The Rebels Seize London

[An extract from my new book. 17 May 1215. The rebel barons had defied King John a fortnight earlier, and three days ago he had responded by seizing their lands]

The barons, meanwhile, had been making slow progress with their siege of Northampton Castle. Not having any siege engines, they would probably have conceded, put them at a distinct disad­vantage. Several of their number had already been killed, including Robert fitz Walter’s standard-bearer, who had been shot in the head by a crossbow bolt. After a week or so, having achieved nothing, they moved twenty miles east to Bedford and took the castle there without a fight, thanks to the defection of its keeper, William de Beaumont. But this was only a minor victory, for Bedford was a far less important fortress than Northampton. Their threat to humble the king by seizing his castles was not off to an auspicious start.

It was at this point that the rebels received exciting intelligence. A faction of Londoners was ready to help them, provided they moved fast. Bedford is almost sixty miles from the capital, but by setting off at once the barons managed to cover more than half that distance, arriving at Ware in Hertfordshire later that same day. They then, according to Roger of Wendover, rode through the night to reach London early in the morning on 17 May. It was a Sunday, and so they waited for the moment when most of the citizens were attending Mass. At that hour their accomplices within the city helped a small number of rebels to scale the walls, and they in turn were able to open the gates and admit those waiting outside. In this way London was taken by stealth. The barons quickly captured almost all the king’s supporters and plundered their possessions; under fitz Walter’s direction, the houses of the Jews were destroyed and their stones used to strengthen the city walls. Only the Tower and its small royalist garrison held out. But having manned the walls and stationed their own sentries on the gates, the barons were able to settle down to build siege engines.

The fall of London was the tipping point. For John, it meant not only the ignominy and embarrassment of having lost his capital; far more damaging, it also meant the loss of his main treasury at Westminster, which must now have fallen into the hands of his enemies. Although some treasure was shut up in the Tower, this was small consolation since the king himself could no longer get to it. John was forced to turn to the regional treasuries that Peter des Roches had created in 1209, but these had been much depleted by the failed campaign of 1214. Nor could they be easily replenished, for the loss of London also meant the loss of the Exchequer and all its records. Regular royal finance collapsed, and the king was driven to the desperate expe­dient of pawning his prized collection of jewels. For a man who was reliant on mercenaries, this was a catastrophe.

Perhaps even more important than all of this, the fall of London gave heart to the rebels. At a stroke they had gone from holding a single royal castle of little significance to controlling the principal city in the kingdom. According to Wendover, they now sent letters to all the other magnates, urging them ‘to abandon a king who was perjured and warred against his own barons’, at the same time threatening to regard all who did not join them as their enemies. Previously, says the Crowland chronicler, the rebels had mostly been young men, eager to make a name for themselves in war. But now fathers began to join sons, and uncles to join nephews; at this juncture, if not before, the earls of Hertford and Norfolk followed their heirs into rebellion. Such was the scale of the swing, in fact, that the chroniclers found it easier to list those who had not abandoned John’s cause. William Marshal, Ranulf of Chester and William Longsword, the king’s half-brother, are named among the remaining loyalists, along with the earls of Surrey, Derby and Arundel. Apart from them and a handful of lesser barons, said Ralph of Coggeshall, everyone else had gone over to the rebels. New risings broke out across the country. In the north a rebel army occupied Lincoln and laid siege to its royal castle. In Devon rebels who had recently been dispersed by John’s Flemish mercenaries renewed their attacks and ravaged the king’s manors. Shropshire was invaded by Llywelyn and the Welsh, and the king of Scots was also said to be in league with the barons. Even Philip Augustus had pledged his support and prom­ised to send as much aid as he could supply.

A week after London’s fall, John accepted that he had no choice but to negotiate...

 

King John: Treachery, Tyranny and the Road to Magna Carta, pp. 250-2

 

In the footsteps of King John...

Last week I was in Scarborough on the Yorkshire coast to give a talk about King John. Next week I'll be travelling further north to give the same talk in Hexham, which sits on the line of Hadrian's Wall in Northumbria.

King John was a frequent visitor to the north and visited Scarborough and Hexham on several occasions. Checking this morning, I found this description of his itinerary in 1201 by the contemporary northern chronicler Roger of Howden, which makes mention of both towns. It also shows the extraordinary lengths to which John was prepared to go in search of money.

