First Barons War

First Barons' War
Date 1215–1217 Location England Result Civil War. French invasion and 16-month occupation of England eventually recalled. Return to status quo ante bellum, with some monarchic concessions to the rebellious barons.
Belligerents
Pro-Angevin forces	Rebel "Army of God and Holy Church", supported by the Kingdom of France and by the Kingdom of Scotland
Commanders and leaders
Hubert de Burgh, Earl of Kent William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke	Robert Fitzwalter Louis of France

The First Barons' War (1215–1217) was a civil war in the Kingdom of England in which a group of rebellious major landowners (commonly referred to as barons) led by Robert Fitzwalter and supported by a French army under the future Louis VIII of France, waged war against King John of England.

The war resulted from the king's refusal to accept and abide by Magna Carta which he had sealed on 15 June 1215, and from the ambitions of the French prince, who dragged the war on after many of the rebels had made peace with John.

King John in June 1215 was forced to put his seal to "The Articles of the Barons" by a group of powerful barons who could no longer stand John's failed leadership and despotic rule. The king's Great Seal was attached to it on 15 June 1215. In return, the barons renewed their oaths of fealty to King John on 19 July 1215. A formal document to record the agreement was created by the royal chancery on 15 July: this was the original Magna Carta. "The law of the land" is one of the great watchwords of Magna Carta, standing in opposition to the king's mere will.

The Magna Carta of 1215 contained clauses which in theory noticeably reduced the power of the king, such as clause 61, the "security clause". This clause allowed a group of 25 barons to override the king at any time by way of force, a medieval legal process called distraint that was normal in feudal relationships but had never been applied to a king. After a few months of half-hearted attempts to negotiate in the summer of 1215, open warfare broke out between the rebel barons and the king and his supporters.

The war began over the Magna Carta but quickly turned into a dynastic war for the throne of England. The rebel barons, faced with a powerful king, turned to Louis, son and heir apparent of King Philip II of France and grandson-in-law of King Henry II of England. The Norman invasion had occurred only 149 years before, and the relationship between England and France was not so simply adversarial as it later became. The contemporary document called the annals of Waverley sees no contradiction in stating that Louis was invited to invade in order to "prevent the realm being pillaged by aliens".

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