First Barons' War
The First War of the Barons ( English First Barons' War ) (1215-17) was a civil war in medieval England . A group of English barons openly opposed the tyrannical rule of King John Ohneland . Under the pressure of this aristocratic opposition, the king had the Magna Carta in June 1215recognize. However, when he disregarded the provisions of the Magna Carta a little later with the support of the Pope, an open civil war broke out between the king and the rebellious barons, who appointed a son of the French king as English king from September 1215. After the death of King Johann in October 1216, the underage son Heinrich III recognized for Johann . appointed regent the Magna Carta, whereupon the majority of the English barons again on the side of the young Henry III. posed. After all, after military defeats in September 1217, the French prince had to renounce his claim to the throne and leave England with his army.
causes
During the reign of King John, the ongoing, but ultimately unsuccessful, wars of the king for his possessions in France led to increasing dissatisfaction among the English nobles. Numerous barons feared their financial ruin through his regular shield money demands, which Johann demanded instead of their military service, as well as through his special taxes. Added to this was the arbitrary and tyrannical rule of the king, who overthrew former favorites like William de Braose and ruthlessly persecuted them. Braose's fate in particular showed the barons that none of them was safe from the king's arbitrariness.
Beginning of the nobility uprising
After a conspiracy of some barons who wanted to kill the king during a campaign to Wales was prematurely uncovered and thus failed in 1212, the king's opponents had firmly united after the failed campaign against France in 1214. The two main suspects of 1212, Eustace de Vesci and Robert FitzWalter , initially fled into exile, but were allowed to return to England in 1213 through the mediation of the Pope. While they wanted to assassinate the king in 1212 and replace it with a new monarch, they had now changed their tactics. Under their leadership, a group of around 40 barons had formed who demanded from the king an assurance of their traditional, but not fixed, freedoms. They referred to the Charter of Liberties that Johann's great-grandfather Heinrich I had announced when he ascended the throne in 1100. In addition to de Vesci and FitzWalter, Geoffrey Fitz , Geoffrey de Mandeville, 2nd Earl of Essex , Henry de Bohun, 1st Earl of Hereford , Robert de Vere, 3rd Earl of Oxford and Geoffrey de Say belonged to John's opponents. Nevertheless, not all of the English nobility were in rebellion against their king. The two most powerful barons, William Marshal and Ranulf de Blondeville, 4th Earl of Chester , stood behind the king, along with the Irish barons and William de Ferrers, 4th Earl of Derby . Most of the barons, over 100 in number, were undecided, however. Sometimes the noble families were at odds with one another, with the older generation often feeling bound by their oath to the king, while the younger heirs were inclined to the rebels.
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Open rebellion and recognition of the Magna Carta
When Johann demanded another shield money after the failed campaign against France at the end of 1214, the rebels armed before the king in London in early 1215 and conveyed their demands to him. In doing so, they took a considerable risk, because the king was not disempowered despite the failed campaign to France, but still had numerous followers and was able to dispose of a wide network of castles and a considerable mercenary army, so that the rebels were in danger of how to be crushed militarily in 1212. The king first tried to buy time and agreed with the barons to meet with them after Easter on April 26, 1215 in Northampton to negotiate their rights and a reform of his rule. Both sides then continued their preparations for civil war. Johann borrowed money from the Knights Templar with which he recruited mercenaries from Flanders and the Poitou . However, in order not to stand openly as a warmonger, he ordered a large part of the mercenaries under the leadership of Savary de Mauléon to Ireland first. For tactical reasons, he announced a crusade to Palestine on March 4th and did not show up for the meeting in Northampton. His opponents then resigned their loyalty to the fiefdom on May 3rd and appointed Robert FitzWalter their leader. They initially besieged Northampton Castle without result , while Johann gathered his troops from Ireland and Flanders. But after the City of London opened its gates to the rebels on May 17 , although Johann had promised the city the right to elect its Mayor on May 9 , they gained support like a landslide. In Wales, the allied Llywelyn from Iorwerth and Giles and Reginald de Braose were able to conquer large areas, even Shrewsbury . Stephen Langton , the Archbishop of Canterbury, pushed for negotiations and Johann, who had retired to Windsor Castle , realized that he had to comply with the rebel demands. A truce was agreed on May 27, negotiations began on June 10, and on June 15 he sealed the Magna Carta before Archbishop Langton and William Marshal at Runnymede . Most of the barons then renewed their fiefdoms before Johann on June 19th, which ended the civil war for the time being.
Fragile peace
However, Johann was not ready to actually accept the Magna Carta. Although he initially handed over numerous castles back to his barons, granted rights and implemented other demands of his barons. However, he had secretly turned to his overlord, Pope Innocent III. , turned to have his consent canceled. The hard core of the rebels, on the other hand, continued to occupy London on the pretext that not all of the Magna Carta demands had been implemented. At the beginning of September, a letter from the Pope first arrived in England, which he had sent to the Abbot of Reading , the Bishop of Winchester and the papal envoy Pandulf before the Magna Carta was sealed . In the letter, the Pope made serious allegations against Archbishop Langton, including accusing him of preventing the king from preparing a new crusade. Archbishop Langton, whose role as mediator was not recognized at all, wanted to resign and enter a monastery as a monk. Shortly afterwards a papal bull arrived in England, which the Pope had dispatched on August 24th after he had been briefed by John about the Magna Carta. In the bull, the Pope annulled the Magna Carta because it had been signed under pressure and excommunicated the rebels, nine barons and the citizens of London.
