King John I of England 1199-1216, her most hated monarch (note: no other monarch since his reign has been named John!). It was John who signed the barons’ Magna Carta, accepting limitations on kingly authority. John is also the evil usurper of the throne in the Robin Hood tales, taking the throne from his brother Richard (Coer de Leon) while he was held for ransom in Germany when on his way home from the Crusades.

John was avaricious and cruel, using his administrative skills only to extract more money from the strapped peasantry. He lost Normandy to the French and by 1205 only a fragment of the Angevin empire remained.

When John broke the terms of the Magna Carta, the nobles summoned aid from France, and John died in the midst of the invasion, leaving his kingdom and his troubles to his 9-year-old son, Henry.

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A faithless son, a faithless brother, and a wicked uncle, alleged to have murdered his nephew Arthur (rival claimant of the throne) with his own hands. Also a notorious lecher, whose abduction and rape of a noblewoman sparked the events leading to the signing of the Magna Carta. When in a rage he gnawed and bit things, or set fire to houses in which he’d been entertained. He died after eating at an abbey; poison is an obvious supposition, for hatred of John was ubiquitous.284

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Warren gives birthdate as Dec 1167289

“The most notorious English king, one of the most unfairly maligned but also one of the least successful. The legend of his awfulness as a person as well as a ruler dates from his own lifetime. Even now, when his positive qualities as a conscientious judge, a careful administrator, a man of culture, and a ruler of energy are widely recognized, his personality and style leave a nasty taste in the mouth.”205

Tactically successful -- in gaining the throne, defeating his rival rthur of Brittany, exploiting the fiscal potential of England, gathering a coalition against France, supervising English administration, recruting vital political and material aid from the pope when he needed it most -- as a whole John’s reign was a disaster.205

John met her when she was 14 and he 34 and became “madly enamoured.” Though she was already betrothed to another man, John had the contract broken. While Isabella wept and protested, she and her parents were vassals of John and could do nothing.

John was as insanely jealous as he was insanely enamoured -- when a man was rumored to be Isabella’s lover, John had him hanged and then his corpse suspended over her bed.

After John’s death she had her 9-year-old son Henry crowned. Since John’s baggage train carrying the crown jewels had been swept away by the Wash, Henry was crowned with one of Isabella’s golden collars. She was not invited to participate in the regency, and returned home to Angouleme, where she found her old fiancee still unmarried. The two married at once. [Tyerman says she married the son of her old flame.205]

The subsequent uproar in England (Isabella’s husband was a supporter of the French king) was resolved only when the Pope intervened and demanded the English pay Isabella her rightful dues. But France was at war and Isabella eventually accused of plotting to poison the king. She fled to the Abbey of Fontevrault and took refuge in “a secret place.” No effort was made to force her out, and she died there two years later. She was buried, at her own request, in the open cemetery at Fontevrault. Her son Henry later had her body moved to lay beside Henry II, Eleanor of Aquitaine, and Richard I in the abbey church.284

Tyerman says Isabella and John married when she was 12.205