Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 29.djvu/423
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John

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John

with the Preface noted above, present a complete view of the constitutional aspects of the reign. Bishop Stubbs refers with praise to Pauli's Gesch. von England, vol. iii. Hardy's Itinerary of John in preface to Patent Rolls, with the Rolls themselves, and Rymer's Fœdera, vol. i. (Record Office), are of course of great service. The question of the condemnation of John is treated by M. Ch. Bémont in two papers in the Revue Historique, t. zxxii. M. Bémont's view has been adopted here as probable, but the question does not admit of absolute certainty. For John's foreign relations see Epp. Innocent III, ed. Baluze and Du Thiel; Morice's Hist. de Bretagne; Le Baud's Hist. de Bretagne; Michelet's Hist. de France, vols. ii. iii. ed. 1879; Martin's Hist. de France, vol. iii., and French chroniclers, William of Armorica, Gesta Philippi and Philippidos, and Rigord's Gesta Philippi in Recueil des Hist. vol. xvii. and Duchesne vol. v. For the relations between these contemporary chroniclers the Introd. to Delabordo's Œuvres de Rigord (Société de l'Hist. de France) should be read. Robert of Auxerre, ob. 1212, who speaks of the affairs of 1204 without the intention which may perhaps be observed in later writers, supplies a work of great independent value; it is to be found in Recueil, vol. xviii. where the Anon. Canon of Laon with some other less important chronicles in the same collection may profitably be examined.]

JOHN of Eltham, Earl of Cornwall (1316–1336), second son of Edward II by Isabella of France (1292-1358) [q. v.], was born at Eltham on 15 Aug. 1316. On 19 March 1319 he received a grant of the forfeited lands of all Scots south of the Trent (Fœdera, ii. 389). Numerous other grants made to him at various times are detailed by Dugdale. In October 1326, when the Londoners rose in revolt against Edward II, they removed the royal officers at the Tower, and appointed others in the name of John of Eltham, whom they styled warden of the city and Tower of London. In October 1328 John was created Earl of Cornwall, and in May 1329 was regent for his brother Edward III during his absence in France to do homage for Aquitaine (ib. ii. 763). In 1330 John paid a visit to Aquitaine (ib. ii. 784,793). In April 1331 he was again regent while the king was in France (ib. ii. 814), and for a third time next year, when Edward III was in Scotland. The young earl commanded the first division of the English army at the battle of Halidon Hill on 19 July 1333, and in January 1335 defeated the Scots when they made a raid into Redesdale. On 2 Feb. 1335 he was made warden of the marches of Northumberland, and a commissioner to receive the submission of the Scots. In April 1336 he had a grant of the coinage of tin in Cornwall, in return for his expenses in Scotland (ib. ii. 937). On 20 June of that year he was one of the commissioners to hold a parliament at Northampton (ib. ii. 940). John accompanied Edward III to Scotland in the same year, and was left in command there. He died at Perth in October 1336, and was buried with great ceremony at Westminster on 15 Jan. 1337. His tomb, with an effigy of alabaster, stands in St. Edmund's Chapel, on the south side of the choir. John was never married, though many projects for an alliance were mooted between 1329 and 1335 (ib. ii. 736, 854, 885, 890, 893, 929).

[Murimuth's Chronicle; Chron. Edw. I and II; Flores Historiarum (all these are in the Rolls Ser.); Rymer's Fœdera, Record edit.; Dugdale's Baronage, ii. 109; Doyle's Official Baronage, i. 439.]

JOHN of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster (1340–1399), was the fourth son of Edward III, and was born in March 1340 at Ghent, which, corrupted into Gaunt, gave him his popular appellation. The queen, his mother, had been left at Ghent during the king's temporary absence in England, in the interval between the two campaigns against France of 1339 and 1340. On 29 Sept. 1342 he was created Earl of Richmond, with a grant of all the lands and prerogatives of that title, late held by John, duke of Brittany and Richmond. On 6 March 1351 he was confirmed in the earldom, which he finally surrendered 25 June 1372.

Early in 1355 he was attached, together with his brother Lionel, duke of Clarence [q. v.], to the expedition which was being organised under Henry, duke of Lancaster [see Henry, 1299?-1361], in aid of Charles of Navarre; and he appears to have been knighted on this occasion. The expedition came to nothing, Charles having patched up a peace with the French king. But later in the year John accompanied his father to Calais, and took part in a brief raid into French territory early in November. The state of affairs in Scotland compelled the king hastily to return and advance to the recovery of Berwick, which had been surprised by the Scots. The young Earl of Richmond was again with his father in this campaign, and was one of the witnesses to Edward Balliol's surrender of the crown of Scotland, 20 Jan. 1356.

When little more than nineteen years of age he married, at Reading, 19 May 1359, his cousin Blanche, second daughter and coheiress of Henry, duke of Lancaster; and in the same year joined in the expedition, commanded by the king in person, which