The cover image was created by the transcriber, and is placed in the public domain. Sidenotes showing the year have been moved to the start of paragraphs, and kept only when they change. For some long paragraphs a range of dates is shown. Other sidenotes give the actual date of an event. These have been moved next to the description of the date, and are shown in parentheses, e.g. {30 May} , or show a change of year. Others, which merely repeat a date, have been removed. Other sidenotes either gi

“ The closer study of John’s history clears away the charges of sloth and incapacity with which men tried to explain the greatness of his fall. The awful lesson of his life rests on the fact that the king who lost Normandy, became the vassal of the Pope, and perished in a struggle of despair against English freedom was no weak and indolent voluptuary but the ablest and most ruthless of the Angevins.” John Richard Green. Within a few months, however, the king again took up his cherished scheme wi

Eustace de Vesci and Robert Fitz-Walter have long figured in history as typical examples of the way in which individual barons were goaded into hatred and vengeance against John by his invasions of their domestic peace, and also as foremost among the “patriots” to whom England is supposed to be indebted for her Great Charter. On both aspects of the lives of these two men—especially of the life of Fitz-Walter, whom Professor Tout has glorified as “the first champion of English liberty”—a few cons

Here, at any rate, it is clear that the date of the quarrel cannot have been later than the spring of 1213; perhaps, as we are not told how long Robert stayed in Flanders before going to France, it might be some months earlier. This agrees with the date assigned to Robert’s flight from England by the Barnwell annalist, Ralph of Coggeshall, and Roger of Wendover, all of whom place it in the latter part of 1212 (see below, p. 292 ). The cause of the flight, however, still remains doubtful. It will