Some kings were extremely pious in their own devotions, such as the French king Louis IX. In an age when personal bravery mattered, John repeatedly showed his back to the enemy. As a result, many modern day historians consider him a bad king. Edward I narrowly escaped death by crossbow bolt; Richard I was not so lucky. So successful was this rehabilitation that, in the popular imagination, John is now often seen as being the victim of a posthumous smear campaign, a king no worse than most others – misreported and misunderstood. During John’s reign the finger of suspicion was pointed more firmly at the king himself, with some contemporaries alleging that he murdered his nephew with his own hand. King John was not a good man— He had his little ways. This was a risky business. A Very Bad King . “No man may ever trust him,” sang the troubadour Bertran de Born, “for his heart is soft and cowardly.”. Bad he was, and bad should John remain. Pupils then use cards to identify evidence that John was good and bad. John's powerful mother Eleanor, Duchess of Aquitaine, had a tenuous claim to Toulouse and Auvergne in southern France, and was the former wife of Louis VII of France. For most of his life, John remained loyal to his father when all his brothers … King John was born in 1167 and died in 1216. He was considered a weak king who was managed by others like the barons and the Pope. King John was not a good man, He had his little ways. What was true of the Wars of the Roses, however, was not true of the 12th and 13th centuries, when stricter rules about combat and treatment of prisoners held sway. King John is famously linked with the Barons War and the subsequent signing of Magna Carta. The Sins of the Sons. KING JOHN IS NO MORE! He visited every part of his Kingdom and made sure that laws were kept properly wherever he went. However, the Magna Carta that John chose to ignore did not purport to be a constitutional document adumbrating and guaranteeing liberties to all English people. Instead, John prosecuted siege warfare with the sort of energy, determination and success that is usually only spoken of in reference to Henry II and Richard I. GOOD KING JOHN: He was a good King because he was good when it came to battle! Please enter your number below. Bad kings like John were always accused of taking ‘evil counsel’, which meant relying on a clique of advisors. Maintaining yourself in government involves a simple trick – make sure more people want you to remain in power than want you out. Ironically, the very fact that John faced rebellion in 1215 is itself indicative of the fact that his government had bite as well as bark. King John is one of the most well-known figures in history because he signed Magna Carta. He was certainly not a milksop like Henry VI or Richard II, averse to armed conflict. So fast was his retreat on this occasion that he was three leagues away before his troops realised he had abandoned them. Nor was King Harold, but he at least engaged his enemies when they landed on the shores of England and went down fighting alongside his men. Here, writing for History Extra, author Graham E Seel considers John's governance, and asks whether it is time to change our opinions of him June 17, 2018 at 8:00 am Yet when their friends and families in Anjou and Brittany continued to fight against him, John rounded up 22 of these knightly captives and sent them to Corfe Castle in Dorset, where they were starved to death. For most of his reign John was at war with the king of France, Philip Augustus, and he did not hesitate to invade Scotland, Wales and Ireland when he felt that the rulers of those lands had crossed him. Modern attempts to rehabilitate him require us to ignore this chorus of disapproval from his contemporaries as well as his own nefarious acts. Medieval kings were expected to be able to protect and defend their subjects from attack and to lead from the front. But the assertion that all medieval chroniclers were churchmen is a fallacy. Good kings took this responsibility very seriously. Whether by summoning great councils or later parliaments, successful medieval rulers took steps to consult their more important subjects, noting their views, winning them round and channelling their ambitions. Popular understanding of Magna Carta has significantly stunted debate on the nature and achievement of John. John was also an effective strategist. In order to try and bind John to their terms, the barons insisted that John accept a committee of 25 of their number empowered to police and enforce Magna Carta by seizing John’s castles and assets when he was judged – by them, and against criteria put forth by them  – to have transgressed. Indeed, William the Conqueror’s loyalty to his wife, Matilda, was the subject