"JOHN OF ENGLAND (nicknamed Lackland), King of England, Lord of Ireland, Duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, Count of Anjou, youngest son, born at Oxford about 27 Dec. 1166. In 1173 he was contracted to marry Alice of Maurienne, eldest daughter of Humbert III, Count of Maurienne and Savoy, Marquis of Italy. This marriage scheme failed when his older brother, Henry, as count of Anjou, refused their father's proposal to give John the castles of Chinon, Loudun, and Mirebeau. In 1174 it was agreed that John should have Nottingham and Marlborough Castles in England and certain castles and rents in France. In 1177 his father declared him King of Ireland, and arranged his succession to the earldom of Gloucester. In March 1185 his father knighted him at Windsor, and sent him to govern Ireland. John treated the Irishmen with such insolence, they deserted the English cause and kept the Kings of Limerick, Cork, and Connacht from coming to do fealty to him. He was recalled from Ireland by his father in Sept. 1185. His father's continued favor to him contributed to the rebellion of John's older brother, Richard, though at the end of Henry's reign, John deserted his father to support Richard. On Richard's accession as king in 1189, he made John Count of Mortain in Normandy, and granted him the castles and honours of Marlborough, Ludgershall, Lancaster, Bolsover, and the Peak, the town of Nottingham, the honours of Tickhill and Wallingford, and the county of Derby, with the honour of Peverel. John married (1st) at Marlborough, Wiltshire 29 August 1189 ISABEL OF GLOUCESTER, Countess of Gloucester, lady of Glamorgan, youngest daughter and co-heiress of William Fitz Robert, Earl of Gloucester, by Hawise, daughter of Robert de Beaumont, 2nd Earl of Leicester [see GLOUCESTER 4 for her ancestry]. Baldwin, Archbishop of Canterbury, protested against the marriage, John and Isabel being related in the 3rd degree of kindred. They had no issue. He was present at the Coronation of his brother, King Richard I, in Sept. 1189. By the end of 1189, John was further granted the counties of Dorset, Somerset, Devon, and Cornwall, with all rights of jurisdiction. In 1191, while Richard was on crusade, John broke his promise not to enter England during Richard's absence, and, on learning of Richard's imprisonment in Germany, attempted unsuccessfully to seize control of England. On Richard's return in 1193, John was deprived of his English lands and excommunicated. In May 1193 Richard and John were reconciled by the mediation of the queen- mother. In 1195 Richard granted him the county of Mortain, the honour of Eye, and earldom of Gloucester. In the beginning of April 1199, as Richard was dying, he named John his successor in England and all his dominions. On the death of Richard, 6 April 1199, John ascended the throne and was crowned King of England at Westminster Abbey 27 May 1199. In 1199 he obtained a divorce from his wife, Isabel, on grounds of consanguinity. She was subsequently kept a state prisoner until 1214.* John married (2nd) at Bordeaux 24 August 1200 ISABEL OF ANGOULÊME, daughter and heiress of Adémar (or Aitnar) Ill Taillefer, Count of Angoulême, by Alice (or Alaïs, Alaidis), daughter of Pierre of France, seigneur of Courtenay, Montargis, and Châteaurenard (younger son of Louis VI,King of France). She was born in 1188, and was previously contracted to marry Hugues IX le Brun (died Nov. 1219), Count of La Marche, seigneur of Lusignan and Couhé. She was crowned queen 8 October 1200. They had five children (see below). By various mistresses, King John had a large number of illegitimate children, including nine sons, Richard, Knt., Oliver, John, Geoffrey, Henry, Knt., Osbert Giffard, Eudes (or Ives), Bartholomew (clerk), and possibly Philip, and four daughters, Joan, ___, Maud [Abbessof Barking], and allegedly Isabel. War with France followed John's refusal to appear in 1202 before King Philippe Auguste of France concerning the grievance of the Lusignans. At first John was successful in defending his French lands, capturing his nephew, Arthur of Brittany, in August 1202, but, in 1204, he lost Normandy, Anjou, Maine, and Touraine to the French king. For the next ten years, John resided almost permanently in England (the first such Angevin king) and attempted to restore his finances for further warfare in France by determined taxation and exploitation of his feudal prerogatives (later the basis for the charge of tyranny). In 1205 he began a quarrel with the Church when he refused to accept Pope Innocent III's nomination of Stephen Langton as Archbishop of Canterbury. His intransigence in the matter led the Pope to impose an interdict on England in 1208, suspending all religious services, and excommunicating King John. In 1210 he went to Ireland, where he took Carrickfergus, seized the lands of the Lacys and banished the Earl of Ulster, built several fortresses, appointed sheriffs and other officers