His name has passed into legend as a by-word for corrupt government, cruelty and swingeing taxation: ‘Bad King John’. But is this portrayal really accurate? After all, King John ruled the Kingdoms of England and Ireland for almost two decades – does our picture of him rely more on anti-Plantagenet propaganda put about by the power-hungry barons who fought him throughout his rule? There’s no doubt that contemporary chroniclers are seriously unkind to King John, but the brute facts remain: John’s rule saw the break-up of his father’s Angevin empire at the hands of the dynamic King Philip Augustus of France, and his failure to address the resulting political problems in England resulted in baronial dissatisfaction and, ultimately, civil war.

King John engaged in the royal pastime of stag hunting, from a 14th century manuscript (via Britannica)

There are certainly ameliorating factors: the inherent instability of the Angevin project, the failure of King Henry II to juggle the demands of his heirs and to leave a stable succession. And King John would demonstrate some rare qualities: he did not lack for personal courage in warfare, and his administrative skills were considerable in an era before the formation of systematized taxation and bureaucracy. But there can be little doubt that these qualities were outweighed by King John’s personal failings – and they set an inglorious inheritance on the path to total disaster. The early years of King John’s rule in the opening years of the 13th century would see the Angevin Empire stripped of its heartland in Normandy, and King John’s reputation would be stained forever by the murder of his own nephew, Arthur of Brittany.

A Second King Arthur?

In our previous part, we examined how ‘Prince John’, immortalized as the cowardly flea-bitten lion in the 1973 Disney animation Robin Hood, grew up within one of the most dysfunctional royal families in history: with a miserly and jealous father, an overbearing and scheming mother, and two elder brothers who were ravenous for more power; the Plantagenets warred almost constantly with one another. We saw John largely become a pawn of his father – often using political and military force against his brothers. But when he had the chance to exercise power independently, he demonstrated very poor judgment: ineptly wading into the delicately balanced situation in Ireland, behaving with arrogance towards his absent brother’s regents, and forging a very short-sighted and expensive alliance with King Philip Augustus of France. Now, his elder brother King Richard had been laid low, felled by a crossbow bolt shot by a child during the siege of a militarily insignificant castle in Aquitaine as he fought to reverse the French King’s gains. The way to the throne of England was open for John – but even seizing it would be far from simple.

The young Arthur of Brittany pays homage to King Philip II Augustus of France, from the mid-14th century Chronicles of St. Denis. (via Wikimedia Commons)

Although John was the last surviving son of King Henry II, John’s elder brother Geoffrey had enjoyed a fruitful (and more importantly, legitimate) marriage before his untimely death in a tournament accident. Geoffrey had a son called Arthur – known as Arthur of Brittany after the power-based built there by his mother Constance. Arthur was initially acknowledged by King Richard as his regent when he left for the Holy Land in the summer of 1190 CE, and the toddler had been entrusted to the care of a regency council. But, as we saw in Part 1, the conniving John quickly isolated and sidelined the regents, and Arthur’s guardians were forced to flee. Time and again, the savvy King Philip Augustus of France was only too happy to provide sanctuary for the boy, as he had done in previous years for his uncles – these disaffected Angevins were a perennial ace up his sleeve, to be played in order to keep his rival dynasty divided.

When Richard died in April of 1199, the succession was by no means certain. Norman law, which still bore the mark of older Viking traditions, was not set on primogeniture (descent by the eldest son), and recognised the claim of King John as Henry II’s only surviving son. Angevin tradition, on the other hand, recognised Arthur of Brittany as King. But unfortunately, there is a reason why we don’t have a second King Arthur. John moved rapidly to have himself acclaimed as King at Westminster Abbey – his mother Eleanor of Aquitaine was critical in securing the support of many English and Norman nobles. However, on the Continent, things were far more divided: Arthur, backed by King Philip Augustus, received the homage of many nobles within the Angevin lands of Maine, Anjou and his Duchy in Brittany.

