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| 1199 | King John took the throne and reigned until 1216. He inherited the kingdom from his brother King Richard who had been king for 10 years, but of this time spent only six months in the country. Their mother was Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine, their father was King Henry II. Richard had bled England white to finance the crusades and considered himself ruler of the Angevin Empire, of which England was only a small part. He taxed the whole Empire, but England, with a widespread and efficient tax system, suffered worst. Immediately after his coronation King John came to St Edmund's impelled by a vow and out of devotion (Jocelin of Brackland). He immediately blotted his copybook with the Church by not making a sizeable donation, as expected, but gave only a silk cloth which his servants borrowed from the abbey's sacrist, and thirteen shillings. | | 1200 | By 1200 the glory days of the monasteries were past. The coming of the Friars and the rise of universities were to challenge both the monks' pastoral role and their intellectual supremacy. Yet despite this, there arose at St Albans a notable school of history which persisted for three centuries. By 1219 the well known Roger of Wendover began his work there, and was to become important to the story of Bury St Edmunds. | | 1201 | At this time you might have thought that King John was popular with the Abbot of St Edmunds as he issued a charter forbidding anyone other than the Abbot from holding a market within the area of the Liberty of St Edmund, now known as West Suffolk. However, this arose because John had infringed the Liberty's existing rights by granting the Prior of Ely the right to a market in Lakenheath. | | 1202 | The Angevin Empire began to crumble. Philip of France invaded Normandy. At Bury St Edmunds the Chronicle of Jocelin of Brackland ended abruptly, possibly, but not necessarily, with his death. |
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| 1203 | King John visited St Edmund's Abbey and scandalised the monks by borrowing the jewels his mother had previously presented to the church. | | 1204 | King John was finally driven out of Normandy when Chateau Gaillard fell to the French. After John killed Arthur of Brittany, the Bretons also attacked him from the West. Philip of France began to mould a French consciousness, and in England the Anglo-Norman Barons were forced to choose between the new France and their estates in England. Most chose England.
Eleanor of Aquitaine died but John arranged a truce with Philip and managed to retain these lands and the rest of the Angevin lands. | | 1205 | The Archbishop of Canterbury, Hubert Walter, died. John now quarrelled with the Pope over his successor, but the real issue was the old one of the boundaries of power between Church and King. | | 1207 | King John introduced a tax of one thirteenth or 1s on each mark (13s 4d) of income from rents and moveable property. He is said to have doubled his income to £60,000 by this measure. It was the first income tax, of about 5p on every 67p income in today's coinage, or 7.5%. Within the Liberty of St Edmund, however, taxes were due to the Abbot, not to the King. | | 1209 | John was excommunicated because he would not make terms with Pope Innocent III over the Canterbury issue. England suffered a papal interdict. |
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| 1211 | Abbot Sampson died at Bury, and the local consequence of the Papal interdict was that he could not be buried in the Abbey grounds. It was to be three years before his body could be re-interred in the chapter house. If this was not enough to upset the local monks, the King also refused to approve the Abbot's successor for three years, events recorded in Electio Hugonis, a record made of these events at the time. Meanwhile, without an Abbot, all revenues due to him from the Liberty (West Suffolk) now went to the Crown. | | 1212 | The surviving records of the main Bury Chronicle end by 1212. This may be significant in that there is today a grave lack of corroborating evidence for the part the Abbey of St Edmund was to play in the next few years. | | 1213 | John finally accepted Stephen Langton, the Pope's nominee as Archbishop of Canterbury, and in return, he was received back into the Church. According to Roger of Wendover there was a big meeting at St Pauls, in London on 25 August 1213 concerning the ending of the papal interdict. Archbishop Langton is said to have called the barons to one side and revealed that he had discovered a Charter of King Henry I whereby they might achieve their liberties. Wendover says the Barons swore in Langton's presence to fight for these liberties unto death. Like his record of a meeting in Bury St Edmunds, this is felt to be an implausible idea by many modern historians. Because history at this time was written in monasteries, John's quarrels with the Pope meant that he would never again receive a favourable report in these quarters. The English Barons had supported King John against the Pope, although he had to suppress the Scots, Welsh and Irish who did not. As John was concentrating on home matters he spent a lot of time on the affairs of the kingdom. The Barons particularly in the North, saw this as interference as for many years John, and Richard before him, had concentrated their efforts abroad.
John reorganised the tax system, introduced a property tax and encouraged civic life, granting charters to many English towns. He was aiming to raise revenue but in the process extended the power of the state.
John had built up the navy and this proved its worth when the French invasion fleet was smashed in 1213, aiming to conquer the excommunicated England, which was fair game under the international (Papal) law of the time. | | 1214 | John attacked France to regain the lost parts of his Empire. He was stopped in his tracks by a defeat at Les Bouvines, and the cost of this latest French war was to finally goad the Barons into open resistance.
The Barons resented the King's Chief Justiciar, Peter Des Roches, because he was from Poitu, and the Barons decided to see him as a foreigner. But what they really resented was the increased scutage money the king demanded to pay for the war. Scutage was the established method by which those who were liable for feudal military service, could pay a fee to avoid it and stay at home. Had he won the war, the glory and booty resulting would have settled them down, but the Barons were arming their castles in resistance.
