Although we have a detailed account of John’s coronation we find no mention of a charter, such as Henry II. and Stephen had issued. Richard had not issued one, but had contented himself with the three strong promises included in the coronation oath--to defend the Church, to maintain justice, and to make good laws, abolishing evil customs. John did the same; and, as the oath was again required of him after his reconciliation with Langton in 1213, we may without hesitation infer that no charter was granted at the coronation. [Sidenote: Arrangement of the chapter. ] [Sidenote: Queen Eleanor. ] The history of John’s reign may conveniently be arranged in three divisions, which fell into a nearly chronological sequence; first, the foreign relations, including the war with Philip, the fate of Arthur, and the loss of Normandy; secondly, the dispute with the clergy, and the interdict and submission to Rome; and thirdly, the events that led to and flowed from the granting of Magna Carta. In each of these divisions of our period we find certain persons coming to the front as the mainstay of John’s power, at whose death that power, in one region or another, seems at once to suffer collapse. Of these the first is his mother, the great source and prop of his Continental position. Of her character enough has been said already; her better points come out most strongly in her old age, when we see her, between seventy and eighty years old, running about from one end of Europe to another to patch up truces, to make peaces, and to close wars which sprang mainly out of her own levity and intriguing of half a century past. She had engaged in a life-long quarrel with her first husband in 1150, and with her second in 1173; now in 1200 she fetches a grand-daughter of the second to marry the grandson of the first, as a pledge of harmony between the sons of the two. John’s fortunes are not wholly hopeless until he loses his mother. [Sidenote: Arthur’s claims in France. ]