of perplexed comment. Everything you ever wanted to know about... King John: the making of a medieval monster, The race for vaccines: lessons from history, The race for a cure: how we found vaccines for 4 of history’s most dangerous diseases, Mourning Martin Luther King Jr: the life and legacy of the civil rights leader, Treachery at Bosworth: what really brought down Richard III, Richard the Lionheart may not have spoken English – plus 7 more surprising facts, The crusades: everything you wanted to know. During his reign he had victories against the Welsh and the Scots. You will shortly receive a receipt for your purchase via email. By entering your details, you are agreeing to HistoryExtra terms and conditions and privacy policy. In fact, he would have been quite good as a King if it weren’t for his poor skills in the battlefield. When the king captured his nephew in 1202, he also took prisoner hundreds of other knights, who expected to be held in honourable confinement. Bertran de Born, the troubadour poet mentioned above, was a member of the lay aristocracy of southern France. I think that John must have been a bad king. King John - Good or Bad? King John's Christmas. No medieval monarch could have accepted for any length of time the Magna Carta of 1215, for it clearly rendered the king a phantom of a monarch. Played as a sulky, useless, entitled millennial by Oscar Isaacs in Ridley Scott’s pretentious snoozefest Robin Hood. In fact, they are better understood as tight-knuckled, low browed feudal reactionaries kicking against John’s increasingly efficacious administration. This was a period when you could be blinded, castrated or even killed by the king’s officials for taking a deer in the royal forest. Plenty of laymen put pen to parchment during the Middle Ages, and John’s reign is no exception. People generally regard the Middle Ages as a cruel time, and there is indeed some justification for doing so. When the French finally invaded England in the spring of 1216, John watched them disembark on the beaches of Kent, briefly considered fighting them, then rode off in the opposite direction. After his death in 1307 Edward I was praised for the quality of his justice, and in his own letters the same king can be seen exhorting his officials to act justly. Graham Seel is head of history at St Paul’s School in London. It does not require any particular military genius, however, to carry out a siege, only superior resources in manpower and artillery. You have successfully linked your account! The king was first inserted into the Robin Hood story in the 16th century, but his inclusion has no historical basis whatsoever. If you subscribe to BBC History Magazine Print or Digital Editions then you can unlock 10 years’ worth of archived history material fully searchable by Topic, Location, Period and Person. You're now subscribed to our newsletter. Some claim that he was a very poor king who made many mistakes and left the country very weak. He drove the monks of Canterbury into exile and eventually seized the lands of all the English clergy – moves that led to England being laid under interdict and the king himself being excommunicated. Basically he was "a crap King " ! John’s response in similar circumstances was to run away. Yet hostage taking was part-and-parcel of medieval government, and as such it follows that they sometimes paid the ultimate price. Marc Morris is a historian and broadcaster whose books include King John: Treachery, Tyranny and the Road to Magna Carta (Windmill Books, 2016) and A Great and Terrible King: Edward I and the Forging of Britain (Windmill, 2009), The highest standards of conduct were expected of Plantagenet rulers. Bad things: Bad Warrior Lost most battles Went back on what he said Tried to exert power over the church Gave the poor a hard time Good things: Determinded man First king to keep proper records Tried to make barons obey the king the Magna Carta Summing up: So John, byname John Lackland, French Jean sans Terre, (born c. 1166—died October 18/19, 1216, Newark, Nottinghamshire, England), king of England from 1199 to 1216. The real test for a military commander comes when the odds are less than certain. And sometimes no one spoke to him For days and days and days. King John is often referred to as a bad king these days and there is a lot of evidence both modern and written by sources in King John’s time, to give reason for that name. “He kept his prisoners in such a horrible manner, and in such abject confinement,” wrote the author of the 13th-century History of William Marshal, “that it seemed an indignity and a disgrace to all those with him who witnessed such cruelty.”