John's government was one of the worst the Bishopric had to endure; without talent and energy, slavishly surrendering to all sensual pleasures, it was never possible for him to maintain the inner peace, under which the Nedersticht in particular suffered greatly.

[2] Under the influence of his cousin Count Otto II of Guelders, John was elected successor to Henry I van Vianden in 1267 as Bishop of Utrecht.

[4] As Pope Clement IV (at the instigation of the Archbishop of Cologne) disagreed with this choice, John was never ordained a Bishop and remained Bishop-Elect.

For this reason he joined Otto II of Guelders at his war against the Archbishop of Cologne, but John could not offer his cousin essential help.

For a year after his election, marauding gangs of insurgents from North-Holland, who furiously resisted their nobles, destroyed many castles and finally appeared before the city Utrecht, which they obtained with the help of the poorters, so that John first had to flee to Guelders and then to the Oversticht.

When the marauders withdrew from Utrecht in 1268, the townspeople, whom he besieged with assistance of Guelders, refused him entrance, so that he was forced to move his seat to Deventer until 1270.

In 1274 Gijsbrecht IV of Amstel saw an opportunity to defeat John definitively in the uprising of the peasants from Kennemerland, Waterland and West-Frisia.

In 1278 he therefore seized the proceeds of the tithes for the crusade from the Dominican convent in Utrecht, which earned him the everlasting hatred of the ecclesiastical authorities.