was king john good or bad
Thus, we see him, for example, razing the walls and castle of Le Mans in 1200, assaulting the forces besieging Mirebeau in 1202 (having covered a distance of 80 miles in 48 hours), marching upon Montauban in 1206 and pressing the siege of Rochester castle in 1215 – an event that the leading authority of castles and castle warfare in this period considers was “the greatest operation in England up to that time” (RA Brown). John's reign has been viewed in very different ways by historians. He lost a war to the French,in doing so losing territories in Normandy,Anjou,Poitou,Maine and Touraine . These are powerful words, and it follows that if John ignored Magna Carta – which he did – then it must surely be the case that he was indeed malign. King John was not a good man, He had his little ways. 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. The king was first inserted into the Robin Hood story in the 16th century, but his inclusion has no historical basis whatsoever. The reality is that John was not as bad as legend made out – he was worse. 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. 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. HistoryExtra article – Why ‘Bad King John’ was actually good. One of the few positive statements made about King John was that there was always plenty to eat and drink in his hall, and that he distributed robes to his men on a regular basis. 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? They also complained that he forced himself on the wives and daughters of his barons. 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. The ever-growing extent to which Magna Carta is celebrated and elevated necessarily means that, in equal and opposite degree, the reputation of John is tarnished and diminished. When the king captured his nephew in 1202, he also took prisoner hundreds of other knights, who expected to be held in honourable confinement. Medieval monarchs were expected to be fierce, and John fulfilled those expectations. John repeatedly broke this taboo. Graham Seel is head of history at St Paul’s School in London. He united into one mass of wickedness their insolence, their selfishness, their unbridled lust, their cruelty and tyranny, their shamelessness, their superstition, their cynical indifference to honor or truth” Was 'Bad King John', as he has been famously nicknamed, really as 'bad' as history has made him out to be? Others argued that John had acted with justification, noting that Arthur was taken while in armed rebellion against his uncle. When John’s son Henry III cut back on such expenditure to save up for his crusade, he was criticised for departing from the example of his father. Bad he was, and bad should John remain. By entering your details, you are agreeing to HistoryExtra terms and conditions and privacy policy. Like William I, King John is one of the more controversial monarchs of Medieval England and is most associated with the signing of the Magna Carta in 1215. Yet even here the overall assessment of the king is damning. 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. Sadly, John rarely managed to meet them…. 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. 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. In a war with the French king Philip II, he lost Normandy and almost all his other possessions in France.In England, after a revolt of the barons, he was forced to seal the Magna Carta (1215). In the 20th century, some historians put forward a case for King John’s defence, arguing that his badness was largely a later invention, and that his misfortunes as a ruler were mostly down to ill luck. 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! King John then was definitely, as the old history books would put it, not just a bad king but a very bad king. Instead, the anticipated tsunami of popular and learned articles collectively assert, inter alia, that John was at once cruel and coercive, treacherous and tyrannical, pusillanimous and pitiful, lazy and lackluster. Please enter your number below. "There are several times during John's reign where he actually has the … He was considered a weak king who was managed by others like the barons and the Pope. 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. The Magna Carta of 1215 is not the Magna Carta of popular imagination. 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. Similarly, it is not proven that John starved Matilda de Braose and her son to death in Corfe Castle, but if he did so it was because of her refusal to offer her sons as hostages in order to trim the rebellious behaviour of their father. This was a risky business. During his reign he had victories against the Welsh and the Scots. Modern attempts to rehabilitate him require us to ignore this chorus of disapproval from his contemporaries as well as his own nefarious acts. And sometimes no one spoke to him For days and days and days. 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. John certainly persecuted the church with a particular fury after his row with the pope over the appointment of a new archbishop of Canterbury. During these more chivalrous times, aristocrats did not expect to die in battle, and if they were taken prisoner they expected to be kept in honourable captivity until they could be ransomed. Here’s why…. He is the author of King John: An Underrated King (Anthem Press, 2012). You can unsubscribe at any time. On the other hand some people have pointed to the many probems that he faced and claim that he was quite good at coping with these. Some people believed the signing of the great charter was a good thing but freemen and barons still disliked John.John was not a complete bad King, he had some good points as well. Most kings were capable of behaving badly from time to time. 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. 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. Indeed, by the spring of 1215, it has been estimated that of England’s 197 baronies only 39 were in active opposition to the king, with perhaps the same number acting in his support. This, he claims, is partly evidenced by the fact that the government sponsored the Magna Carta 800th anniversary website, which currently asserts that Magna Carta “is the foundation stone supporting the freedoms enjoyed today by hundreds of millions of people in more than 100 countries”. You're now subscribed to our newsletter. Some kings were extremely pious in their own devotions, such as the French king Louis IX. 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. Thank you for subscribing to HistoryExtra, you now have unlimited access. You will shortly receive a receipt for your purchase via email. 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. King John was the reigning king from 1189-1199. 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. You can unsubscribe at any time. Medieval kings were expected to be pious, and they could demonstrate this in a variety of ways — by distributing alms to the poor, for example, or building a new church. 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. Yet nearly all medieval kings took mistresses. As a starter, pupils draw a spider diagram listing the qualities they think a good king has. You will shortly receive a receipt for your purchase via email. Please enter your number below. What of Henry V, who during the battle of Agincourt in 1415 ordered the killing of several thousand French prisoners? But the assertion that all medieval chroniclers were churchmen is a fallacy. “In his inner soul John was the worst outcome of the Angevins. King John gets a bad rap. King John is famously linked with the Barons War and the subsequent signing of Magna Carta. The clergy certainly had good reason to hate him. Popular representations of events at Runnymede in June 1215 would also have us believe that leading rebel barons such as Eustace de Vesci and Robert Fitzwalter were revered freedom fighters. King John was not a good man --He had his little ways. Click here to listen to our King John podcast, Save a huge 50% off a subscription to your favourite history magazine. Thanks! 1 King John. Some claim that he was a very poor king who made many mistakes and left the country very weak. I think that John must have been a bad king. On several occasions he prosecuted successful sieges. The evidence does not permit John to be charged definitively with killing his nephew, Arthur, but the king nevertheless had arguably legitimate reasons to undertake such an act since Arthur (a 16-year-old boy) had put himself at the head of a rebellion sponsored by Philip Augustus. Somewhere near here in 1216, ‘Bad King John’ – a monarch so incompetent and evil that his name is still preserved in folklore, films and nursery rhymes – was running from his enemies. He was certainly not a milksop like Henry VI or Richard II, averse to armed conflict. 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. To lead from the front as legend made out – he was of. 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