of Austria and with his former foe, Henry of Carinthia. He was a frequent and welcome visitor to France, in which country he had a personal and hereditary interest; and on several occasions his prowess was serviceable to his brother-in-law King Charles IV., and to Charles’s successor Philip VI., whose son John, afterwards King John II., married a daughter of the Bohemian king. Soon after the battle of Mühldorf, the relations between John and the emperor became somewhat strained, partly owing to the king’s growing friendship with the Papacy and with France, and partly owing to territorial disputes. An agreement, however, was concluded, and John undertook his invasion of Italy, which was perhaps the most dazzling of his exploits. Invited by the citizens of Brescia, he crossed the Alps with a meagre following in 1331, quickly received the homage of many of the cities of northern Italy, and soon found himself the ruler of a great part of the peninsula. But his soldiers were few and his enemies were many, and a second invasion of Italy in 1333 was followed by the dissipation of his dreams of making himself king of Lombardy and Tuscany, and even of supplanting Louis on the imperial throne. The fresh trouble between king and emperor, caused by this enterprise, was intensified by a quarrel over the lands left by Henry of Carinthia, and still later by the interference of Louis in Tirol; and with bewildering rapidity John was allying himself with the kings of Hungary and Poland, fighting against the emperor and his Austrian allies, defending Bohemia, governing Luxemburg, visiting France and negotiating with the pope. About 1340 the king was overtaken by blindness, but he continued to lead an active life, successfully resisting the attacks of Louis and his allies, and campaigning in Lithuania. In 1346 he made a decisive move against the emperor. Acting in union with Pope Clement VI. he secured the formal deposition of Louis and the election of his own son Charles, margrave of Moravia, as German king, or king of the Romans, in July 1346. Then journeying to help Philip of France against the English, he fought at the battle of Crécy, where his heroic death on the 26th of August 1346 was a fitting conclusion to his adventurous life.
John was a chivalrous and romantic personage, who enjoyed a great reputation for valour both before and after his death; but as a ruler he was careless and extravagant, interested only in his kingdom when seeking relief from his constant pecuniary embarrassments. After the death of his first wife, who bore him two sons, Charles, afterwards the emperor Charles IV., and John Henry (d. 1375), and who had been separated from her husband for some years, the king married Beatrice (d. 1383), daughter of Louis I., duke of Bourbon, by whom he had a son, Wenceslas (d. 1383). According to Camden the crest or badge of three ostrich feathers, with the motto Ich dien, borne by the prince of Wales was originally that of John of Bohemia and was first assumed by Edward the Black Prince after the battle of Crécy. There is no proof, however, that this badge was ever worn by John—it certainly was not his crest—and its origin must be sought elsewhere.
See J. Schötter, Johann, Graf von Luxemburg and König von Böhmen (Luxemburg, 1865); F. von Weech, Kaiser Ludwig der Bayer und König Johann von Böhmen (Munich, 1860), and U. Chevalier, Répertoire des sources historiques, tome v. (Paris, 1905).
JOHN I. (1358–1390), king of Castile, was the son of Henry II.,
and of his wife Joan, daughter of John Manuel of Villena, head
of a younger branch of the royal house of Castile. In the beginning
of his reign he had to contend with the hostility of John
of Gaunt, who claimed the crown by right of his wife Constance,
daughter of Peter the Cruel. The king of Castile finally bought
off the claim of his English competitor by arranging a marriage
between his son Henry and Catherine, daughter of John of Gaunt,
in 1387. Before this date he had been engaged in hostilities with
Portugal which was in alliance with John of Gaunt. His first
quarrel with Portugal was settled by his marriage, in 1382, with
Beatrix, daughter of the Portuguese king Ferdinand. On the
death of his father-in-law in 1383, John endeavoured to enforce
the claims of his wife, Ferdinand’s only child, to the crown of
Portugal. He was resisted by the national sentiment of the
people, and was utterly defeated at the battle of Aljubarrota,
on the 14th of August 1385. King John was killed at Alcalá on
the 9th of October 1390 by the fall of his horse, while he was
riding in a fantasia with some of the light horsemen known as the
farfanes, who were mounted and equipped in the Arab style.
