The reign falls naturally into three periods; the years in which John waged a losing war with the King of France (1199-1206), the quarrel with the Pope (1206-13), the great struggle of John with the barons (1213-16).
The first seven years were for England comparatively uneventful, except in the gradual deepening of disgust with John and all his ways. The continental dominions were ripe for losing, and John precipitated the catastrophe by his injustice and dilatoriness. The ease with which Normandy was lost shows something more than the incapacity of the King as a ruler and leader—John Softsword as contemporary writers contemptuously call him. It shows that the feudal army of Normandy had come to regard the English Sovereign as an alien monarch, and refused to fight in support of the rule of a foreigner. The unwillingness of the English nobles to succour John actively has also its significance. The descendants of the men who helped William I. to conquer England had now lost all interest in the land from which they came. They were now purely English landowners, and very different from the original Norman baronage whose interests, like their estates, had been equally divided on both sides of the Channel.
The death of Archbishop Hubert Walter in July, 1205, deprived King John of the services of the most experienced statesman in England. It did more, for it marked the termination of the long friendship between the English Crown and the National Church. Its immediate effect was to create a vacancy, the filling of which led to a bitter quarrel with Rome.
John failed, as usual, to recognize the merits of abler men, and saw in the death of his great Justiciar and Archbishop only the removal of an unwelcome restraint, and the opening to the Crown of a desirable piece of patronage. He prepared to strain to the utmost his rights in the election of a successor to the See of Canterbury, in favour of one of his own creatures, a certain John de Grey, already by royal influence Bishop of Norwich. Unexpected opposition to his will was offered by the canons of the Cathedral Church, who determined on a bold policy, namely, to turn their nominal right of canonical election into a reality, and to appoint their own nominee, without waiting either for the King’s approval or the co-operation of the suffragan bishops of the Province, who, during the last three vacancies, had put forth a claim to participate in the election, and had invariably used their influence on behalf of the King’s nominee. Reginald, the sub-prior, was secretly elected by the monks, and hurried abroad to obtain confirmation at Rome before the appointment was made public. Reginald’s vanity prevented his keeping his pledge of secrecy, and a rumour reached the ear of John, who brought pressure to bear on the monks, now frightened at their own temerity, and secured de Grey’s appointment in a second election. The Bishop of Norwich was actually enthroned at Canterbury, and invested by the King with the temporalities of the See. All parties now sent representatives to Rome. This somewhat petty squabble benefited none of the original disputants; for the astute Innocent III. was quick to see an opportunity for papal aggrandisement. Both elections were set aside by decree of the Papal Curia, and the emissaries of the various parties were coerced or persuaded to appoint there and then in the Pope’s presence the Pope’s own nominee, a certain Cardinal, English-born, but hitherto little known in England, Stephen Langton by name, destined to play an important part in the future history of the land of his birth.
John refused to view this triumph of papal arrogance in the light of a compromise—the view diplomatically suggested by Innocent. The King, with the hot blood common to his race, and the bad judgment peculiar to himself, rushed headlong into a quarrel with Rome which he was incapable of carrying to a successful issue. The details of the struggle, the interdicts and excommunications hurled by the Pope, and John’s measures of retaliation against the unfortunate English clergy, need not be discussed, since they do not directly affect the main plot which culminated at Runnymede.
John was not without some measure of sagacity of a selfish and short-sighted sort, but was completely devoid of far-seeing statecraft. One day he was to reap the fruits of this quarrel in bitter humiliation and in the defeat of his most cherished aims; but, for the moment, the breach with Rome seemed to lead to a triumph for the King. The papal encroachments furnished him with a suitable pretext for confiscating the property of the clergy. Thus his Exchequer was amply replenished, while he was able for a time to conciliate his most inveterate opponents, the Northern barons, by remitting during several years the hated burden of a scutage, which, in other periods of his reign, tended to become a yearly imposition. John had no intention, however, to forego his right to resume the practice of annual scutages whenever it suited him to do so. On the contrary, he executed a measure intended to make them more remunerative in the future. This was the great Inquest of Service ordered on 1st June, 1212.[[4]]
During these years, however, John temporarily relaxed the pressure on his feudal tenants. His doing so failed to gain back any of their goodwill, while he broadened the basis of future resistance by shifting his oppressions to the clergy and through them to the poor.
Some incidents of the autumn of 1212 require brief notice, as well from their own inherent interest as because they find an echo in the words of Magna Carta. Serious trouble had arisen with Wales. Llywelyn (who had married John’s natural daughter Joan, and had consolidated his power under protection of the English King) now seized the occasion to cross the border, while John was preparing his schemes for a new continental expedition. The King changed his plans, and prepared to lead his troops to Wales instead of France. A muster was summoned for September at Nottingham, and John went thither to meet them. Before tasting meat, as we are told in Roger of Wendover’s graphic narrative, he hanged twenty-eight Welsh hostages, boys of noble family, whom he held as sureties that Llywelyn would keep the peace.[[5]]
Almost immediately thereafter, two messengers arrived simultaneously from Scotland and from Wales with unexpected tidings. John’s daughter, Joan, and the King of Scots, each independently warned him that his English barons were prepared to revolt, under shelter of the Pope’s absolution from their allegiance, and either to slay him or betray him to the Welsh. The King dared not afford them so good an opportunity. In a panic he disbanded the feudal levies; and, accompanied only by his mercenaries, moved slowly back to London.[[6]]
Two of the barons, Robert Fitz-Walter, afterwards the Marshal of the army which, later on, opposed John at Runnymede, and Eustace de Vesci, showed their knowledge of John’s suspicions (if they did not justify them) by withdrawing secretly from his Court and taking to flight. The King caused them to be outlawed in their absence, and thereafter seized their estates and demolished their castles.[[7]]