. His plan to relieve the siege of Chateau-Gaillard in 1203 by arranging a simultaneous assault from land and amphibious forces has been described as “a masterpiece of ingenuity”by K Norgate. Indeed, King Stephen was seen as weak for refusing to hang the son of Marshal when the latter broke the terms of an agreement with the king. And sometimes no one spoke to him For days and days and days. Nobles were killed in great numbers in Anglo-Saxon England and again in the later Middle Ages, but between 1076 and 1306 not one English earl was executed. He is the author of King John: An Underrated King (Anthem Press, 2012). Robin Hood is an animated film produced by the Walt Disney Studios, first released in the United States on November 8, 1973. Invoked by those in 17th-century England who sought to thwart the allegedly despotic tendencies of Charles I, and latterly employed by the American Revolutionaries in their making of the United States Bill of Rights in 1789, Magna Carta has become totemic of the liberties by which western societies identify themselves. He was a good King because he was very hardworking! 1 King John. John's reign has been viewed in very different ways by historians. King John is often referred to as a bad king these days and there is a lot of evidence both modern and written by sources in King John’s time. Please enter your number below. By entering your details, you are agreeing to HistoryExtra terms and conditions and privacy policy. Further contextual analysis also diminishes the charge that John was a perverted purveyor of acts of cruelty. If you subscribe to BBC History Magazine Print or Digital Editions then you can unlock 10 years’ worth of archived history material fully searchable by Topic, Location, Period and Person. Yet nearly all medieval kings took mistresses. My main reason for saying this is that it seems that his subjects never really supported him. You're now subscribed to our newsletter. The author of The History of William Marshal was also a layman, and repeatedly blames the disasters of John’s reign on the king’s own personality. The Magna Carta of 1215 (it is important to realise that there were many reissues of Magna Carta after the reign of John, each different to the one presented to John) is better understood as a set of flawed peace terms designed to heal the incipient civil war between John and an element of rebellious barons. What of Henry V, who during the battle of Agincourt in 1415 ordered the killing of several thousand French prisoners? Contemporaries also regarded him as treacherous, remembering in particular his attempt to seize the throne for himself while his brother Richard was in captivity. John, by contrast, killed people in this way en masse, and on more than one occasion. Among academics this interpretation has not fared nearly so well, for the simple reason that it requires certain fundamental facts about his reign to be downplayed or ignored completely. Yet, I argue, he was not “less than successful”. John’s achievement is that he held things together for as long as he did. Thanks! Medieval monarchs were expected to be fierce, and John fulfilled those expectations. Discuss with reference to other Angevin kings. Here’s why…. John was not as bad as legend made out – he was worse Those who go in search of the real John therefore tend to suppose that he must have been unfairly maligned, and suspect that in reality he was not nearly as bad as legend maintains. There seems to be a problem, please try again. His father, Henry II of England, had inherited significant territories along the Atlantic seaboard – Anjou, Normandy and England – and expanded his empire by conquering Brittany. John was the pathetic, childish, gibbering, thumb-sucking lion brilliantly voiced by … Thank you for subscribing to HistoryExtra, you now have unlimited access. “In his inner soul John was the worst outcome of the Angevins. If John is guilty of cruelty, then what of Richard I in 1191 when, following a dispute about the terms upon which Acre had been surrendered, he ordered the killing of 2,700 Muslim prisoners? Was King John bad? John was certainly unlucky in that his reign coincided with probably the two most accomplished leaders of the Middle Ages – Philip Augustus and Pope Innocent III (r1198–1216) – and he was certainly unlucky in that the Angevin ‘empire’ he had inherited in 1199 was increasingly ungovernable and assaulted by fissiparous tendencies. Nor is it true that John antagonized elements of the baronage because he was lacking in martial prowess, or that the king was ‘Softsword’, as the chroniclers assert. As for Matilda Fitzwalter of Diss, she may have been propositioned by King John but at least she was not poisoned by him. And men who came across him, When walking in the town, Gave him a supercilious stare, Or passed with noses in the air— And bad King John stood dumbly