JOHN PLANTAGENET, Lackland, King of England. - B. 24 (?) Dec. 1167 at Oxford, d. 19 Oct. 1216 at Newark. Son of Henry II (v.), brother and successor of Richard the Lionheart, he was called Lackland because in the division of lands made by his father among his four sons he received no share.
While he was neither a statesman like his father, nor chivalrous and magnanimous like his brother, he matched both in despotic pride, and surpassed them in brutality and violence. G. failed to resolve the three great and intricate questions of his reign: namely the relations between Church and State in England, the relations with France, and the internal agreements between Anglo-Saxons and Normans, between people and nobility.
Scarcely had he ascended the throne when he became involved in conflict with Philip Augustus, king of France, who, as protector of Arthur, G.'s cousin and a claimant to the English throne, occupied part of Normandy. Indecisive and lacking foresight, G. concluded the shameful peace of Vesein on 23 May 1200; he violently abducted Isabella of Angoulême, who became his wife; he murdered his cousin Arthur and retook Normandy.
He also came into conflict with Pope Innocent III, because he did not help Otto of Brunswick, protected by the Pope, to obtain the Empire, and then, in 1205, on account of the election of the new archbishop of Canterbury, Stephen Langton (v.), elected by the Chapter of Canterbury and confirmed by the Pope, but not accepted by him, who wanted his own chancellor, the bishop of Norwich, elected.
In 1208 the interdict was placed on England, and in 1209 G. himself was excommunicated, on account of persecutions against ecclesiastical persons and property. In 1212 the Pontiff released his subjects from the oath of fidelity. In the event of G.'s incorrigibility, the throne of England was promised to Philip Augustus, king of France, who was also appointed executor of the sentence against G. Philip, supported by the majority of the barons and prelates of England, declared war in 1213, whereby G. was forced to make peace with the Church (and Dover in May 1213). In this peace G. promised the Pope: 1) obedience; 2) restitution of ecclesiastical property; 3) payment of an annual tribute to the Apostolic See for his kingdom of England, which, in order to save it, he gave as a fief to the Holy See; 4) recall of the exiled prelates.
Innocent III believed in the sincerity of these conditions and protected G. against Philip Augustus. In 1215 the English nobility, having risen against the King, wrested from him the Magna Charta libertatum (v.). Subsequently the nobles summoned to England the Dauphin of France, Louis VIII, who, elected king of England, entered London in 1216, but was excommunicated by the papal legate. In the same year Innocent III and G. died. G. was succeeded by his son Henry III (v.), under whom, peace having been restored with Louis VIII and with the nobles, the Magna Charta libertatum obtained its definitive and more moderate form, and, approved by the King and the papal legate, became the foundation and the first example of a constitutional government.
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