A Temporary Peace

War looked inevitable. After his coronation, John quickly crossed the Channel to meet Arthur and Philip’s combined forces – but as John travelled southward, Arthur’s forces began to melt away. Several noble defections to John’s camp set the scene for tense negotiations: John has subsequently drawn much ire from historians who see his desire to make peace (rather than to impose a military defeat) as a critical missed opportunity to prevent the break-up of the Angevin Empire. Instead, under the arbitration of Papal legates, John, Arthur and Philip agreed the Treaty of Le Goulet in May of 1200 CE, in which Philip recognised John as the legitimate King of England and the Angevin French lands (setting aside the claims of Arthur of Brittany), in return for John ending his policy of encircling King Philip in Boulogne and Flanders. One might be forgiven for thinking that this was a significant diplomatic victory for John – but the treaty contained many expensive losses, including many land cessions to Philip and a large payment in silver for his recognition of the Angevin suzerainty over Brittany – and Philip saw this as merely a temporary setback rather than a lasting renunciation of his anti-Angevin project. Within two years, Philip and Arthur would again attempt to break apart the Angevin Empire – and next time, they would succeed, though Arthur would not survive it.

The Angevin Empire (red) and its claimed vassals (pink), and the French monarchy (blue) during the Anvegin collapse in the early 1200s. (via MapsOnTheWeb)

The peace would be extremely shortlived – largely due to John’s intemperance. Within only a handful of months of the signing of the Treaty of Le Goulet, John sought to bring the important County of Angoulême under closer control by marrying Isabella, the daughter of the Count. However, Isabella was barely 12 years of age, and even Medieval audiences would have been horrified by such a prospect. As well, John was already married: he had been married to Isabella of Gloucester by his father Henry II in order to confer the Earldom of Gloucester upon him – and John sought an annulment in order to set his wife aside. Although this was a fairly common practise, it was nevertheless added to the litany of complaints being compiled by the English nobility – which, as we shall see, would result in John’s ruin. As if Isabella’s age and John’s previous marriage were not enough, Isabella was already engaged to Hugh X of Lusignan, the scion of one of the most dangerous families in Medieval France. King John’s bull-headedness in insisting upon this marriage would prove disastrous. Powerful Crusaders and possessing critical swing-regions in Poitou and Normandy, the Lusignans were absolutely not afraid to face up to King John, and they immediately appealed to King Philip Augustus of France for aid. Philip delivered a calculated slap to King John by summoning him to account for his behaviour as he might a feudal inferior, and John, predictably, refused. War again resumed between the two Kingdoms in 1202 CE – and this time, it was for keeps.

Disaster at Mirebeau

King Philip Augustus and Arthur of Brittany wasted no time at all: one gets the impression that they used the two-year lull to prepare non-stop, and they immediately linked up with the Lusignans and other disaffected local nobles to pose a serious threat to the whole of Angevin Normandy. Their campaign was initially highly successful, taking several castles in Normandy (no mean feat in an era when systematic siege warfare was only in its infancy), and they were quickly within striking distance of Mirebeau Castle, where John’s mother the powerful Kingmaker Eleanor of Aquitaine was trapped. Learning of the threat to his mother, John made a lightning-fast march to relieve the Castle, and caught the Lusignan-Breton-French rebel army by surprise. The Battle of Mirebeau was a complete rout for the anti-Angevins, and King John managed to capture many of the leaders of this army, including Hugh Lusignan and John’s own nephew, Arthur of Brittany.

A map showing the lightning-fast march of King John’s forces, which would catch Arthur and the Lusignans by surprise at Mirebeau. (via Wikimedia Commons)

This would be the last time that the rebellious teenager would breathe free air. Demonstrating yet more terrible judgment, rather than treating his prisoners well, John ensured that they were treated so brutally that more than a dozen of the captured nobles died in captivity. John’s allies were already chafing under his overbearing command, and the mistreatment of the nobles (many of whom were blood relations) was the final straw. Although he had won the opening rounds of the conflict military, he was rapidly losing the peace, with further rebellions breaking out across the region. Against the backdrop of a growing Norman Ulcer, King John appears to have taken a fateful decision: to have the young Arthur, Duke of Brittany and John’s own nephew, murdered.

