Moreover, even though chronicle sources allege that the whole of the baronage was united against John, this was clearly not the case — not least because there would have been no possibility of civil war if there had not been two sides, each with the wherewithal to resist the other. 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. John was also an effective strategist. Lusting after the wives and daughters of those men he relied upon to deliver the royal command was no doubt a problem in a world where private relationships were the stuff of high politics.
Yet nearly all medieval kings took mistresses. His marriage to Isabella of Angouleme when she was unlikely to have been more than 15 and quite possibly as young as nine has prompted a flood of accusations that John was a 13th-century Humbert Humbert. Further contextual analysis also diminishes the charge that John was a perverted purveyor of acts of cruelty. 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 year-old boy had put himself at the head of a rebellion sponsored by Philip Augustus.
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. Yet hostage taking was part-and-parcel of medieval government, and as such it follows that they sometimes paid the ultimate price.
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. Close X. Click to scroll back to top of the page Back to top. By Katie Scott Global News. Posted May 28, am. View image in full screen. Smaller font Descrease article font size - A. Share this item on Facebook facebook Share this item via WhatsApp whatsapp Share this item on Twitter twitter Send this page to someone via email email Share this item on Pinterest pinterest Share this item on LinkedIn linkedin Share this item on Reddit reddit Copy article link Copy link.
Story continues below advertisement. View this post on Instagram. Super awesome how you found a way to take a genuinely heartwarming viral series and sell out to the highest bidder — kswa kswa May 22, He loses a large amount of possessions inherited, in particular lands in France, like Normandy and Anjou.
He manages to surrender his realm to the pope and ends up facing a huge baronial rebellion, a civil war and a war with France. In terms of failures, he is one of the worst kings. And his unpleasant personality compounds his mistakes, says Professor Hudson. Trying to seize control of the throne while his brother, King Richard I, was imprisoned abroad, lost him the trust of the people long before he became king himself. For people to trust a king and fear him is essential but people don't trust him.
But John was a king who did interfere and wasn't heroic. But it's simplistic to portray John as simply evil and Richard good, as in some of the Robin Hood films, he says. John grew up in a feuding family.
He was born in Oxford in , the youngest and favourite son of Henry II. When John was five, three of his brothers plotted against their father to seize the throne, enlisting the help of Louis VII of France and their own mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine. The rebellion was short-lived but Henry II punished his wife by imprisoning her for 16 years. On Henry's death in , John's brother Richard became king but he nominated his nephew, Arthur, as heir.
John tried unsuccessfully to instigate a coup while his brother was in prison, captured on his way back from fighting the Crusades. The popular image of John as a cruel tyrant began a few years after his death in , after a turbulent 17 years on the throne. The chronicles of Roger Wendover, a historian and monk at St Albans, and his successor Matthew Paris, included many accounts of cruelty that have since been questioned.
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