John de St John

Coat of arms of John de St John

Sir John de St John († September 6, 1302 in Lochmaben Castle ) was an English nobleman and diplomat. As a capable military man and knight of the royal household, he served above all King Edward I in his wars in France and Scotland. The king entrusted him with numerous offices and tasks.

origin

John de St John was a son of Robert de St John and his wife Agnes de Cantilupe. On his father's side, he was a grandson of William de Port. His grandfather had adopted the name St John as the husband of Mabel, heiress to Roger de St John of Sussex . After John's father died in March 1267, John inherited the Halnaker reign and other estates in Sussex, Hampshire , Herefordshire , Berkshire , Warwickshire and Kent .

Advancement as a military and diplomat in the service of the king

During the troubled period of the Barons' Second War of the 1260s, St John remained a loyal retainer of King Henry III. and from his son Lord Edward . After the Barons' War ended, the King pardoned St John and his entourage in 1269 for all crimes they had committed during the Civil War. He did not take part in Lord Edward's crusade , but stayed in England. After Heinrich III. Having died in 1272, St John was on the council that informed Lord Edward that his father had died and that he was now the King of England. As Knight of the Royal Household, he took part in Edward I's campaigns to conquer Wales in 1277 and 1282 , and in September 1283 he was a member of Parliament at Shrewsbury , where the last Welsh prince Dafydd ap Gruffydd was sentenced to death. From 1286 to 1289, St John was part of the king's entourage when he visited France and its possessions in Aquitaine . Edward I mediated from southwest France in the dispute between the kings of Aragón and King Charles of Anjou over the Kingdom of Sicily . St John was held hostage from October 1288 to March 1289 for the fulfillment of the 1288 Treaty of Canfranc . After the king learned that numerous judges in England had abused their position during his absence in Gascony, St John was a member of the seven-member commission from October 1289 that collected complaints about the royal judges. In 1290 he traveled as the king's envoy to Pope Nicholas IV to negotiate another crusade and the taxation of the English clergy with a tithe to finance it. From 1291 to 1292 he traveled as envoy to Tarascon to mediate further in the dispute between Naples-Sicily and Aragón. From February to March 1292 he was envoy to Pope Nicholas IV in Rome to obtain papal confirmation of the role of the English king as arbiter between the candidates for the Scottish throne .

Service in Aquitaine

Lieutenant of Aquitaine

On July 12, 1293, Edward I appointed St John lieutenant of Aquitaine , for which he should receive 2000 livres tournois annually . Long-standing tensions between the south-west French subjects of Edward I and French subjects had led to armed confrontations between sailors in Bordeaux in May 1293 , for which the French king wanted to hold the English king responsible. After his arrival in Aquitaine, St John therefore tried to strengthen the English castles and towns there with supplies and garrisons. Edmund of Lancaster , the brother of Edward I, was able to reach an armistice in Paris, for which he had to grant the French the temporary occupation of Gascony on February 3, 1294. On February 20, 1294 there was a confrontation in the castle of Saint-Macaire between St John and two French ambassadors who wanted to take over the castle due to the armistice. The news of the handover of the castles had probably not yet reached St John, as he initially denied the French access to the castle. Finally he let her into the castle, but received her after a long wait. Then he did not recognize the French powers to take over the castle and sent the two ambassadors back to the Connétable of France . Before March 3, however, he received instructions from Lancaster, whereupon he reluctantly turned over the castle and all other castles in Aquitaine. He then traveled back to England via Paris.

Military in the Franco-English War

Contrary to the agreement made with Lancaster, the French then refused to return the castles. As a result, the English king revoked his homage for his French possessions on June 20, 1294 , which led to open war with France . On July 1, 1294 Edward I appointed his nephew John of Brittany as the new lieutenant of Aquitaine, while St John should take over the office of Seneschal of Aquitaine. In this capacity he was to serve as the main advisor to John of Brittany. In October 1294 he broke out with a fleet and with troops from Portsmouth to south-west France. There they conquered a few smaller cities, but the conquest of Bordeaux failed. The English force then split up. While part of the army sailed up the Garonne , St John sailed with part of the army south where he was able to conquer Bayonne on January 1, 1295 . There he had the members of the city council who had supported the French arrested and brought to England. Against these English attacks, the French launched counter-attacks in 1295 under Charles of Valois and in 1296 under Robert II d'Artois . The English could only hold the southern part of Aquitaine with Bayonne. St John was responsible for the defense and supply of the remaining cities and castles.