In November 1214, King John visited the Abbey of St Edmund, and this was recorded in the Electio Hugonis, a detailed chronicle probably written by a monk at the Abbey. This chronicle related to the disputed election of an abbot following Sampson's death in 1211 and contains no obvious reference to a gathering of rebellious Barons.
There is no other record of the Barons gathering at Bury St Edmunds except for a detailed account produced some years later at St Albans by the monk Roger of Wendover. Unfortunately, Roger is regarded as a rather unreliable historian but in the words of Lord Bingham, Lord Chief Justice, speaking in 1996, "It is not easy to think of a good reason why he should have recorded this story unless he heard it from someone, and not easy to imagine how he came to hear the story if it was entirely false ... there is likely to be at least a germ of factual justification for the story." The meeting has been attributed to St Edmund's Day, 20 November 1214, but Wendover's account reads as follows: |
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| 0000 | "About this time the earls and barons of England assembled at St Edmund's as if for religious duties, although it was for some other reason; for after they had discoursed together secretly for a time, there was placed before them the charter of King Henry first, which they had received, as mentioned before, in the City of London from Stephen, Archbishop of Canterbury. This charter contained certain liberties and laws granted to the holy church as well as the nobles of the kingdom, besides some liberties which the king added of his own accord.
All therefore assembled in the church of St Edmund the king and martyr, and commencing from those of the highest rank, they all swore on the great altar that, if the king refused to grant these liberties and laws, they themselves would withdraw from their allegiance to him, and make war on him, till he should, by a charter under his own seal, confirm to them every thing they required; and firmly it was unanimously agreed that, after Christmas, they should all go together to the King and demand the confirmation of the aforesaid liberties to them, and that they should in the meantime provide themselves with horses and arms so that if the king should endeavour to depart from his oath, they might by taking his castles compel him to satisfy their demands; and having arranged this, each man returned home." In the winter of 1214 to 1215 scribes were set to work to copy out the Coronation charters of previous English kings probably in London. They used the charter of King Henry I, the charter of King Stephen issued in 1135 and a charter of King Henry II. These were translated from Latin into Anglo-Norman, as the barons lacked a classical education. They wanted to establish the affirmation of existing rights and good practices and not to appear new or revolutionary. |
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| 1215 | In January, the Barons met the king with their draft charter at the temple, but negotiations failed. By May 1215 the Country was in a state of Civil War. The northern barons were mostly united against the King. Elsewhere he was not so solidly opposed. On 17th May the Barons seized London giving themselves a decisive bargaining counter.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Stephen Langton, mediated between the parties and a parley was arranged for 15 June in a meadow called Runnymede, on the banks of the Thames and 'a sort of peace' was concluded. This peace treaty meant little at the time and was not regarded as Magna Carta, the cornerstone of English liberties until the 17th Century.
Archbishop Langton worked hard to make the 63 clauses acceptable to both sides while ensuring that the Church's interests were fully safeguarded. It was a last minute amendment that made it applicable not to 'any baron' but 'any freeman'.
In August 1215, John appealed to the Pope, who denounced the Charter, annulling it by a papal bull and excommunicated the Barons who tried to press for its clauses to be carried out. The original Magna Carta was thus in force for only two months. By September, civil war had broken out again because of this. |
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| 1216 | John marched through the eastern rebel territories. The barons even asked France for help and Prince Louis landed in England and had himself proclaimed King. John relieved his loyal town of Lincoln in September and marched on Kings Lynn. While crossing the Wellstream which flowed into the Wash, his baggage train got lost in the mists and swallowed by quicksand. His royal jewels and treasures were lost.
In October 1216, John died in Newark and was buried in Worcester Cathedral. He had caught dysentery in the Fens and died at 49 years old. He was the first king in the 150 years since 1066 to be born and buried in England.
The country was in chaos, with about two thirds of the Barons up in arms, and Louis of France claiming the throne. King John's 9 year old son, King Henry III came to the throne and ruled until 1272. In November 1216 the charter was reissued in an interim form of 42 clauses. | | 1217 | The Charter was again modified and reissued in 1217 along with a Charter of the Forest. Roger of Wendover mistakenly attributed this version to King John and 1215. | | 1219 | At about this time, Roger of Wendover began his history of the world in the Abbey at St Albans. He continued to write until his death in 1235, and his reports of the events surrounding Magna Carta were therefore somewhat after the event and without any first hand knowledge. |
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| 1225 | The charter was amended and issued again by Henry III and this is the final version which has become so important today, with only minor changes in 1297. | | 1235 | Roger of Wendover died, and his work was carried on at St Albans by Matthew Paris. Paris, however, returned to Wendover's history and embellished or re-wrote it as well as carrying it on to about 1259 when he himself died. | | 1297 | The 1225 charter was reissued with minor changes by King Edward I and became law as Chapter 25 Edward I. |
Magna Carta in Modern Times
Please also see Magna Carta in Modern Times to find out what the Magna Carta came to mean worldwide and to local people.
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