to carry out the English system of law, and coined new money. He arrested all the Jews in England, and made them pay 66,000 marks. In 1211 he made an expedition into North Wales, compelled the submission of Llywelyn, and raised fortresses. In 1213, after five years of amassing the revenues of vacant or appropriated sees and abbeys, John agreed to become a vassal to the Pope for an annual tribute of one thousand marks, with absolution from excommunication and the lifting of the interdict. In 1214 John conducted another campaign in France, and suffered a disastrous defeat at the Battle of Bouvines on the river Margne. An alliance of barons took advantage of this defeat to launch a rebellion which was successful in forcing John to agree to a comprehensive and humiliating agreement at Runnymede near Windsor 19 June 1215 called the Magna Carta [Great Charter]. This defined the rights of the Church, barons, and the people. John soon repudiated the charter, claiming he acted under duress, and civil war ensued. JOHN, King of England, died testate suddenly at the Bishop of Lincoln's castle at Newark 19 October 1216, and was buried at Worcester Cathedral. His widow, Isabel, returned to France in 1217, to take up residence in her native city of Angoulême. She reasserted her control over Cognac, and entered into prolonged and violent disputes with Reginald de Pons over the castle of Merpins, and with Bartholomew le Puy. She married (2nd) 10 May 1220 HUGUES [X] LE BRUN (otherwise known as HUGUES DE LUSIGNAN), Count of La Marche, seigneur of Lusignan, Château-Larcher, Montreuil-Bonnin, and la Mothe-Saint-Heray, and, in right of his wife, Count of Angoulême, son and heir of Hugues [IX] le Brun, Count of La Marche, seigneur of Lusignan and Couhe, by his 1st wife, Agatha, daughter of Pierre de Montrabel, seigneur of Preuilly. They had five sons, Hugh le Brun (XI) [Count of La Marche and Angoulême], Guy (or Gui), Chev. [seigneur of Couhe, Cognac, Merpins, etc.], Geoffrey, Chev. [seigneur of Jarnac, Châteauneuf, Château-Larcher, etc.], William de Valence, Knt. [Lord (or Earl) of Pembroke], and Aymer [Bishop elect of Winchester], and four daughters, Agnes (wifeof Goillaume de Chauvigiy, seigneur of Châteauroux), Alice (or Alix) (wife of John de Warenne, Knt., 7th Earl of Surrey [see WARENNE 9]), Isabelle (wife of Maurice IV de Craon), and Marguerite (wife successively of Raymond VII, Count of Toulouse [see ENGLAND 4.vii.a above], Amaury IX, Vicomte of Thouars, and Geoffroi V, seigneur of Châteaubriant). In 1224 Hugues de Lusignan defected to King Louis VIII of France during the Capetian invasion of Poitou, with Louis promising Isabel 2000 lives Parisis annually in return for her dower lands forfeit in England, and the annual revenues of Langeais near Tours in exchange for rights that she claimed as dower at Saumur in Anjou. In 1230 they entered into alliance with King Louis IX of France, who granted Isabel an annual pension of 5000 livres Tours in return for resignation of her dower rights she daimed in England, Normandy, and Anjou. In 1242 she and her husband, Hugues, rebelled against the French. In return for a pardon from King Louis IX, they were forced to relinquish the pensions paid to them since 1224 and to abandon their claim to Saintes. Isabel was subsequently implicated in a plot to poison King Louis IX and his brother, Alphonse, Count of Poitiers. Isabel, dowager Queen of England, Countess of La Marche and Angoulême, subsequently took refuge in Fontevrault Abbey, where she died testate 4 June 1246. She was initially buried in the common graveyard of the Abbey, but at her son, King Henry III's request, her remains were moved in 1254 to the choir of the Abbey Church. Hugues [X] de Lusignan, Count of La Marche and Angoulême, went on crusade to Holy Land in 1248. He was mortally wounded at the capture of Damietta 6 June 1249. He left a will dated 8 August 1248.
(* Note: In 1207 Isabel of Gloucester, former wife of King John, was lodged in Sherborne Castle [see Hardy Rotuli Litterarum Clausarum 1 (1833): 92; Hardy Rotali Iitterarum Patentium (1835): 77; C.P. 5 (1926): 689-692 (sub Gloucester)]. Early in 1214, shewas in Bristol Castle, apparently closely guarded (ibid., p. 108b), and was brought thence to be given in marriage to Geoffrey de Mandeville [see Hardy Rotuli Litterarum Clausarum 1 (1833): 162b, 163b, 209b; Hardy Rotuli Litterarum Patentium' (1835): 109b; English Hist. Rev. 61(1946): 294, footnote 11. She married (2nd) 16/26 Jan. 1213/4 (as his 2nd wife) Geoffrey de Mandeville, Knt., Earl of Essex [see ESSEX 2.i], Constable of the Tower of London, 1213, joint Marshal of the Army of the Barons, 1215, and, in right of his wife, Earl of Gloucester [see Palgrave Antient Kalendars & Invs. of the Treasury of His Majesty's Exchequer 1 (1836): 90 (Isabel, wife of Geoffrey de Mandeville, styled "kinswoman" [cognatam] of King John; Luard Annales Monastici |
ISABELLE d'Angoulême Queen of England (Lusignan)