This Charter, which with its final clause implied absolute submission, John never intended to keep. No sooner were his first ebullitions of anger over, than he proceeded to take steps for destroying it. Messengers were at once sent to Rome to get it annulled, and to Poitou to collect mercenaries. Troops came over in crowds, and the barons in alarm ordered William D’Aubigné to attack the castle of Rochester. He seized it, but was there besieged, and compelled to surrender to John’s mercenaries. All the common men of the garrison were hanged. John’s other message was equally successful. A letter from Innocent announced that he totally disallowed the Charter, and ordered Langton to excommunicate the King’s enemies. This he refused to do, and other excommunications and interdicts were also futile. John’s temporal weapons were more successful. He overran England with his mercenaries, burning, slaying and harrying with vindictive fury, and so superior was he in the field, that the barons found themselves obliged to summon Louis of France to their assistance. Louis’ wife was John’s niece, and they probably intended to use this slender connection to change the dynasty. [Sidenote: John’s death.] His success was not very rapid, though at first he seemed to have the game in his hands. He wasted his time and lost his opportunity before the castles of Dover and Windsor. His conduct also in bestowing fiefs upon his French followers began to excite the jealousy of the English; and John’s cause was again wearing a more hopeful appearance, when, marching from Lincoln, which he had lately conquered, he crossed the Wash, with all his supplies which he had lately drawn from Lynn. The rise of the tide destroyed the whole of his train, and broken by his loss, or perhaps poisoned, or perhaps a victim to his greediness, he died on the 19th of October at Newark. In July of the same year he had lost his great protector Innocent III. HENRY III. 1216-1272. Born 1207 = Eleanor of Provence. | +-------------------+---+-------------------+ | | | Edward I. Edmund, Earl of Lancaster. Margaret = Alexander III. CONTEMPORARY PRINCES. _Scotland._ | _France._ | _Germany._ | _Spain._ | | | Alexander II., | Philip Augustus, | Philip, 1197. | Henry I., 1214. 1214. | 1180. | Otho IV., 1208. | Ferdinand III., Alexander III., | Louis VIII., 1223. | Frederick II., | 1217. 1249. | Louis IX., 1226. | 1218. | Alphonso X., | Philip III., 1270. | Interregnum, | 1252. | | 1250. |