there, Blushing beneath his crown. Clergymen and laymen alike were united in their detestation of John. I mean, come on, he’s “Bad” King John, right? What of John’s father, Henry II who, having taken 22 hostages from the Welsh in 1165, ordered that the males among them – some of them sons of princes – be blinded and castrated, and that the females should have their noses and ears cut off? He has recently released ‘King John’, an app version of the book available on iPad. The official website for BBC History Magazine, BBC History Revealed and BBC World Histories Magazine, Save 50% on a BBC History Magazine or BBC History Revealed subscription, Was 'Bad King John', as he has been famously nicknamed, really as 'bad' as history has made him out to be? John repeatedly broke this taboo. For the large part it seems that, 800 years later, opinion has broadly backed Matthew Paris, the 13th-century chronicler who alleged that John’s greatest achievement was, by dying, to make yet more foul the existing foulness of Hell: John was not only Bad; he was diabolical. You will shortly receive a receipt for your purchase via email. John was very active in hearing court cases, but his motivation was the money he could raise by imposing punitive fines. At the time of their coronation, medieval monarchs were required to swear an oath, part of which was a promise to do good justice. John certainly persecuted the church with a particular fury after his row with the pope over the appointment of a new archbishop of Canterbury. Cruelty and cowardice were two of John’s most notable faults, but he had plenty of others besides. HistoryExtra article – Why ‘Bad King John’ was actually good. You can unsubscribe at any time. His reign was not the most righteous reign, as many citizens thought that he was a disbeliever, then other people thought he was a wasted more money than ever before. King John gets a bad rap. His reluctance to commit to pitched battles was entirely conventional in an age when all leaders preferred to avoid them – John’s arch-enemy, Philip Augustus, King of France (r1180–1223) shied away from a setpiece battle at least as frequently as his protagonist. Yet marriage at an early age was commonplace at the time – a survey of the marriage arrangements of John’s contemporaries leads to the conclusion that the Angevin king had an eye for an older women! He taxed the country far too much and despised many of his own people, especially the barons. John, John, bad King John Shamed the throne that he sat on; Not a scruple, not a straw, Cared this monarch for the law; Promises he daily broke; None could trust a word he spoke; So the Barons brought a Deed; Down to rushy Runnymede, Magna Carta was it hight, Charter of the People’s Right, Framed and fashioned to correct John did indeed overturn Magna Carta, but arguably any medieval monarch would have done the same. This clearly shocked every other noble family in England, but did not deter the king from threatening to mete out similar treatment to others: in 1215 and 1216 he induced some of the Magna Carta rebels to surrender by threatening to starve their captive companions. If John was indeed a “smutty minded groper” (CJ Tyerman), he remained a rake rather than a rogue. Those who go in search of the real John therefore tend to suppose that he must have been unfairly maligned, and suspect that in reality he was not nearly as bad as legend maintains. Thanks! Magna Carta, we are told, stands for the rule of law. At the same time, most people are aware that these tales are legendary, and, in their earliest versions, make no mention of John at all. King John was very unlucky, he says, but he also made his own bad luck. King John was not a good man --He had his little ways. King John - Good or Bad? Famously, he arranged the ‘disappearance’ of his nephew and rival, Arthur of Brittany, who contested the king’s claim to his inheritance until John captured him in 1202. Indeed, so extreme was this impact that it is not beyond sensible contemplation that the ambition of the rebel barons was not to obtain a lasting peace, but instead absolutely to provoke John to break the newly agreed terms so that they could seize his largesse. This article was first published in the June 2015 issue of BBC History Magazine, Save a huge 50% off a subscription to your favourite history magazine. King John was a well educated King and was effective in ruling the country. King John was not a good man, And no good friends had he. This apparently incontestable evidence shows John to have been possessed of vigour and vim, constantly on the move enforcing Angevin aspirations. In 1210 he committed one of the most notorious acts of his reign by starving to death the wife and son of his former friend, William de Briouze.