| First Barons' War |
| Date |
1215 - 1217 |
| Location |
England |
Casus
belli |
Baronial discontent with
government of King John |
| Result |
Eventual return to status quo,
with some monarchic concessions |
Territorial
changes |
None |
|
| Combatants |
 Pro-Angevin
forces |
Pro-Capetian forces, and
 Kingdom of France |
| Commanders |
| Hubert de
Burgh |
Prince Louis |
The First Barons' War (1215–1217) was a combination of a
civil war in England between the forces of a number of
rebellious barons and King John, and a foreign invasion
invited by the barons aimed at toppling him.
Background
King John in June of 1215 was forced to sign Magna Carta by
a group of powerful barons who had had enough of John's failed leadership and despotic rulership. "The law of the land" is one of
the great watchwords of Magna Carta, standing in opposition to the king's mere will.
Magna Carta of 1215 contained clauses that no medieval king could accept, unless he wished to remain ruler in name only. This
included clause 61, the "security clause", that allowed a group of 25 barons to override the king at any time by way of force, a
medieval legal process called distraint that was normal in feudal relationships but had
never been applied to a king. After a few months of half-hearted attempts to negotiate in the summer of 1215, open warfare broke
out between the rebel barons and the king and his supporters.
Course of events
Louis invited and welcomed
The war began over Magna Carta but quickly turned into a dynastic war for the throne of England. The rebel barons, faced with
a powerful king, turned to Prince Louis, son and heir apparent of King of France
Philip Augustus. The Norman invasion had occurred only 150 years before, and the
relationship between England and France was not so simply adversarial as it later became. The contemporary document called the
annals of Waverley sees no oxymoron in stating that Louis was invited to invade in order
to "prevent the realm being pillaged by aliens".
At first, in November 1215, Louis simply sent the barons a contingent of knights to protect London. However, even at that
stage he also agreed to an open invasion, despite discouragement from his father the King of France and from the Pope. This came
in May 1216 - on 21st, watchmen on the coast of Thanet detected
sails on the horizon, and on the next day, the King of England and his armies saw Louis’s troops
disembark on the coast of Kent. John decided to escape to the
Saxon capital of Winchester, and so Louis had little resistance on his march to London. He
entered London, also with little resistance, and was openly received by the rebel barons and citizens of London and proclaimed
(though not crowned) king at the cathedral. Many nobles, along with Alexander II of Scotland (1214–49), gathered to give homage to him.
Many of John's supporters, sensing a tide of change, moved to support the barons. Gerald
of Wales remarked: "The madness of slavery is over, the time of liberty has been granted, English necks are free from the
yoke." On June 14 Louis captured Winchester (John had
already left) and soon conquered over half of the English kingdom.
First siege of Dover
In the meantime, the King of France rightly taunted his son for trying to conquer
England without first seizing its key: Dover. The royal castles at Canterbury and
Rochester, their towns, and indeed most of Kent had already fallen to Louis but when he
did move on to Dover Castle on July 25, it was prepared.
Its constable, Hubert de Burgh, had successfully defended the castle
at Chinon in 1205 and he had a well-supplied garrison of men.
The first siege began on 19 July, with Louis taking the high ground to the north of the
castle. His men successfully undermined the barbican and attempted to topple the castle gate, but De Burgh's men managed to
repulse the invaders, blocking the breach in the walls with giant timbers. (After the siege the weak northern gate was blocked
and tunnels were built in that area, to St John's Tower, and the new Constable's Gate and Fitzwilliam's Gate were built.) After
three months spent besieging the castle, and with a large part of his forces diverted by the siege, Louis called a truce on
14 October and soon after returned to London.
Sieges of Windsor and Rochester
Apart from Dover, the only castle to hold out against Louis was that at Windsor, where
60 loyalist knights survived a two-month siege, despite severe damage to the structure of its lower ward (immediately repaired in
1216 by Henry III, who further strengthened the defences with the construction of the western curtain wall, much of which
survives today). This is possibly due to its having been already besieged by the barons in 1189,
less than 30 years earlier.
In 1206, John had spent £115 on repairs to Rochester Castle, and he had even
preemptively held it during the year of the negotiations leading up to Magna Carta, but the
Charter's terms had forced him to hand it back into the custody of Stephen Langton,
archbishop of Canterbury, in May 1215. The rebel barons had then sent troops under William de Albini to the castle, to whom its constable Reginald de Cornhill opened the castle's gates. Thus, during October 1216 on his marching from
Dover to London, John found Rochester in his way and on 11th October began besieging it in person.
The rebels were expecting reinforcements from London but John sent fire ships out to burn their route in, the city's bridge
over the Medway. Robert Fitzwalter rode out to stop the king, fighting his way onto
the bridge but eventually being beaten back into the castle. He also sacked the cathedral, took anything of value and stabled his horses in it, all as a slight to Langton. Orders
were then sent to the men of Canterbury saying " We order you, just as you love us, and as soon as you see this letter, to make
by day and night, all the pickaxes that you can. Every blacksmith in your city should stop all other work in order to make them
and you should send them to us at Rochester with all speed".[citation needed] Five siege engines were then erected and work carried out to undermine the
curtain wall. By one of these means the king's forces entered and held the bailey in early November, and began attempting the
same tactics against the keep, including undermining the south-east tower. The mine-roof was supported by wooden props, which
were then set alight using pig-fat (on 25th November 1215 John had sent a writ to the justiciars saying "Send to us with all
speed by day and night, forty of the fattest pigs of the sort least good for eating so that we may bring fire beneath the castle"
[1]), causing
the whole corner of the keep to collapse. The rebels withdrew behind the keep's cross-wall but still managed to hold out. A few
were allowed to leave the castle but on John's orders had their hands and feet lopped off as an example.