The Prince In The Tower – A Historical Whodunnit?

The imposing keep at Falaise Castle, where Arthur of Brittany was initially imprisoned – with modern Norman re-enactors in the foreground. (via Normandie Tourisme)

The case of the disappearance of Arthur of Brittany is one of the blackest marks against John’s character – amongst a long list of black marks. It remains hotly debated by historians, who span the gamut from believing that Arthur died accidentally, to certainty that King John ordered his death for coldly calculating political reasons. We can be certain only a few facts: that the sixteen-year-old Arthur was captured in the rout at Mirebeau, that John had his transferred quickly to the stronghold at Falaise, Normandy, that he was moved to Rouen the following year, and that after April 1203, Arthur disappears from historical record. There can be little doubt that John absolutely had motive to murder the young Duke: as his nephew by John’s older brother Geoffrey, Arthur posed a direct dynastic threat to John’s position as King. Arthur had already participated actively in several concerted efforts to destabilize John’s rule – and his ‘disappearance’ would remove a serious thorn in his side. The timing of Arthur’s disappearance is also highly suspicious: after the significant victory at Mirebeau, John was hamstrung by the further rebellions and defections (brought on, as we saw, by his own actions), and by late 1203 CE he was fighting a losing battle against King Philip Augustus’ renewed invasion of Normandy. In such circumstances, the desperate murder of a political rival might have seemed a cowardly but effective way to find some breathing room. But motive alone does not conclusively prove King John’s actions.

The Sources

The modern town sign of Ralph’s village of Coggeshall, Essex, which depicts a Cistercian abbot like Ralph. (via Wikiwand)

There are scant few historical sources that allow us to reconstruct the last months of the young Duke, but one lurid event is recounted by Ralph of Coggeshall, an abbott of a Cistercian abbey in Essex. Ralph reports that young Arthur was entrusted to the care of Hubert de Burgh at the Castle in Falaise: de Burgh was one of King John’s ‘new men’, a relatively obscure noble who had risen quickly in his court to become a trusted chamberlain. However, King John soon delivered a grisly order: that he wished Arthur to be blinded and castrated. De Burgh was horrified, and could not in good conscience commit such a shocking act upon a young man in his custody, and so he instead replied to John that Arthur had died of natural causes. Unsurprisingly, this (fake) news quickly leaked to the general public, and there was a furious reaction: especially in Arthur’s Duchy of Brittany, but even amongst John’s die-hard supporters. It is tricky to judge the veracity of this tale: there’s little doubt that Ralph of Coggeshall was far from John’s biggest fan: King John had already sought to abrogate Cistercian power, seizing property and incomes from the order and keeping them for the Crown. On the other hand, Ralph is clearly a careful historian: his Chronicon Anglicanum makes extensive use of first-hand witnesses to the events of John’s reign. Though he was not a close court insider, he is known to have visited Falaise in the early part of John’s reign; this is almost certainly where he heard the tale of Arthur’s attempted emasculation.

Despite rumours to the contrary, Arthur was indeed still alive, and he was later moved to Rouen, the capital of Angevin Normandy. As before, King John entrusted him to another of his ‘new men’ – William de Briouze (sometimes spelled de Braose). By the opening years of the 13th century, de Briouze was a grizzled middle-aged Anglo-Norman lord, who already held significant estates in the Welsh Marches – he had a reputation for violence and cruelty, having massacred his political opponents during a truce at Abergavenny a quarter of a century earlier. It is whilst under de Briouze’s care that Arthur vanished. The only direct textual reference we have to the fate of the King-who-never-was is from a contemporary text known as the Margam Annals, named after the abbey in Wales where they were kept. The Annals recount how King John came to dine with the imprisoned lad at Rouen Castle, and having gotten drunk and possessed by evil demons (“ebrius et daemonio plenus”), the King murdered his nephew himself. Afraid to be discovered, the King then tied Arthur’s body to a stone, and cast it into the River Seine. Later, Arthur’s body was dragged up by a fisherman’s net, and it was taken away for a secret burial in the priory at Bec.

