1199. Arthur, son of John’s elder and deceased brother Geoffrey, recognized as Richard’s successor in Anjou, Maine, and Touraine.
1202. Arthur besieged his grandmother, Queen Eleanor, in the castle of Mirabeau. John raised the siege, and captured his nephew, whom he is supposed to have murdered.
1203. John, being summoned by Philip II. of France, his lord superior, to answer for the death of Arthur, refused to attend his court, and was declared to have forfeited all his lands in France.
1204. Philip II. conquered Normandy. Before the close of the next year, all the English possessions except Aquitaine fell into the hands of the French.
1205. Death of Hubert, archbishop of Canterbury.
1206. John invaded France, and after some successes consented to a two years’ truce.
1207. Stephen Langton appointed archbishop of Canterbury by the pope. This led to a serious quarrel between the king and pope, as the former refused to recognize the archbishop.
1208. The king granted the citizens of London liberty to appoint a mayor every year. The pope laid England under an interdict.
The object of the interdict was to induce John to acknowledge the archbishop. When a country was laid under an interdict the churches were closed, no bells tolled, and all public ecclesiastical functions ceased, except confession, the baptism of infants, and the sacrament of the dying. The bodies of the dead lay unburied, or were interred in unconsecrated ground without any prayer or service of the priest.