Magna Carta and Its Gifts to Canada. Carolyn Harris

John’s kingdom. John treated the interdict as a papal declaration of war and began confiscating lands from clergymen and religious communities who obeyed the pope over the king, circumstances that contributed to his eventual excommunication.

      In addition to his treatment of his nephew and conflict with the church, John acquired a reputation for erratic treatment of his barons and personal villainy. John’s second wife, Isabelle of Angouleme, was betrothed to one of his vassals, Hugh de Lusignan, before the king decided to marry the twelve-year-old heiress himself. John levied extraordinary taxes and demands for military service in his campaigns against Philip II to preserve his continental empire. Widows and orphans of barons were married against their will to John’s closest allies.

      While previous kings had taken mistresses, John became notorious for targeting the wives and daughters of his barons, in violation of his responsibilities as liege lord to the nobility. One monastic chronicler accused John of neglecting the affairs of state to remain in bed until noon with his young queen. The king developed a reputation for choosing pleasure over statecraft, an image bolstered by his love of fine clothes and jewels.

      All of John’s political, religious, and personal transgressions might have been tolerated by his subjects if he had achieved military victories that brought wealth and prestige to his barons and knights. Instead, John lived up to his childhood nickname of Lackland by losing most of his continental lands to Philip II. Philip seized Anjou in 1203 when John refused to accept the king of France as liege lord for the county. After Eleanor of Aquitaine died in 1204, one of her sons-in-law, King Alfonso VIII of Castile, took the opportunity to occupy part of her lands in the duchy of Aquitaine. In July 1214, the year before Magna Carta, John lost a pair of decisive battles that cost him most of his empire on the continent. After these defeats, John had to recognize Philip’s territorial gains, agree to a six-year truce, and pay compensation. Barons who owned estates in both England and Normandy lost lands, and merchants engaged in continental trade found their ships seized by the French.

      Nineteenth-century French illustration of the Battle of Bouvines in 1214, which cost King John much of his territory in what is now France.