King John dies of dysentery at Newark

October 19, 1216

Fleeing rebels and reportedly grieving the loss of his treasure in the Wash, the despised Plantagenet king died of the bloody flux. His nine-year-old son Henry III inherited a kingdom in civil war and a Magna Carta his guardians quickly reissued to buy peace. John's death removed the most hated man in England and gave the royalist cause a clean slate that compromise could build upon.