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| 1194–99 |
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| Richard's Continental struggle against Philip II, in which Richard more than held his own. Château Gaillard, a new departure in castle architecture based on Eastern lessons, was built by Richard on the Seine as an outpost against Philip. | 1 |
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| 1199–1216 |
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| JOHN (Lackland, Softsword), weak-willed and treacherous, but crippled from the start by inflation and baronial opposition to further taxation. Crowned with the support of the Norman barons against his nephew Arthur's claims (by primogeniture), he became Arthur's guardian. | 2 |
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| 1202–4 |
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| John's first contest with Philip (to protect his French possessions): struggle over Brittany, Maine, Anjou (temporary acceptance of John's title by Philip, 1200). John's marriage to Isabella of Angoulême (who had been betrothed to his vassal Hugh of Lusignan) led Hugh to appeal to Philip II as their common overlord. John ignored Philip's summons to judgment (1202); his French fiefs were declared forfeit, and Philip began a war with rapid successes. The death of Arthur (1203), possibly by John's own hand, ruined John's cause, and Philip, already master of Anjou, Brittany, and Maine, took Normandy (1204) and soon Touraine. John's vassals in southern France (preferring an absent Angevin to an encroaching Capetian) resisted Philip's advance south of the Loire. John's loss of the lands north of the Loire reduced the power and prestige of the English crown, cut off the Norman baronage in England from its French connections, and turned the barons' interests back to the island, with decisive constitutional and social consequences. | 3 |
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| 1205–13 |
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| John's struggle with Pope Innocent III. After a double election to the see of Canterbury, Innocent rejected both elections (including John's nominee) and named (1207) Stephen Langton, a noted scholar and theologian. John refused to accept Langton, confiscated the estates of the see, expelled the monks of Canterbury; Innocent laid an interdict on England (1208). John confiscated the property of the English clergy who obeyed Innocent's ban, without arousing serious public opposition. Innocent excommunicated John (1208), but John, holding as hostages the children of some of the barons, weathered the storm. Innocent deposed John (1213) and authorized Philip II to execute the sentence. John, aware of treason and mounting hostility, promised indemnity to the clergy, did homage to the pope for England and Ireland, agreed to an annual tribute, and was freed of the ban. | 4 |
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| 1213–14 |
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| Final contest with Philip II (to regain the lands north of the Loire): John's great coalition (including his nephew, Emperor Otto IV, and the Count of Flanders) against Philip; most of the English baronage held aloof. Crushing defeat of the coalition at Bouvines in Flanders (1214) ended all hope of regaining the lands north of the Loire (formal renunciation of English claims, 1259). | 5 |
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| 1215 |
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| Magna Carta. The first politico-constitutional struggle in English history: this struggle resulted from an effort of the feudal barons, supported by Archbishop Langton (notwithstanding papal support of John) and public opinion, to enforce their rights under their feudal contract with the king; it did not aim to destroy the monarchy or the royal administration. Preliminary demands of the barons (1213); John's concessions to the Church and negotiations with Pope Innocent; civil war. London opposed John (despite his liberal charter to the city). John accepted the great charter at Runnymede. Magna Carta was essentially a feudal document, exacted by feudal barons from their lord but with national implications in its reforms. Concessions to the barons: reform in the exaction of scutage, aid, and relief, in the administration of wardship and in the demands for feudal service; writ of summons to the great council to be sent individually to the great magnates, collectively proclaimed by the sheriffs to the lesser nobles (i.e., knights). Concessions to the agricultural and commercial classes: mesne tenants granted the privileges of tenants-in-chief; uniform weights and measures; affirmation of the ancient liberties of London and other towns; limitation on royal seizure of private property; reform of the forest law; reform of the courts. Two chapters reflect the anti-Semitism of the age; one chapter that forbids women to accuse in criminal cases, except in cases involving death of a husband, attests to the low social status of women. Concessions to the Church (in addition to John's charter of 1214): promise of freedom and free elections. | 6 |