The Suspects

This tale of Arthur’s fate has several plausible features. The ‘Angevin rage’ was well known to contemporaries: all men of the Angevin house were predisposed to the use of personal anger as a political weapon – so much so that it was remarked on by contemporaries as ira et malevolentia (‘rage and ill-will’). This was not merely uncontrollable passionate anger in the sense we might understand it: it was a directed political tool, used to manipulate court political. Knowing what we do of John’s poor judgment and mercurial character, it feels entirely possible that he might have killed Arthur in a drunken fury. After Arthur’s disappearence, William de Briouze began a meteoric rise in King John’s court, receiving a vast assemblage of lands in Anglo-Norman Wales and Ireland. Was William de Briouze being bribed to keep quiet? About five years later in 1208 CE, de Briouze was suddenly stripped of all of his lands and titles: nobody is quite sure why, and it seems likely that it had something to do with the vast debts to the Crown which he had run up.

A later Romantic depiction of John’s murder of Arthur of Brittany. ‘The Murder of Prince Arthur’ by Thomas Welly, engraved 1754 (via Wikimedia Commons)

But the catalyst for this dramatic fall from grace seems to have involved William’s wife Matilda de Briouze making highly indiscreet public comments about the King murdering Arthur of Brittany by his own hand. Matilda’s public accusations seems the most likely source of the Margam Annals’ inclusion of Arthur’s murder by the King – and it is far from an unbiased witness, being made amid the he-said-she-said of the downfall of the de Briouzes. But might it be true? Or might Matilda have been covering up for her husband, who carried out the murder on the King’s orders and was richly rewarded? Regardless, the de Briouzes suffered a most grisly fate at the hands of King John (warning: skip the rest of the paragraph if you aren’t prepared for some Medieval nasties!). William escaped into exile and died not long after, but Matilda and their son were not so lucky. King John had them imprisoned in the dungeon in Corfe Castle, and ordered them given only one sheaf of oats and a single piece of raw bacon. Eleven days later, the gaolers checked on the mother and child, and they found that both had starved to death – but not before Matilda had eaten her own son’s cheeks.

The Legacy

The death of the young Arthur has been incorporated into the black legend of Bad King John, and has proved to be enormously fertile territory for playwrights, novelists and even screenwriters since. Arthur is a key character in William Shakespeare’s history play King John: the Great Bard treats the historical record with a fair degree of creative license; for example, Arthur is portrayed as an innocent child rather than as an active participant. Interestingly, Shakespeare includes Ralph of Coggeshall’s recounted incident of King John ordering Hubert de Burgh to mutilate the boy and Hubert’s horrified refusal. But here Arthur’s death is portrayed as tragic accident: he slips from the castle wall during an escape attempt. However, due to the King’s wicked charatcer, everyone nevertheless assumes that it was John who ordered him murdered. Philip Lindsay’s historical-fiction biographic novel The Devil and King John uses the death of Arthur as a pivotal scene: it is rare amongst portrayals that it gives Arthur a great degree of agency, depicting him as a headstrong and rebellious young man rather than a passive innocent child. Taking cues from the Margam Annals, Arthur is murdered by King John in a fit of blind rage under the influence of drink – although the author has stated that they have no proof that this was the actual course of events. Other notable portrayals of Arthur include the 1950s ITV series The Adventures of Robin Hood, and the 1978 BBC historical epic which follows the lives of the Plantagenet Kings The Devil’s Crown.

