Divorced, Beheaded, Died: The History of Britain's Kings and Queens in Bite-Sized Chunks by Kevin Flude Read Free Book Online

England. The Third Crusade failed to recapture Jerusalem, but Richard did manage to conquer Cyprus and Acre and proved a worthy rival to the great Saladin. He was ruthless in victory: after the siege of Acre Richard had 2,700 Muslim prisoners of war slaughtered.
    Meanwhile, in England, trouble was brewing due to the arrogance of Richard’s deputy, William Longchamp, and the intrigues of Richard’s younger brother John, who was rallying support for his own cause, and Philip II of France, who was preparing to invade Normandy. So, in 1192, Richard hastily concluded peace with Saladin and set off for home. But on the way he was captured by Leopold of Austria and sold to the Holy Roman Emperor. A huge ransom was demanded, despite the Pope excommunicating the captors. The sum was eventually raised, through heavy taxation of his English subjects, and although both John and Philip II offered the captors money to keep Richard imprisoned, he was released and returned to England in 1194 to be triumphantly recrowned. He almost immediately left again, to win back territories from the French. He succeeded in this, but in 1199 he was wounded in the arm by an arrow at the siege of Chalus and died of an infection. He had no children by his wife, Berengaria of Navarre, leaving his brother John as his successor. He had two illegitimate children.

    K ING J OHN
    Reigned 1199–1216
    ‘Foul as it is, Hell itself is defiled by the fouler presence of John,’ wrote a thirteenth-century monk. John was a deeply unpopular monarch, nicknamed ‘Lackland’ and ‘Softsword’, whose disastrous reign lost England most of the French territories his father and brother had defended so fiercely and also ended with civil war.
    John was born in 1166 at Beaumont Palace in Oxford, the youngest son of the formidable Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine. Attempts to find the young prince lands to rule led to war with his brother Richard over Aquitaine, failure as Lord of Ireland and eventually to the betrayal of his own father. Later, Prince John conspired to seize the throne from Richard, and although his attempts failed, John finally became king when Richard died in 1199.
    King John divorced his childless first wife and married Isabella of Angoulême, a marriage designed to knit his French territories together. Unfortunately, she was already betrothed to a French nobleman, Hugh de Lusignan. Outraged, Hugh appealed to King Philip II of France. When John ignored a summons to appear before him, Philip declared that John’s French lands were forfeit. In the war that followed, John had some early success, capturing the Lusignans and his own nephew Arthur of Brittany, who was imprisoned and murdered. But the murder lost John the valuable support of many French nobles and he was forced to abandon his campaign and flee to England, although an expedition to Poitou in 1206 saved Aquitaine for the English Crown.
    John spent the next eight years amassing money to renew his campaign to win back his French territories, antagonizing the English with his rapacious demands and heavy taxation. When John disputed Pope Innocent III’s choice of Stephen Langton as Archbishop of Canterbury, the Pope banned all church services and Christian burials in England and John was excommunicated in 1209. In 1212 the Pope declared him deposed. Facing a revolt from his disgruntled barons and an attack by Philip II, John was forced to reconcile with the Pope, whom he acknowledged as England’s overlord.
    In 1214 John launched his big attack to win back his French lands. With the Pope’s help, he orchestrated a coalition with Otto IV of Germany and Count Ferrand of Flanders, but it was decisively defeated at the Battle of Bouvines. This was a disaster. In losing Brittany, Normandy, Maine, Anjou and Touraine, John had undone one hundred years of successful empire-building. With his position so greatly weakened, the rebellious barons forced the King to sign the Magna Carta in 1215 at Runnymede,