'In the month of February, at the Purification of St Mary [2 February], King John of England and his wife, Queen Isabella, were at Scarborough, from which place the king proceeded as far as the borders of his kingdom, and went through the land, and put the subjects of his kingdom to ransom, that is to say, compelled them to pay fines. When he came to Hexham, he heard that at Corbridge there was a concealed treasure, on which he made people dig there; but nothing was found apart from some stones, sealed with brass, iron and lead.'

John's own letters show that he was indeed in Scarborough on 3 February, and travelled up the coast as far as Bamburgh before heading south to arrive in Hexham on 16 February. He stayed in Hexham for four days, presumably engaged in the search for buried treasure at nearby Corbridge described by Howden, before moving on to Carlisle. Howden's comments about the king demanding fines from his subjects is also borne out by the king's financial records. During this visit, for example, John extracted £100 from the citizens of York on the grounds that they had not welcomed him into their city with sufficient honour.

You can get tickets for my talk in Hexham here. Bring a shovel.

King John and the Problem with Record Evidence

A quick post as I sit killing time in a café. It's Maundy Thursday. The queen has been distributing alms to the deserving poor, and several newspapers have remarked upon the fact that this act of charity was introduced by King John, who is usually regarded as a bit of a rotter. An article from History Today Magazine, written in 1990, is available to read free online.

The problem comes in the middle of the article, where we are told that the evidence for John's distribution of alms to the poor, a Mise Roll of 1210, is 'the earliest of the personal expense accounts to survive. In the absence of older records of this nature we cannot prove that King John, or some other English monarch, did not give alms on Maundy Thursday before 1210. All we can say with certainty is that it is the first known occasion.'

This is a problem with John's reign in general. From his accession in 1199, his writing office, or chancery, began keeping copies of his letters and charters by enrolling them, and most of these rolls still survive today in the National Archives. They were published in the nineteenth century, so you can download most of them for free. (Coincidentally, I'll be talking about King John and the beginnings of royal bureaucracy tomorrow on The Verb on BBC Radio 3).

The survival of this evidence is wonderful. It means we can see inside John's administration in far greater detail than is possible for any of his predecessors. We can reconstruct his itinerary for more or less every day of his reign, and see who was at his court. We can see what he ate, what he wore, the gifts he gave and the books he read. In some royal letters, we even get flashes of what seems to be the king's own personality. It is difficult to imagine a chancery clerk, for example, deciding to say to the mariners of the Welsh coast that if they failed to turn out for a campaign as commanded, 'we will have your bodies hanged, and those of the owners of your ships, and all your possessions taken for our own use without compensation.' The reasonable presumption is we are hearing the authentic voice of the king himself.

The problem is that, presented with this mountain of evidence, the temptation is to assume that these things are happening for the first time. In most cases, however, the likeliest scenario is that we are simply seeing these things for the first time. The Royal Maundy in 1210 is a case in point. Another good example is the sudden appearance of information about the building of ships and dockyards, which led nineteenth-century historians to declare that King John was the founder of the Royal Navy. As has been shown by careful consideration of the scrappy evidence before his accession, that credit properly belongs to his elder brother and predecessor, Richard the Lionheart.

'Attention to documentary evidence,' concludes the author of the History Today article, 'saves us from the simplistic notion that John was a bad man and worse monarch'. No it doesn't. The documentary evidence can't be used to overturn the chorus of disapproval from contemporary chroniclers, both clerical and lay, who thought John was a terrible tyrant and an awful human being. 'He was a very bad man', wrote the Anonymous of Bethune, who offers the best informed account of the king's last years, 'more cruel than all others... He was brim-full of evil qualities'. The year that we have the first evidence of the king (or rather, the clerks of his chapel, who had their own routine and momentum) distributing alms to the poor on Maundy Thursday is 1210. In the autumn of that same year, John captured Matilda de Briouze and her son William and starved them to death.

OUT TODAY!

The Discovery of King John in 1797

Since the mortal remains of King John have made the news today, here's the start of my new book...

 

In the summer of 1797 a group of workmen in Worcester Cathedral caused a sensation, locally if not nationally, by discovering the body of King John.

