The Rochester Castle Under Siege in 1215 Essay - 814 Words

The Rochester Castle Under Siege in 1215 When king John first became king in 1199 he owned nearly as much land in France as he did in England. By 1204 john had lost much of his French territory, including Normandy. This was partly the fault of Richard the lionheart, who was the king before John. Richard had made his nobles in France angry because he took so much money from them and many of them were tired of being ruled by an English king. Some of these nobles thought that a man called Arthur of Brittany would be a better ruler or them than john. The people in France who did not like the idea of john as their new ruler soon went to war against him. At first things went well for john in†¦show more content†¦In the end he decided to make his peace with the pope only because he thought the pope might be able to help him in his fight with the barons. King john never really got over losing Normandy. He tried very hard to get back his lands, but by doing so he annoyed his great nobles or barons back in England. He wanted to get more money from them to cross over the channel and help him personally in his wars. Most of the barons had no wish to part with more money or to fight in France but John raised the taxes so that John would get more money off them and in some cases if John didnt like a certain baron he would tax him more for no reason. In 1205 john met with his barons and tried to get them to come and fight with him to regain his lands in France. After losing Normandy, john began to distrust his barons. He gave more and more important jobs to poor foreigners because he thought that they would be grateful to him and not let him down. The barons expected to get the best jobs, so this made them even more unhappy with john. King john was blamed for the loss of land in France even though it was mainly Richard the lionhearts fault and he was made unpopular for this. When a war aroused between France and England he was made more unpopular because people had to go and fight in France. By now people didnt