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In 1184, King John fought with his brother, Richard (the Lion Heart) over his stubbornness to honour his father's wishes and surrender the duchy of Aquitane to John
During his short but colourful life, John was married twice. His first marriage lasted ten years and it bore him no children. His second marriage to Isabella of Angouleme produced two sons and three daughters. In 1184 John fought with his brother, Richard (the Lion Heart) over his stubbornness to honour his father's wishes and surrender the duchy of Aquitane to John. The following year Henry II sent John to rule Ireland, but in a few short months he had alienated both the indigenous Irish and the displaced Anglo-Normans. John was recalled back to England six months later. After Richard gained the throne in 1189, he gave John vast estates in a failed attempt to placate his younger brother. A quarrel with the Catholic Church resulted in England being placed under an interdict in 1207, with John being excommunicated two years later. The dispute centred on John's stubborn refusal to install the papal candidate, Stephen Langdon, as Archbishop of Canterbury; which was not resolved until John succumbed to the wishes of Pope Innocent III and paid tribute for England as the Pope's vassal. King John proved to be tremendously unpopular with his subjects. He had upset the Irish Lords as well as inflaming his French vassals by sanctioning the murder of his popular nephew, Arthur of Brittany. During the early months of 1205, John lost the last of his French property and the final ten years of his reign were surrounded with failed attempts to regain these properties. New taxes were imposed upon his barons to help pay for these failed attempts. Becoming disgruntled they revolted and captured London in May 1215. At Runnymeade the following June, John bowing to the demands of his barons, the Church, and the English people, signed the Magna Carta. The Magna Carta, although a witness to John’s utter failure as monarch, was in essence the forerunner to today’s English constitution. King John’s hesitation in complying with the Magna Carta compelled the nobles to ask for French assistance. In payment for the help rendered the throne was offered to Philip II's son, Louis. King John died in 1216 during the midst of a French invasion to the south of the country and trying to put down a revolt from his barons in the north. Sir Richard Baker summed up Johns life beautifully in A Chronicle of the Kings of England: ". . . his works of piety were very many . . . as for his actions; he neither came to the crown by justice, nor held it with any honour, nor left it peace."
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John Lackland later to become King John was born in December of 1167. His early youth was divided between his eldest brother house, where he learnt the art of knighthood, and the house of his father's justiciar, Ranulf Glanvil, where he learnt the business of government.