Winter was now setting in, and the castle was only taken (on 30th November) by starvation and not by force. John set up a
memorial to the pigs and a gallows with the intention of hanging the whole garrison, but one of his captains (Savari de Mauleon)
persuaded him not to hang the rebels since hanging those who had surrendered would set a precedent if John ever surrendered -
only one man was actually hanged (a young bowman who had previously been in John's service). The remainder of the rebel barons
were taken away and imprisoned at various royal-held castles, such as Corfe Castle. Of the
siege - against only 100 rebels, and costing over a thousand pounds a day - the Barnwell
chronicler wrote "No one alive can remember a siege so fiercely pressed and so manfully resisted" and that, after it, "There were
few who would put their trust in castles".
The round tower (right), in contrast to two square towers (centre and left)
John died the next year, so it fell to Henry III to repair the castle. He spent
over a £1000 on rebuilding, with new stables and gateways, and a further ditch to strengthen the defences. A new chapel was built
next to the Royal apartments in the bailey. The most notable surviving feature is the new south-east tower, which was rebuilt
according to the latest defensive design and is three-quarters round better to deflect missile attack and work against
attempts at undermining (see image left, right-most corner of the keep).
Death of John
Meanwhile, on October 18, 1216, John died in Lincolnshire
and with him the main reason for the fighting. Louis now seemed much more of a threat to baronial interests than John's nine year
old son, Henry. Pierre des Roches,bishop of
Winchester, and a number of barons rushed to have the young Henry to be crowned as king of England. London was held by
Louis (indeed, it was his seat of government) and therefore could not be used for this coronation so, on October 28, 1216, they brought the boy from the castle at Devizes to Gloucester Abbey in front of a small attendance
presided over by a Papal Legate, Guala Bicchieri
(d. 1227, bishop of Vercelli, papal legate in England 1216–1218). There, using as a crown a
band of gold made from a necklace, they “crowned” Henry.
On November 12, 1216 Magna Carta was reissued in Henry's
name with some of the clauses, including clause 61, omitted. The revised charter was signed by the young kings' regent William Marshal. A great deal of
the country was loyal to Prince Louis but the southwest of England and the Midlands favoured
Henry. Marshall was highly respected and he asked the barons not to blame the child Henry for his father's sins. The prevailing
sentiment, helped by self interest, disliked the idea of depriving a boy of his inheritance. William also promised that he and
the other regents would rule by Magna Carta. Furthermore, he managed to get support from the Pope, whom had already
excommunicated Louis in any case.
Louis's losses
- See also History of the Royal Navy.
William slowly managed to get most barons to switch sides from Louis to Henry and attack Louis. The two opposing sides fought
for about a year. On December 6, 1216 Louis took
Hertford Castle but allowed the defending knights to leave with their horses and
weapons. He then took Berkhamstead in late December. And again Louis allowed the royal garrison to withdraw honourably with their
horses and weapons.
Since the truce had been arranged with Dover, the Dover garrison had repeatedly disrupted Louis's communication with France,
and so Louis returned to Dover to begin a second siege on 12 May 1217.
However, this new siege diverted so much of Louis's forces that William Marshal and Falkes de Breaute
were able to attack and heavily defeat pro-Louis barons at Lincoln Castle on
May 15 or May 20 1217, in what
became known as the Second Battle of Lincoln
William Marshall prepared for a siege against London next. But in the meantime, Louis suffered two more heavy defeats, this
time at sea, at the Battle of Dover and Battle of Sandwich in the Straits of Dover, this time
at the hands of Guillaume’s ally and Dover's constable, Hubert de
Burgh. Louis’ reinforcement convoy, under Eustace the Monk, was destroyed,
making it nearly impossible for Louis to continue fighting.
Peace
After a year and a half of war, most of the rebellious barons had defected and so Louis VIII had to give up his claim to be
the King of England by signing the Treaty of Lambeth on September 11, 1217. Louis accepted a symbolic sum to relinquish his English
dominions and returned home. Though it was not in the treaty, it was often reported that Louis would try to convince the King of
France, his father, to give to Henry what he had conquered from his father John.
Louis a king of England?
Since other English Kings such as Edward V and Edward VIII were not crowned but only proclaimed, and - more to the point - Louis
occupied so much of England and was recognised as king by the barons[1] as well as by the king of Scotland[2], there is a good case for including Louis VIII in the list
of Kings of England. This case was backed by the 'Monarch' episode of Terry Jones' Medieval Lives.
Museums
- "The 1216 Experience" at Dover Castle (in the keep rather than at the site of the siege at the north gate) recounts the two
sieges and battle of Sandwich, and there is also material on them at the town
museum.
- Rochester City Museum contains a model of the castle keep under siege.
Notes
- ^ David Carpenter: "The Struggle for Mastery, The Penguin History of Britain
1066-1284" page 300: Louis, eldest son of the king of France, to whom the rebels had offered the throne, held London and the
allegiance of nineteen of the twenty-seven greatest barons.
- ^ David Carpenter in "The Struggle for Mastery, page 299" ...
Carlisle was surrendered to Alexander who then came south to do homage to Louis for the
Northern Counties.
See also
Sources
1⇧ Contemporary source quoted in Salter (2000)
- Salter, Mike (2000). The Castles of Kent. Folly Publications, Malvern. ISBN 1-871731-43-7
Siege of Dover
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