Capture and imprisonment

In October 1295 John of Brittany was replaced as Lieutenant by Edmund of Lancaster, while St John continued to be Seneschal. Lancaster fell ill and died on June 5, 1296 in Bayonne, succeeded by Henry de Lacy, 3rd Earl of Lincoln . Neither party was able to achieve a greater victory, so the war ended in looting and sieges. On February 2, 1297, Lincoln and St John escorted a supply convoy to supply the besieged Bonnegarde . The English were ambushed by Robert d'Artois's troops. Despite brave resistance, St John and ten other knights from England and Gascony were captured. The French took him to Paris as one of the main enemy commanders, then to Péronne in northeastern France and other places. The £ 5,000 ransom demanded was beyond St John's means. His son John, who had fought with him in Aquitaine, received money in September 1297 from the paymaster of the English army and from merchants in Bayonne to pay for the cost of St John's captivity, which he had to bear himself. In May 1298 Westminster Abbey contributed £ 250 to the ransom, and eventually the Frescobaldi and other Italian bankers paid 20,000 livres petits tournois to the French king on behalf of Edward I for St John's release. After the Treaty of L'Aumône , St John was finally released in the summer of 1299 and returned to England. To pay off part of his debts, he pledged four of his goods to the bankers Buonsignori from Siena in November 1299 .

Seal of John de St John

Service in the Scottish War of Independence

After his release, St John did not return to Gascony, but served Edward I in the battles of the Scottish War of Independence . He had already been in Scotland in November 1292 when he installed John Balliol as the new Scottish king in Scone as the representative of the minor Duncan, 9th Earl of Fife, together with Bishop Antony Bek of Durham . In January 1300 the King made St John his deputy in Cumberland , Westmorland , Lancashire , Annandale and the Scottish Marches to Roxburgh . In July he and his son John participated in the siege of Caerlaverock Castle , where he oversaw the young Prince Edward , for whom the siege was his first military action. In addition, St John received other offices in Scotland, including the administration of Galloway and the office of sheriff of Dumfries . As Knight Banneret , he received regular wages for his large entourage, as well as replacements for horses and other equipment that he needed in the service of the King in Scotland. In February 1301 he was one of about 100 barons who, in their letter to Pope Boniface VIII , contested his right to intervene in the Franco-English and Anglo-Scottish Wars. In March 1301 he was a member of the English delegation with the Earls of Warwick , Surrey and Pembroke and Hugh de Vere , which was to negotiate a peace with France and an armistice with Scotland in Canterbury . Before February 16, 1302, the Scottish magnate Robert Bruce surrendered to him , who four years later rebelled again and was crowned King of Scots.

In gratitude for his service in Scotland, St John received some possessions in Scotland and the northern Scottish Marches. However, these areas were partly contested or not in English possession at all, so that they did not outweigh the losses he had suffered from his captivity. In September 1300 he therefore received 1,000 marks annually from the king as long as he could not take possession of the promised properties in Galloway. He received additional income as commandant of Cockermouth and Skipton Castle in Craven and of Lochmaben Castle , where he died in 1302.

Family and offspring

Before June 29, 1256, John de St John had married Alice, a daughter of Sir Reginald fitz Peter. His wife survived him, with her he had several sons. His heir became his eldest son, John de St John .

Web links

• Malcolm Vale: St John, Sir John de (d.1302). In: Henry Colin Gray Matthew, Brian Harrison (Eds.): Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , from the earliest times to the year 2000 (ODNB). Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004, ISBN 0-19-861411-X , ( oxforddnb.com license required ), as of 2004

Individual evidence

1. ^ Michael Prestwich: Edward I. University of California, Berkeley 1988, ISBN 0-520-06266-3 , p. 340.
2. ^ Michael Prestwich: Edward I. University of California, Berkeley 1988, ISBN 0-520-06266-3 , p. 370.
3. ^ Geoffrey WS Barrow: Robert Bruce and the Community of the Realm of Scotland . Eyre & Spottiswoode, London 1965, p. 69.
4. ^ Geoffrey WS Barrow: Robert Bruce and the Community of the Realm of Scotland . Eyre & Spottiswoode, London 1965, p. 172.