The Fall of Normandy

The ruins of the enormous Angevin stronghold at Château Gaillard, which fell to King Philip II Augustus of France in March 1204 CE. (via Wikimedia Commons)

Yet even if John was blameless in the death of his newphew, it would not have mattered. Perhaps Shakespeare had the right of it: regardless of the truth, King John was widely understood as a kin-slayer, and it brought him not one shred of military good fortune. By the winter of 1203, King Philip Augustus had pushed back King John on all fronts, and had dug into a knock-down-drag-out siege of Château Gaillard. If you cast your mind back to Part 1 of our series on King John, we saw King Richard undertake an enormous programme of castle building in the east of Normandy, guarding against precisely this eventuality: a concerted invasion from Philip Augustus. Château Gaillard was the equivalent of a modern aircraft carrier: flagship state-of-the-art military technology, using early concentric walls to create an impenetrable fortress of stone.

But even the mightiest castle could be cut off from supply and starved into submission. King John attempted to relieve the defenders through a remarkably inventive combined-arms strategy involving both land and amphibious forces – but his plan was overly complex, and was swatted aside by Philip. The King of France had used the last years to his best advantage: when his hammer blow landed, the softened-up, disloyal, fragmented nobles in eastern Normandy crumbled. Abandoning the Continent to its fate, King John withdrew across the Channel, giving forlorn orders for the remaining loyal Normans to resist King Philip at all costs, but few obeyed him. In March of 1204, after a gruelling winter and with no hope of relief, Château Gaillard finally surrendered, removing the keystone to the Norman arch, and Philip mopped up the remaining castles in the region with little struggle. Normandy had fallen – and it would remain a possession of the French Crown for another two centuries.

An Unsuitable Dragon-Rider

As if the fall of Angevin possessions in Normandy were not bad enough, John received bitter news but a month after the fall of Château Gaillard. At the age of 80, having been the lynchpin of a generation of European politics, his mother Eleanor of Aquitaine had died. She was laid to rest in Fontevraud Abbey, next to her husband King Henry II, and their son Richard the Lionheart. Although there was little contest that John should inherit the Duchy (which had always been held by Eleanor in her own right), it opened up the prospect of a general collapse of the rest of the Angevin possessions in Contentintal Europe. King Philip, knowing that there would be no better time than the present, wasted no time in marching deep into Anjou and Poitou, which surrendered to him with little resistance. Now, only Aquitaine remained in Angevin hands. The disastrous opening years of King John’s reign saw not quite the complete fragmentation of the Angevin Empire, but a permanent staggering body-blow, from which it would never recover. The seeds sewn by this consequential few years would grow into thorny entanglement which would never truly be settled until the Hundred Years’ War in the following century.

The tomb of Eleanor of Aquitaine at Fontevraud Abbey – Eleanor’s death sealed the fate of the Angevin lands in Europe. (via Forteresse de Chinon)

How much of this can we blame upon King John? To paraphase Karl Marx, men make history – but they do not do so under circumstances of their choosing, rather under historical circumstances transmitted from the past. The Angevin Empire was an enormously heterodox beast, made up of dozens of different and mutually conflicting political cultures and legal structures. King Henry II had only temporarily ridden the dragon by, ironically, never being out of the saddle: an exhausting peripatetic Kingship that was only ever sustained by his limitless energy. Richard had only a shadow of his qualities, and King John had none whatsoever: in the most difficult of circumstances, one cannot imagine a less suitable King than John, with his arbitrary cruelty and constant misjudgments. It is tempting to say that peacetime and stability might have allowed John’s qualities to shine through – but, as we shall, peace only exacerbated John’s foibles, and soon he would add civil war on to inglorious international defeat.

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About Charles J Lockett

Ever since Charles was a lad, he’s been a history obsessive – summer holidays were always spent dragging his family around Welsh castles! He pursued that passion through University, studying Early-Modern Europe and the French Revolutions, receiving his MA in Politics from the University of Sheffield. Nowadays, he is a writer specialising in history and politics, based in Yorkshire, UK. In his spare time, he is a Dungeon Master, aspiring fantasy novelist and cat dad.