John’s tomb had long stood in the middle of the cathedral’s choir, but the consensus view in 1797 was that it was empty. Although the stone likeness (or effigy) on top dated from not long after the king’s death in 1216, the tomb chest had been created in the sixteenth century in the style of more recent burials (most notably Henry VIII’s older brother, Arthur, who died in 1502). It was known from the testimony of ancient chronicles that John had been buried in the Lady Chapel, and so it was assumed that, although his effigy had been moved in Tudor times, his bones had been left undisturbed in their original resting place.

The tomb of King John in Worcester Cathedral

The cathedral clergy found John’s tomb a cause of ‘much annoyance’, because its central position obstructed the approach to the altar, and their plan was to move it to some more convenient part of the church. And so, on 17 July 1797, the workmen set about dismantling it. They removed the effigy and the cracked stone slab underneath, to discover that the chest had been partitioned by two brick walls, and the sections in between filled with builders’ rubble. But when they removed the sides of the tomb and cleared out the debris, the workmen, ‘to their astonishment’, found a stone coffin. Immediately the dean and chapter of the cathedral were convened, as well as some local worthies with relevant expertise (the antiquarian Mr James Ross, and Mr Sandford, ‘an eminent surgeon of Worcester’).

Inside the coffin they found ‘the entire remains of King John’. His corpse had obviously decomposed somewhat in the course of nearly six centuries. Despite being embalmed, some parts had putrefied, and so ‘a vast quantity of the dry skins of maggots were dispersed over the body’. Parts of the body had also been displaced, presumably when it was moved in the sixteenth century. A section of the left arm was found lying at an angle on the chest; the upper jaw was found near the elbow. But otherwise the king was arranged in exactly the same position as his effigy, and was similarly attired. He was dressed from head to foot in a robe of crimson damask (a rich fabric of wool woven with silk) and in his left hand – as on the effigy – he held a sword, in a scabbard, both badly decayed. Curiously, however, whereas on the effigy John wore a crown, his skull was wearing a coif, which the antiquarians took to be a monk’s cowl, placed on the king’s head after his death to help reduce his time in Purgatory. Measuring the body they found that John had been five foot six-and-a-half inches tall.

The experts might have continued their investigations further, but were prevented from doing so by a large number of people who had crowded into the cathedral to see the dead monarch. ‘It is much to be regretted’, explained the antiquarian Valentine Green in his published account of the exhumation, ‘that the impatience of the multitude to view the royal remains, so unexpectedly found, should have become so ungovernable, as to make it necessary to close up the object of their curiosity.’ He was not exaggerating. In the short time that the tomb was open, several bits of John’s body were removed by souvenir hunters. His thumb bone was later recovered and can now be seen in the cathedral’s own archives, along with some fragments of sandals and stocking, obtained at auction by Edward Elgar. Two of the king’s teeth, stolen by a stationer’s apprentice in 1797, were ‘secretly treasured’ until 1923, when they were handed over to the Worcester County Museum.

John's teeth

The First English Parliament?

Many people will be claiming that today is a red-letter day for democracy – the 750th anniversary of the occasion when Simon de Montfort summoned 'the first English parliament'. Which would be great, were it in any way true.

The famous earl of Leicester did summon a parliament, and it did begin on 20 January 1265. Beyond that, it's pretty much all myth.

The trouble is that the parliament of 1265 was by no means the first such assembly. The kings of England had been in the habit of consulting their subjects en masse since well before the Norman Conquest, and the term 'parliament' had been used to describe such meetings for at least a generation before 1265 – the earliest use of the term in an official government document occurs in 1236.

But weren't these earlier meetings just barons and bishops? Surely it was Simon de Montfort who struck a blow for democracy in 1265 by introducing representation, summoning knights from the shires and burgesses from the towns?

Well, yes, Montfort did do that in 1265. But, again, this had been going on for years. Knights had been attending parliament for decades – the earliest evidence that they did so as elected representatives occurs in 1254. There is also evidence to suggest that townsmen had been present in parliament before 1265. Montfort was doing nothing new in 1265 by summoning either group.

It can be argued that in earlier parliaments representatives had been summoned simply to gain their assent to taxation, whereas Montfort sought their opinion on political issues too. But since we don't know much about what went on in these early parliaments, that seems to be an argument from silence.

