle
8. During 1200 (not pinned)Mauger, the king's physician elected to Worcester, goes to Rome in person; Innocent dispenses him from his illegitimacy and consecrates him himself.Depends on: Mauger's appeal and the pope's goodwill Stopped by: Innocent holding to the quashing
9. 2 June 1200John of Oxford, bishop of Norwich, dies (GM Church notes).Depends on: Natural death Stopped by: Nothing likely
10. 24 August 1200John marries Isabella of Angouleme, aged about twelve, against her betrothal to Hugh IX of Lusignan (at Angouleme by the usual account; some sources say Bordeaux).Depends on: John's choice and the count of Angouleme's consent Stopped by: John choosing another bride
11. September 1200Hubert Walter holds a provincial council in London (at Westminster) that issues fourteen canons on doctrine, church finance and clerical duties.Depends on: The archbishop's will Stopped by: A quarrel with the king or with Rome
12. Early October 1200; 8 October 1200John returns to England with Isabella, who is crowned at Westminster on 8 October.Depends on: The August marriage Stopped by: No marriage
13. 16 November 1200Hugh, bishop of Lincoln, dies in London; John helps carry his bier at Lincoln.Depends on: Natural death Stopped by: Nothing likely
14. 22 November 1200William the Lion does homage to John at Lincoln for his English lands; the claim to the northern counties is put off again.Depends on: Peace with Scotland Stopped by: War over the northern counties

Later, on the likely course

1. 10 April 1201 (after the turn of the year)General charter to the Jews of England.Depends on: John's need of the Jews' money Stopped by: Nothing likely

Places of note

• Palace of Westminster: the Exchequer and the Bench: Seat of the justiciar's government while the king is overseas
• Tower of London: Royal castle and treasury store, kept by the justiciar
• Dover castle: The key of England on the short crossing to Wissant

Where the sources disagree

• GM Church notes (Part 8, section 6) say the date of the annulment of John's first marriage is ruled in the main notes. The sources checked (Wikipedia on Isabella of Gloucester and on John, and the France map's John record) put it in 1199, by bishops of Normandy and Aquitaine, without a day, and some say only that it was done by the spring of 1200. The GM's own ruling should stand; nothing found contradicts 'being voided by his own Norman and Aquitanian bishops'.
• The brief speaks of Cinque Ports charters of 1199. We could not confirm their dates from the sources we could reach; see the Dover and Hastings records.

Evidence: Thick for the coronation, the officers who were famous (FitzPeter, Hubert Walter, William of Ely, the Marshal) and the London charters of 1199; fair for the court's place that winter and the lesser officers; thin for Christmas 1199, the household stewards and the barons of the Exchequer that winter.

Primary sources for this realm

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

• Chronicle of Jocelin of Brakelond, Jocelin of Brakelond (about 1198 to 1203). An inside account of Bury St Edmunds under Abbot Samson, written while the events were fresh. Read online
• Chronicle of Melrose, Anonymous (monks of Melrose abbey) (about 1173 to 1270, in many hands; the 1200 entries are near contemporary). The main Scottish annal for the year, kept at a Cistercian house on the Tweed. Read online
• Chronicle of Roger of Howden, Roger of Howden (about 1192 to 1201). The fullest single narrative for the year. Read online
• Chronicle of the Princes, Anonymous (Welsh translation of a lost Latin chronicle kept at Strata Florida) (Latin original to about 1282, compiled from contemporary annals; Welsh versions about 1300 and later). The native Welsh record of the year. Read online
• Chronicle; Deeds of the Kings, Gervase of Canterbury (Chronica about 1188 to 1199; Gesta Regum about 1199 to 1210). The Chronica stops in 1199, so for 1200 the witness is the briefer Gesta Regum, which notes John's peace with Philip, the coronation of Isabella at Westminster on 8 October 1200, and matters touching Canterbury: the archbishop Hubert Walter as chancellor, the cathedral priory's quarrel with him, and the Lambeth college dispute lately settled by the pope. Read online
• English Chronicle of Ralph of Coggeshall, Ralph of Coggeshall (about 1200 to 1224, in stages). Short but independent entries for 1200 from a Cistercian house in Essex: John's levy on the Cistercians and the carucage, the peace with Philip, the king's new marriage and the queen's coronation, and the death of Hugh of Lincoln. Read online
• Flowers of History, Roger of Wendover (about 1220 to 1235 at St Albans). For 1200 Wendover is mostly Howden rewritten, so he is a second witness only where he adds St Albans material: a long account of Hugh of Lincoln's last months, death and funeral, and anecdotes about John's conduct toward the Cistercians and his new queen. Read online
• Images of History, Ralph de Diceto (about 1188 to 1202). A London view of the year from the dean of St Paul's, who knew the justiciar and the bishops personally. Read online
• Monastic Annals (Margam, Tewkesbury, Burton, Winchester, Waverley, Dunstable, Bermondsey, Worcester, Osney) (12th to 14th centuries). Nine sets of house annals, each with a short entry for 1200. Read online
• Universal Chronicle of the Anonymous of Laon, Anonymous (an English-born canon of Laon) (about 1219). A Picard chronicle whose author had lived in England and keeps an eye on both kingdoms. Read online
• History of English Affairs, William of Newburgh (about 1196 to 1198). Ends in 1198, so it gives no 1200 entries of its own; the Stanley continuation has only a line or two for 1200. Read online
• The History of William Marshal, Anonymous (a poet called John, writing for the Marshal family) (about 1224 to 1226). A knight's view of the Angevin succession: the council at Vaudreuil in April 1199 where the Marshal and Hubert Walter argued for John over Arthur, the Marshal's crossing to secure England, John's coronation, and the Marshal's part in Normandy in 1199 and 1200 as holder of Longueville and Orbec and a go-between with Philip. Read online

18 more in the sources library for The British Isles.