A significant battle and the folly of John I indeed. Would this make a good battle for the game? Article below is from
www.thecollector.com/greatest-medieval-battles-sieges/
In 1212, King Philip II of France had planned to cross the English Channel and take England for himself. This had scared the English king, King John, enough to realize how vulnerable he was with less than 30 miles of water between the two feuding kingdoms. As a response, John made peace with the Church (he had been effectively placed under suspension by
Pope Innocent III
in 1208 for his constant arguing with the Church). This came at a cost, though: he promised to surrender his kingdom to the Pope as well as to pay an annual sum of 1000 marks to Innocent and his successors in perpetuity. A fourteenth-century chronicler, Henry Knighton, noted that John had
“turned himself from a free man into a slave”.
As a result, John had no option but to go to war, and his forces (along with those of the Holy Roman Empire under Otto IV) met at Bouvines. The Allied army of 9,000 outnumbered Philip’s army by 2000. Nevertheless, the French army destroyed John’s forces and completely destroyed any hopes of John regaining his territory. This was a hugely significant medieval battle for a number of reasons: firstly, it signified the early collapse of the Plantagenet Empire — all of the territory that had been won under John’s father, Henry II, was now lost. Secondly, it ended the Anglo-French war of 1213-14. Thirdly, it changed the course of English history forever. Realizing how weakened he was,
John’s barons
forced him to sign the
Magna Carta
, a legal document that still holds precedent in English law over 800 years later.