JOHN II. (1405–1454), king of Castile, was born on the 6th of
March 1405, the son of Henry III. of Castile and of his wife
Catherine, daughter of John of Gaunt. He succeeded his father
on the 25th of December 1406 at the age of a year and ten months.
It was one of the many misfortunes of Castile that the long reign
of John II.—forty-nine years—should have been granted to one
of the most incapable of her kings. John was amiable, weak and
dependent on those about him. He had no taste except for
ornament, and no serious interest except in amusements, verse-making,
hunting and tournaments. He was entirely under the
influence of his favourite, Alvaro de Luna, till his second wife,
Isabella of Portugal, obtained control of his feeble will. At her
instigation he threw over his faithful and able favourite, a meanness
which is said to have caused him well-deserved remorse. He
died on the 20th of July 1454 at Valladolid. By his second
marriage he was the father of Isabella “the Catholic.”
JOHN I. (b. and d. 1316), king of France, son of Louis X. and
Clemence, daughter of Charles Martel, who claimed to be king
of Hungary, was born, after his father’s death, on the 15th of
November 1316, and only lived seven days. His uncle, afterwards
Philip V. has been accused of having caused his death, or
of having substituted a dead child in his place; but nothing was
ever proved. An impostor calling himself John I., appeared in
Provence, in the reign of John II., but he was captured and died
in prison.
JOHN II. (1319–1364), surnamed the Good, king of France, son
of Philip VI. and Jeanne of Burgundy, succeeded his father in
1350. At the age of 13 he married Bona of Luxemburg, daughter
of John, king of Bohemia. His early exploits against the English
were failures and revealed in the young prince both avarice and
stubborn persistence in projects obviously ill-advised. It was
especially the latter quality which brought about his ruin. His
first act upon becoming king was to order the execution of the
constable, Raoul de Brienne. The reasons for this are unknown,
but from the secrecy with which it was carried out and the readiness
with which the honour was transferred to the king’s close
friend Charles of La Cesda, it has been attributed to the influence
and ambition of the latter. John surrounded himself with evil
counsellors, Simon de Buci, Robert de Lorris, Nicolas Braque,
men of low origin who robbed the treasury and oppressed the
people, while the king gave himself up to tournaments and
festivities. In imitation of the English order of the Garter, he
established the knightly order of the Star, and celebrated its
festivals with great display. Raids of the Black Prince in Languedoc
led to the states-general of 1355, which readily voted money,
but sanctioned the right of resistance against all kinds of pillage—a
distinct commentary on the incompetence of the king. In
September 1356 John gathered the flower of his chivalry and
attacked the Black Prince at Poitiers. The utter defeat of the
French was made the more humiliating by the capture of their
king, who had bravely led the third line of battle. Taken to
England to await ransom, John was at first installed in the Savoy
Palace, then at Windsor, Hertford, Somerton, and at last in
the Tower. He was granted royal state with his captive companions,
made a guest at tournaments, and supplied with
luxuries imported by him from France. The treaty of Brétigny
(1360), which fixed his ransom at 3,000,000 crowns, enabled him
to return to France, but although he married his daughter
Isabella to Gian Galeazzo Visconti of Milan, for a gift of 600,000
golden crowns, imposed a heavy feudal “aid” on merchandise,
and various other taxes, John was unable to pay more than
400,000 crowns to Edward III. His son Louis of Anjou, who had
been left as hostage, escaped from Calais in the summer of 1363,
and John, far in arrears in the payments of the ransom, surrendered
himself again “to maintain his royal honour which his
son had sullied.” He landed in England in January 1364 and was
received with great honour, lodged again in the Savoy, and was a
