c' ~ -••'■•■■-• "^
Romun Biorj. ii, 585,
■ , ■'.,. ■^•""'"^•""'"fiinies suiijomed to
lit:^. !?^ ^/|^'. AV.c^.. c. 13 ; Smith, Diet, of Greek and
John Eleemosynarius. See John the Alms-
GIVER.
John (surnamed Lackland) king of Englanp, and youngest son of Henry II, was born at Oxford Dee. 24, 1166. After the conquest of Ireland, his father, in ac- cordance with a bull from the pope authorizmg Henry II to invest any one of his sons with the lordship of Ire- land, ajipointed him to the government of that country in 1178, and he removed thither in 1185; but he fail- ed so utterly in the task that he was recalled in a few months. He had always been the favorite of his fa- ther, and is said to have caused his death by joining his elder brothers in rebellion against Henry (of course, the controversj' with Thomas a Becket, and his remorse after the archbishop's death, contributed no little to the sudden death of Henry II). Upon his brother Richard's succession he obtained a very favorable position in the English realm ; iniieed, so many earldoms were confer- red on liim that he was virtually sovereign of nearly one third of the kingdom. But this by no means satis- fied John, by nature base, cowardly, and covetous. Dur- ing the absence of his brother on a crusade, he sought even to obtain for himself the crown, but failed signally, earning only a very unenviable reputation for himself, while greatly increasing the affection of the EngUsh people for Richard. Upon the death of the latter, John, by express wish of Richard on his death-bed, ascended the long-coveted throne (May 26, 1199). The accusa- tion that John avoided the claims of Arthur, the son of I his elder brother Geoffrey, by imprisoning him and then privately putting him out of the way, are questions which belong to secular historians. It remains for us to state here only that king Philip Augustus cf France, who had esjioused John's cause in opposition to Richard, now espoused the cause of Arthur, and involved John in a war in which the latter was severely the loser, France regaining by 1204 the provinces that had been wrested from her. Far more serious were the residts of another contest into which he was drawn, in 1205, by the death of the archbishop of Canterbury, and which forms a most important chapter in the history of investiture. Insisting upon the royal right of investiture, John first waged war against his own clergy, until finally Innocent III also took up the gauntlet, and thus dre^ upon him- self not only the formidable hostility of the whole body of the national clergy, but also of one of the ablest and most imperious pontiffs of Rome (see Innocent III). The question at issue was, of course, the election of a successor to the lately vacated archbishopric. It had hitherto been the custom of the clergy to defer the elec- tion to any vacancies in their ranks until the king had favored them with a conge d'elire. In this instance some of the juniors of the monks or canons of Christ Church, Canterbury, who possessed the right of voting in the choice of their archbishop, had proceeded to the election without such a grant from the royal chair, and chosen Reginald, their sub-prior, as successor, and installed him in the archiepiscopal throne before day- light. Having enjoined upon him the strictest se- crecy, they sent liini immediately to Rome to secure the pontiff's Odiifirniation of their act. The foolish Reg- inald, however, disclosed the secret, and it came to the ears of the king and the suffragan bishops of Canter- bury. He at once caused the canons of Christ Church to proceed to a new election, and suggested John de (iray, bishop of Norw-icli. I'or the honorable position, who was accordingly installed, likewise against the wish of the suffragran bishops. These appealed to Rome, and John and the canons of Canterbury were forced to do likewise. This afforded Innocent III, ever on the alert to make his imperial power felt, a valuable oppor- tunity to place forever at his own disposal one of the most important dignities in the Christian Church. Ac- ceding to the doctrine of the invalidity of Reginald's election, he maintained that the new 'vacancy could only have been declared such by the sovereign pontiff, and that thercl'ore tlic choice of the bishou of Norwich
JOHN
967
JOHN