Moreover, it's hard to sustain the idea that Montfort was extending the role of these men because he was a prototype social democrat. The earl was in charge of government because he had seized power the previous year by defeating his brother-in-law, King Henry III, in battle. Without any hereditary claim to authority, Montfort was anxious to show that support for his regime was broadly based. Men in search of legitimacy – King Harold in 1066, King Stephen in 1135 – always claim to have the popular vote.

You don't have to take my word for it. Here's John Maddicott (my old doctoral supervisor, and author of the definitive biography of Simon de Montfort), writing in his most recent book, The Origins of the English Parliament, 924-1327 (p. 234):

'Simon de Montfort's summoning of the knights to parliament in June 1264 and of knights and burgesses to parliament in January 1265 is often thought to have marked the beginnings of local representation or even, and more vulgarly, the foundation of parliament by Montfort himself: a popular myth which it is astonishingly difficult to dispel.'

My friend Dr Michael Ray makes the additional point that the 1265 parliament was gerrymandered: Montfort summoned only those magnates and barons who supported him - 23 in all. By contrast he summoned more than 100 clergymen, knowing that they were more likely to back him. York, Lincoln and other unnamed towns were invited to send two burgesses each, but Sandwich and the other Cinque Ports - again, pro-Montfortian - were asked to send four each. The 1265 parliament was 'a more overtly partisan body' designed to give authority to 'Montfort's illegitimate regime'. (Maddicott, Origins of the English Parliament, p. 257)

PS You can read the text of a 2012 lecture by John Maddicott on Montfort, the Battle of Lewes and Parliament here.

The First English Parliament?

Many people will be claiming that tomorrow is a red-letter day for democracy – the occasion when Simon de Montfort summoned 'the first English parliament'. Which would be great, were it in any way true.

The famous earl of Leicester did summon a parliament, and it did begin on 20 January 1265. Beyond that, it's pretty much all myth.

The trouble is that the parliament of 1265 was by no means the first such assembly. The kings of England had been in the habit of consulting their subjects en masse since well before the Norman Conquest, and the term 'parliament' had been used to describe such meetings for at least a generation before 1265 – the earliest use of the term in an official government document occurs in 1236.

But weren't these earlier meetings just barons and bishops? Surely it was Simon de Montfort who struck a blow for democracy in 1265 by introducing representation, summoning knights from the shires and burgesses from the towns?

Well, yes, Montfort did do that in 1265. But, again, this had been going on for years. Knights had been attending parliament for decades – the earliest evidence that they did so as elected representatives occurs in 1254. There is also evidence to suggest that townsmen had been present in parliament before 1265. Montfort was doing nothing new in 1265 by summoning either group.

It can be argued that in earlier parliaments representatives had been summoned simply to gain their assent to taxation, whereas Montfort sought their opinion on political issues too. But since we don't know much about what went on in these early parliaments, that seems to be an argument from silence.

Moreover, it's hard to sustain the idea that Montfort was extending the role of these men because he was a prototype social democrat. The earl was in charge of government because he had seized power the previous year by defeating his brother-in-law, King Henry III, in battle. Without any hereditary claim to authority, Montfort was anxious to show that support for his regime was broadly based. Men in search of legitimacy – King Harold in 1066, King Stephen in 1135 – always claim to have the popular vote.

You don't have to take my word for it. Here's John Maddicott (my old doctoral supervisor, and author of the definitive biography of Simon de Montfort), writing in his most recent book, The Origins of the English Parliament, 924-1327 (p. 234):

'Simon de Montfort's summoning of the knights to parliament in June 1264 and of knights and burgesses to parliament in January 1265 is often thought to have marked the beginnings of local representation or even, and more vulgarly, the foundation of parliament by Montfort himself: a popular myth which it is astonishingly difficult to dispel.'

My friend Dr Michael Ray makes the additional point that the 1265 parliament was gerrymandered: Montfort summoned only those magnates and barons who supported him - 23 in all. By contrast he summoned more than 100 clergymen, knowing that they were more likely to back him. York, Lincoln and other unnamed towns were invited to send two burgesses each, but Sandwich and the other Cinque Ports - again, pro-Montfortian - were asked to send four each. The 1265 parliament was 'a more overtly partisan body' designed to give authority to 'Montfort's illegitimate regime'. (Maddicott, Origins of the English Parliament, p. 257)

PS You can read the text of a 2012 lecture by John Maddicott on Montfort, the Battle of Lewes and Parliament here.