What Brought About the Signing of the Magna Carta and What Does This Tell Us About the Leadership of King John?

In 1200 John married Isabella of Angoulême. This was a useful move because control of Angoulême would hep John to keep a firm grip on his Angevin empire. But it did not work out. A powerful baron called Hugh, Lord of Lusignan, had already been promised that Isabella would be his wife when she came of age. When Hugh heard that John had married her, he was furious. Hugh demanded compensation from John. He refused so Hugh complained about John’s behaviour to King Philip. Philip ordered John to appear before a French court but he refused, and in 1202, Philip ordered that John should lose his lands in France. Philip made John’s nephew Arthur Lord of Aquitaine, Maine and Anjou and declared war against John. At first John was more successful and managed to capture Arthur. But what happened next did great damage to John’s reputation. He ordered that Arthur be murdered. This murder caused widespread disgust among the barons in England and France.

Things went from bad to worse for John. He lost control of Aquitaine and lost the region of Norway. John spent most of his reign trying to win back these French lands.

John raised a tax called scutage. This was a tax raised by the King when he wanted. Barons would have to provide a certain amount of armed nights of the equivalent amount in money depending on the size of their land. John asked the barons for six times more Scutage than the last two Kings put together. This was not against the law, but it greatly annoyed the barons. He also put Relief tax up. Relief was a tax played for by the Baron’s sons where they played a kind of ‘inheritance tax’. He also sold important positions at court to the highest bidder, ignoring advice, and even to foreigners.

To enforce these taxes, King John ‘invited’ the Baron’s sons to Court. They would not come home if the Barons did not pay their taxes. When at the Court, they were treated like royalty, but if the Baron does not pay up, the King executes their son and strips the Baron of his knighthood.

Kings had to work with Church leaders, not against them. In 1207 the job of Archbishop of Canterbury was vacant. The Pope did not like John’s choice and instead appointed Simon Langton. John was not pleased with the Pope’s choice. He confiscated the land of the Archbishop of Canterbury and banished the monks attached to the Cathedral. The Pope retaliated in 1208 by imposing an interdict on England. This meant that all the churches had to shut. John responded by confiscating the property of any priest who carried out the interdict. In 1209 John was excommunicated from the Catholic Church. This meant that he could not go to church or take part in any church services.

One of John’s ambitions was to regain land in France. In 1206 he had one success in winning back Gascony. He was determined to get Normandy as well. In 1214 he gambled. He gambled. He allied with the Counts of Boulogne and Otto of Brunswick to launch an attack on Poitou to try and win back Normandy. His armies were totally defeated at Bouvines. The result was that he lost credibility as an army leader, and most of the taxes he had raised had been wasted.

John was in a weak position. To him each of his actions so far might have seemed sensible and fair. To others in England they looked like mistakes. They thought that John was either dangerous or incompetent.

Some of the leading barons met to discuss their grievances against John. They decided they needed a charter, agreed by the king that would secure their rights and would control the king. They sent soldiers to occupy London and John was forced to negotiate. On 19th June 1215, at Runnymede near Windsor, Magna Carta was signed.

At the beginning of his reign, John tried to tie all loose ends, as it were. He was unlucky. His marriage with Isabella of Angoulême, that would have been very useful in controlling his Angevin empire, fell through. He tried to recapture Normandy, but was totally defeated. All of these were good ideas, but they just didn’t work out. King John’s leadership was a failure; he alienated his barons, and got excommunicated by the Pope. But despite all these negative things, King John’s reign was so important because of the Magna Carta. Not only was this the first time that the King’s power had been limited, but the whole of our judicial system that we know the day he based on the Magna Carta. I think that King John’s leadership should not be remembered for his failures, but for the impact on life that we know today.