page_title: John, King of England
section_title: Second marriage and consequences, 1200–1202
hierarchical_section_title: John, King of England / Early reign (1199–1204) / Second marriage and consequences, 1200–1202
caption_attribution_description: Isabelle d'Angoulême, tombe dans l'église de l'abbaye de Fontevraud (France)
context_page_description: John was King of England from 1199 until his death in 1216. He lost the Duchy of Normandy and most of his other French lands to King Philip II of France, resulting in the collapse of the Angevin Empire and contributing to the subsequent growth in power of the French Capetian dynasty during the 13th century. The baronial revolt at the end of John's reign led to the sealing of Magna Carta, a document sometimes considered an early step in the evolution of the constitution of the United Kingdom.
  John was the youngest of the four surviving sons of King Henry II of England and Duchess Eleanor of Aquitaine. He was nicknamed John Lackland because he was not expected to inherit significant lands. He became Henry's favourite child following the failed revolt of 1173–74 by his brothers Henry the Young King, Richard, and Geoffrey against the King. John was appointed the Lord of Ireland in 1177 and given lands in England and on the continent. The war between Henry II and his eldest sons ended with the deaths of Henry the Young King and Geoffrey.
context_section_description: The new peace would last only two years; war recommenced in the aftermath of John's decision in August 1200 to marry Isabella of Angoulême. In order to remarry, John first needed to abandon his wife Isabella, Countess of Gloucester; the King accomplished this by arguing that he had failed to get the necessary papal dispensation to marry the Countess in the first place – as a cousin, John could not have legally wed her without this. It remains unclear why John chose to marry Isabella of Angoulême. Contemporary chroniclers argued that John had fallen deeply in love with her, and John may have been motivated by desire for an apparently beautiful, if rather young, girl. On the other hand, the Angoumois lands that came with her were strategically vital to John: by marrying Isabella, John was acquiring a key land route between Poitou and Gascony, which significantly strengthened his grip on Aquitaine.
  Isabella, however, was already engaged to Hugh IX of Lusignan, an important member of a key Poitou noble family and brother of Raoul I, Count of Eu, who possessed lands along the sensitive eastern Normandy border. Just as John stood to benefit strategically from marrying Isabella, so the marriage threatened the interests of the Lusignans, whose own lands currently provided the key route for royal goods and troops across Aquitaine. Rather than negotiating some form of compensation, John treated Hugh "with contempt"; this resulted in a Lusignan uprising that was promptly crushed by John, who also intervened to suppress Raoul in Normandy.
  Although John was the Count of Poitou and therefore the rightful feudal lord over the Lusignans, they could legitimately appeal John's actions in France to his own feudal lord, Philip. Hugh did exactly this in 1201 and Philip summoned John to attend court in Paris in 1202, citing the Le Goulet treaty to strengthen his case. John was unwilling to weaken his authority in western France in this way. He argued that he need not attend Philip's court because of his special status as the Duke of Normandy, who was exempt by feudal tradition from being called to the French court. Philip argued that he was summoning John not as the Duke of Normandy, but as the Count of Poitou, which carried no such special status. When John still refused to come, Philip declared John in breach of his feudal responsibilities, reassigned all of John's lands that fell under the French crown to Arthur – with the exception of Normandy, which he took back for himself – and began a fresh war against John.
caption: The effigy of Isabella of Angoulême, John's second wife, in Fontevraud Abbey in France
exif: {"Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS2 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2014:10:20 14:41:47", "Image Artist": "Picasa", "Image ExifOffset": "170", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "450", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "7728", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2014:10:20 14:41:20", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "687", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "573", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "Interoperability RelatedImageWidth": "687", "Interoperability RelatedImageLength": "573", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "314", "EXIF ImageUniqueID": "b5a4281e32f5c94931592c6c5baf2452"}