| The most significant provisions of the great charter: (1) chapter 12: no scutage or aid (except for the traditional feudal three) to be levied without the consent of the great council; (2) chapter 14: definition of the great council and its powers; (3) chapter 39: “No freeman shall be arrested and imprisoned, or dispossessed, or outlawed, or banished, or in any way molested; nor will we set forth against him, nor send against him, unless by the lawful judgment of his peers and by the law of the land.” (Often taken as the origin of the idea of due process by law.) Even these clauses were feudal and specific in background, but centuries of experience transformed them into a generalized formula of constitutional procedure, making them the basis of the modern English constitution. At the time, their chief significance lay in the assertion of the supremacy of law over the king. Provisions were made for the enforcement of the charter by the barons, even by force of arms, but in practice such enforcement was impossible. The charter was repeatedly reissued by succeeding rulers. The pope, as John's feudal suzerain, declared the great charter void. Civil war followed; a Francophile section of the barons called Louis, son of Philip II, to the throne (1216). John opportunely died; his young son Henry, with the support of the Anglophile barons, succeeded him. | 7 |
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| 1216–72 |
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| Henry III (a boy of nine). Guardianship (1216–19) of William Marshal, earl of Pembroke; an able, patriotic regime: two reissues (1216, 1217) of the (modified) great charter; elimination of French influence and interference, opposition to papal encroachments, reduction of feudal castles. William Marshal had designated the pope as Henry's guardian, and the government passed on his death (1219) to the papal legate Pandulph, the justiciar Hubert de Burgh, and Peter des Roches, tutor to Henry. Arrival of the Dominicans (1220) and the Franciscans (1224). Henry's personal rule (1227–58) was marked by a major constitutional crisis. | 8 |
| Birth of national consciousness. After a futile but expensive effort (1229) to recover Aquitaine, Henry, always devoted to the papacy, gave free reign to papal exactions. At the same time, the increase of papal provisions filled the English Church with alien (usually absentee Italian) appointees, to the exclusion of natives. A bitter antipapal outbreak (perhaps supported by de Burgh) drove de Burgh from office; des Roches succeeded him (1232–34), filling the civil offices with fellow Poitevins. Henry's French marriage increased the alien influx, and public opinion grew bitter. The papal collector was driven out (1244), and the great council refused (1242) a grant for Henry's effort to recover Poitou, which failed. Henry's acceptance of the crown of Sicily from the pope for his second son Edmund (1254), and his permission to his brother, Richard of Cornwall, to seek election as emperor (1257), both costly ventures, added to public ill feelings. Finally, in a period of great economic distress, Richard asked the great council for one-third of the revenue of England for the pope. This grant was refused, and the barons set out to reform the government, with public approval (1258). A committee of 24, representing king and barons equally, brought in a proposal. | 9 |
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| 1258 |
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| The Provisions of Oxford, a baronial effort to restore the charter, with strong clerical and middle-class support; creation of a council with a veto over the king's decisions. All officials, including the king and his son, took an oath of loyalty to the Provisions. | 10 |
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| 1260–64 |
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| The knights, alienated by the baronial oligarchy, appealed to Edward (Henry's eldest son). Gradually there emerged a group of progressive reformers (younger barons, many of the clergy and knights, townsmen, notably of London and Oxford); the more conservative barons turned to the king. Henry obtained papal release from his oaths (1261) and replaced the council of 15 with his own appointees; chaos was followed by civil war (1263). Papal exactions continued. Louis IX (asked to arbitrate the Provisions of Oxford), in the Mise of Amiens (1264), decided in favor of the king. This decision was rejected by London and the commercial towns, and civil war soon broke out. | 11 |
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| 1264 |
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| Simon de Montfort (son of Simon of the Albigensian crusade), Henry's brother-in-law, of French blood and education, emerged as leader of the reforming group. This group manifested traces of democratic ideas. Simon's victory at Lewes (1265), capture of Henry, and exaction of the Mise of Lewes (a return to the reforms of 1258). | 12 |
| In the course of this reign, the great council came to be called Parliament (c. 1240) and at various times knights of the shire were summoned to share in its deliberations. Parliament was still more concerned with administration and justice than with “legislation”; its membership, control of finance, and specific functions were by no means precisely defined. The summoning of the knights in effect merely transformed the negotiation of shire business into a collective negotiation by the same men who managed it locally. | 13 |
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| 1265 |
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| De Montfort's Parliament: two knights from each shire, and two burgesses from each borough were summoned, probably the first summons to townsmen in parliamentary history. | 14 |
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| 1265 |
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| Edward, now leader of the baronial, conservative opposition, defeated de Montfort at Evesham (death of de Montfort). | 15 |
| Henry's return to power was a formality, as Edward was the real ruler, and Edward and the barons were aware of the need of reform. Edward, on a crusade with Louis IX when Henry died, was proclaimed king while still absent, spent a year in Gascony on the way back, and was not crowned until 1274. | 16 |
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