Beginning of the civil war
Encouraged by the papal support, John now openly disregarded the provisions of the Magna Carta. After initially holding back his mercenaries, he let other troops under the leadership of Hugo von Boves translate from Flanders to England. During the crossing, however, these got caught in a storm in which numerous ships sank. Boves and numerous mercenaries drowned. The rebels take advantage of this weakness of the king. They turned to John's opponent on the continent, the French King Philip II , and offered his son Ludwig the English crown. In an advance from London, the rebels occupied Rochester Castle , the most powerful castle in Kent after Dover Castle . The Constable Reginald of Cornhill , once a loyal follower of the king, opened the gates for them. They left a strong garrison under William d'Aubigné in the castle and then withdrew their army to London. Johann took over the leadership of the siege of the castle himself and was able to conquer it on November 30, 1215. He had now assembled a strong mercenary army, but stayed in Kent until December 10, so the rebels had a free hand during that time. A delegation of 25 barons handed Northumberland , Cumberland and Westmorland over to the Scottish King Alexander II. In Wales, Llywelyn united seven other Welsh princes from Iorwerth and was able to conquer large parts of South Wales with seven castles, including Cardigan and Carmarthen Castle, in three weeks .
Expansion of the fighting
Johann avoided a direct attack on London, but marched north with his mercenary army. The Scottish king retired to Scotland before him, and John followed him. On January 13, 1216 he conquered Berwick , which was then the richest city in Scotland. From there he undertook raids on the Scottish Lowlands . Before turning south again, he burned Berwick down. In March he occupied Colchester in eastern England. Although he had conquered numerous rebel castles during his campaign, despite these successes he was only able to force a few rebellious barons to give up. At the end of November 1215, a French vanguard had landed in England and reinforced the rebels in London. In the spring of 1216, more French troops arrived in London. Johann ordered his fleet to cross off the Thames estuary and in the Dover Strait to intercept further French reinforcements. However, after a storm had destroyed or seriously damaged his fleet on May 18, Prince Ludwig landed on May 22, 1216 in Pegwell Bay near Sandwich and raised up in the name of his wife Blanka of Castile , a granddaughter of King Henry II and thus one Niece Johanns, an inheritance claim to the English throne. Johann withdrew to the west without a fight, while Ludwig moved into London. He was proclaimed King at St Paul's Cathedral , and was paid homage to Alexander II of Scotland and numerous English barons. In the spring of 1216, after a brief siege, Ludwig again conquered Rochester Castle, occupied Winchester and besieged Dover, Windsor and Lincoln Castle . The Earls of Arundel and Surrey and even William Longespée , Johann's half-brother, surrendered to Ludwig. In the summer of 1216 the rebels controlled half of England, and even a third of the knights of John's household, as well as seasoned officials like Warin fitzGerold, William of Wrotham and Hugh de Neville , had left the king.
Death of Johann and successor of his son
Nevertheless, Johann was not yet defeated. Windsor, Dover, and other castles still withstood the rebel siege, and Eustace de Vesci fell at the siege of Barnard Castle . The defection of numerous English barons to the rebels reduced the number of fiefs that Prince Ludwig could distribute to his French knights in the event of his victory, and tensions arose between the English and their French allies. In September Johann moved northeast to relieve Lincoln . He lost part of his pack when crossing The Wash . Johann was sick when he reached Newark and died there on October 18th. After John's death, his followers under Peter des Roches , Bishop of Winchester, had his eldest son, nine-year-old Henry , crowned the new king on October 28 in Gloucester . The 70-year-old William Marshal was installed as regent. Marshal recognized a revised version of the Magna Carta on November 12, and the new Pope Honorius III. placed the underage king under his protection.
Military turning point and end of the civil war
The civil war continued, but since most of the barons had rebelled against King John as a person, the young Heinrich increasingly won their sympathies in place of the French prince. Although the French were still able to conquer Portchester Castle in the spring of 1217 , Prince Ludwig had to return to France to recruit reinforcements. With his reinforcements, he again besieged Dover Castle, which was still defended by Hubert de Burgh . Another part of the French troops had marched into Lincolnshire to take Lincoln Castle . There they were decisively defeated on May 20th in the Battle of Lincoln . After the English fleet under Hubert de Burgh was able to defeat a French fleet, which was supposed to bring further reinforcements and supplies, in the battle of Sandwich on August 24, the war was lost for the French. William Marshal blocked London by land and sea, and on September 12, Ludwig accepted peace negotiations in Kingston that led to the Peace of Lambeth . In the peace treaty, Ludwig renounced his claim to the English throne. In return he received 10,000 marks to withdraw his troops from England. Marshal issued an amnesty for the supporters of Prince Ludwig and on November 6, 1217 again recognized a revised version of the Magna Carta. The Scottish king was not involved in the negotiations in Kingston, but the French prince had managed for his ally that he could be included in the peace. In December he finally handed over the castles still held by Scottish troops and paid homage to Henry III, whereupon the war with Scotland was also over.
consequences
After the young Heinrich III. came of age, he confirmed the Magna Carta with his seal on February 11, 1225. Nevertheless, there were further conflicts with the barons under his government, to whom he had to grant further rights in 1258 in the Provisions of Oxford . When he revoked this, the Second War of the Barons began in 1264 .
See also
literature
- Wilfred L. Warren: King John (= Campus. 209). University of California Press, Berkeley CA 1978, ISBN 0-520-03494-5 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ BBC History, King John, the Lusignan Affair and the Early Years: Power and Taxes. Retrieved January 3, 2015 .
- ↑ Wilfred L. Warren: King John. 1978, p. 188.
- ↑ Wilfred L. Warren: King John. 1978, p. 225.
- ↑ Wilfred L. Warren: King John. 1978, p. 245.
- ^ Archibald AM Duncan: Scotland. The Making of the Kingdom (The Edinburgh History of Scotland; Vol. I ). Oliver & Boyd, Edinburgh 1975. ISBN 0-05-00203-7-4 , p. 524.