The First Barons' War (1215–1217) was a civil war in the Kingdom of England in which a group of rebellious major landowners led by Robert Fitzwalter waged war against King John of England. The conflict resulted from King John's disastrous wars against King Philip II of France, which led to the collapse of the Angevin Empire, and John's subsequent refusal to accept and abide by Magna Carta, which John had sealed on 15 June 1215.
King John of England (left) in battle with the troops of Louis of France (right)
The round tower (centre) and two square towers (left and right) of Rochester Castle.
The Second Battle of Lincoln in 1217.
The Angevin kings of England were Henry II and his sons, Richard I and John, who ruled England from 1154 to 1216. With ancestral lands in Anjou, they were related to the Norman kings of England through Matilda, the daughter of Henry I, and Henry II's mother. They were also related to the earlier Anglo-Saxon kings of England through Matilda's great-great-great grandfather, Aethelred the Unready. Their descendants, the main line of Plantagenets, continued to rule England until 1485; some historians make no distinction between the Angevins and the Plantagenets, while others name John's son Henry III the first Plantagenet king.
Henry II (1154–1189), who inherited ancestral lands in Anjou from his father and created the Angevin Empire is also arguably the first Plantagenet king of England.
Thirteenth-century depiction of the Angevins (Henry II and his legitimate children): (left to right) William, Henry, Richard, Matilda, Geoffrey, Eleanor, Joan and John
King Richard I's Great Seal of 1189. Exhibited in History Museum of Vendee.
One of only four surviving exemplifications of the 1215 text of Magna Carta
