Little Arthur's history of England

John, the youngest son of Henry Plantagenet, became king after the death of his brother Richard.

His reign was a bad one for England, for John was neither so wise as his father, nor so brave as his brother. Besides, he was very cruel.

At first he had been called John Lackland, because his father had died before he was old enough to get possession of the lands that his father wished to give him. And not long after he became king he lost Normandy and all the lands that had belonged to his grandfather, Geoffrey of Anjou. He did not know how to govern England so as to repair the ill it had suffered while Richard was absent at the wars, so that the Pope called upon the King of France to go to England, and drive John away and make himself king instead; and then John was so base that he went to a priest called a Nuncio, or Ambassador, who came from Rome, and really gave him the crown of England, and promised that England should belong to the Pope, if the Pope would only keep him safe.

You cannot wonder that John was disliked; but when I have told you how he treated a nephew of his, called Prince Arthur, you will, I am sure, dislike him as much as I do. Some people thought that this Prince Arthur ought to have been King of England, because he was the son of John’s elder brother, Geoffrey. And John was afraid that the barons and other great men would choose Arthur to be king, so he contrived to get Arthur into his power.

He wished very much to kill him at once; but then he was afraid lest Arthur’s mother should persuade the King of France and the other princes to make war upon him to avenge Arthur’s death. Then he thought that, if he put out his eyes, he would be so unfit for a king, that he should be allowed to keep him a prisoner all his life; and he actually gave orders to a man named Hubert de Burgh to put his eyes out, and Hubert hired two wicked men to do it.

But when they came with their hot irons to burn his eyes out, Arthur knelt down and begged hard that they would do anything but blind him; he hung about Hubert’s neck, and kissed and fondled him so much, and cried so bitterly, that neither Hubert nor the men hired to do it could think any more of putting out his eyes, and so they left him.

But his cruel uncle, John, was determined Arthur should not escape. He took him away from Hubert, and carried him to a tower at Rouen, the chief town of Normandy, and shut him up there.

One night, soon afterwards, it is said that Arthur heard a knocking at the gate; and when it was opened, you may think how frightened he was to see his cruel uncle standing there, with a servant as bad as himself, whose name was Maluc; and he was frightened with reason: for the wicked Maluc seized him by the arm, and stabbed him in the breast with his dagger, and then threw his body into the river Seine, which was close to the tower, while King John stood by to see it done.

It was for this wicked action that his grandfather’s estates in France, as well as the Dukedom of Normandy, were taken away from King John.

For his faults in governing England so badly, he had a different punishment. All his subjects agreed that, as he was so cruel as to put some people in prison, and to kill others, without any reason, instead of letting the proper judges find out whether they deserved punishment or not, they must try to force him to govern better. And for this purpose the great barons and the bishops, and gentlemen, from all parts of England, joined together, and they sent word to John, that, if he wished to be king any longer, he must promise to do justice, and to let the English people be free, as the English kings had made them before the Conquest.

At first, John would not listen to the message sent by the barons, and would have made a civil war in the country; but he found that only seven of the barons were his friends, and there were more than a hundred against him. Then he said, that if the greatest barons and bishops would meet him at a place called Runnymede, near Windsor, he would do what they wished for the good of England. And they met the king there; and, after some disputing, they showed him a sheet of parchment, on which they had written down a great many good laws, to prevent the kings of England from being cruel and unjust, and to oblige them to let the people be free.[1] King John was very much vexed when he read what they had written; but as he could not prevail upon them to let him be their king, if he did not agree to do what they wished, he put his seal at the end of the writing, and so he was obliged to do as the barons desired him to do.

This parchment is called the Great Charter, in English. Most people call it by its Latin name, which is Magna Charta. Now you must remember this name, and that King John put his seal upon it at Runnymede—because it is of great consequence, even to us who live now, that our king should keep the promises John made to the English people at Runnymede.

A good king would have been glad to promise these things to his people, and would have liked to keep his word. But as John was passionate and greedy, it vexed him very much not to be allowed to put people in prison, or to rob them of their money or their houses, when he pleased.

If John had been honest, and had tried to keep his word, he might have lived happily in England, although he had lost Normandy. But he was always trying to cheat the people and the barons, and did not keep the promises he made in Magna Charta; and he made everybody in England so angry, that they allowed the King of France’s son to come to England, and make war upon John. So that all the rest of his reign was very unhappy; for although many of the barons helped him to defend himself from the French prince, when the Pope, who now thought that England belonged to him, ordered them to do so, they never could trust him, and he died very miserable, knowing that he was disliked by everybody.