Synopses & Reviews
King John (1166-1216) has long been seen as the epitome of bad kings. The son of the most charismatic couple of the middle ages, Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, and younger brother of the heroic crusader king, Richard the Lionheart, John lived much of his life in the shadow of his family. When in 1199 he became ruler of his familys lands in England and France, John proved unequal to the task of keeping them together. Early in his reign he lost much of his continental possessions, and over the next decade would come perilously close to losing his English kingdom, too.
In King John, medieval historian Stephen Church argues that Johns reign, for all its failings, would prove to be a crucial turning point in English history. Though he was a masterful political manipulator, Johns traditional ideas of unchecked sovereign power were becoming increasingly unpopular among his subjects, resulting in frequent confrontations. Nor was he willing to tolerate any challenges to his authority. For six long years, John and the pope struggled over the appointment of the Archbishop of Canterbury, a clash that led to the kings excommunication.
As king of England, John taxed his people heavily to fund his futile attempt to reconquer the lands lost to the king of France. The cost to his people of this failure was great, but it was greater still for John. In 1215, his subjects rose in rebellion against their king and forced upon him a new constitution by which he was to rule. The principles underlying this constitutionenshrined in the terms of Magna Cartawould go on to shape democratic constitutions across the globe, including our own.
In this authoritative biography, Church describes how it was that a king famous for his misrule gave rise to Magna Carta, the blueprint for good governance.
Review
Martin Aurell, Professor of Medieval History, University of Poitiers, Institut Universitaire de FranceDeep, solid, and vivid, this book is as precise with facts as it is subtle in their interpretation. Stephen Church penetrates the complexity of Johns character; Church offers the keys to understanding his failures and his follies, and the cruel actions he took with his entourage. This fascinating book does not pretend to an impossible rehabilitation of John I, but is rather a successful attempt at comprehending his character, the aristocracy, townsmen, and clergy he had to deal with, and the troubled times he could never change.”
Robert Stacey, Professor of Medieval History and Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, University of Washington
Stephen Church has written the most convincing account we have of Englands most reviled monarch. This lively, readable book will appeal both to general readers and to scholars.”
Review
Telegraph (UK)
Church is a scholarly and readable authority who has devoted his career to King Johns reign. He picks his way through the intrigues at court, clarifying waters muddied by patchy, often contradictory sources, and acts as an important corrective to the views of unconvincing chroniclers, such as Roger of Wendover.”
Weekly Standard
A thoughtful and suggestive book, instructive for anyone interested in comparative government and essential for students of early medieval England and France.”
Spectator (UK)
A fair and rounded picture of the king and his reign.”
Roanoke Times
Church presents an analysis of a king besieged by traditions, his French neighbors, and his own family. We learn to appreciate the circumstances that caused him to act as he did, but we also come to appreciate that this kings actions set the stage for American constitutional government.”
Open Letters Monthly
[Church] sets himself a methodology all historians should employ, but one thats particularly hard to use when it comes to John: Church intends to tell the kings story as though we didnt all already know how it turns out. Working from the primary sources of Johns life and times, Church approaches each major event in the reign from the even-keel perspective of the moment those events were happening, to the extent that such moments can be known
it works surprisingly well.”
McClatchy
Church plumbs historical documents, such letters and treaties to recreate the up-and-down life of John. Luckily, like all rulers, Johns reign had a bureaucracy, and bureaucracies run on paper. The portrait of the king is richer for the minutiae Church has mined from archives.”
Publishers Weekly
Church dramatically relates the tragic twists of the kings fall in this story of power gone awry, with echoes that resonate in the present.”
Library Journal
"Highly recommended for anyone interested in medieval history or history in general."
Kirkus
Scholarly but readable
an insightful, likely definitive, biography.”
Manuel Rojas Gabriel, Professor of Medieval History, University of Extremadura, Spain
Very well written, with a clear and precise style. This is a notable work of research. King John will change many of our traditional negative views concerning one of the more underestimated kings of English History. Stephen Church has taken a great step forward in giving us a more balanced understanding of John, his personality and reign, and also of the Angevin dynasty.”
Jay Rubenstein, Professor of Medieval History at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville
One of the most enigmatic figures in English history and legend, King John has found in Stephen Church a biographer able to present a richly textured portrait of both his character and his world. Johns was a reign of immense conquest. From his failed conquest of Ireland, to his loss of the French lands that he had inherited from his equally ruthless but far more capable father, to his long political and spiritual war against the Pope, and finally, to the rebellion of his subjects that led to the writing of the Magna Carta this is a great story that Church tells with real skill and dynamism.”
Robert Lacey, co-author of The Year 1000: What Life Was Like at the Turn of the First Millennium, An Englishman's World
In a biography that ties together the year 1215, Magna Carta, and wicked King John, Stephen Church vividly explains the dawn of democracy.”
Terry Jones, director of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Monty Pythons Life of Brian, and Monty Pythons The Meaning of Life, and author of Terry Jones Medieval Lives and Who Murdered Chaucer: A Medieval History
Stephen Church has written a romp through King Johns life, full of surprising and intriguing detailseven though John ends up as a catastrophic failure.”
Sarah Gristwood, author of Blood Sisters: The Women Behind the Wars of the Roses
Riveting. A refreshingly multi-faceted look at the man who, inadvertently, gave us the Magna Carta, still a cornerstone of our democracy. Stephen Churchs achievement is to look behind the baddie of many a Robin Hood story and find a ruler who didnt know hed go down as the worst monarch in British history.”
Martin Aurell, Professor of Medieval History, University of Poitiers, Institut Universitaire de France
Deep, solid, and vivid, this book is as precise with facts as it is subtle in their interpretation. Stephen Church penetrates the complexity of Johns character; Church offers the keys to understanding his failures and his follies, and the cruel actions he took with his entourage. This fascinating book does not pretend to an impossible rehabilitation of John, but is rather a successful attempt at comprehending his character, the aristocracy, townsmen, and clergy he had to deal with, and the troubled times he could never change.”
Robert Stacey, Professor of Medieval History and Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, University of Washington
Stephen Church has written the most convincing account we have of Englands most reviled monarch. This lively, readable book will appeal both to general readers and to scholars.”
Synopsis
From a renowned medieval historian comes a new biography of King John, the infamous English king whose reign led to the establishment of the Magna Carta and the birth of constitutional democracyKing John (1166-1216) has long been seen as the epitome of bad kings. The son of the most charismatic couple of the middle ages, Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, and younger brother of the heroic crusader king, Richard the Lionheart, John lived much of his life in the shadow of his family. When in 1199 he became ruler of his family's lands in England and France, John proved unequal to the task of keeping them together. Early in his reign he lost much of his continental possessions, and over the next decade would come perilously close to losing his English kingdom, too.
In King John, medieval historian Stephen Church argues that John's reign, for all its failings, would prove to be a crucial turning point in English history. Though he was a masterful political manipulator, John's traditional ideas of unchecked sovereign power were becoming increasingly unpopular among his subjects, resulting in frequent confrontations. Nor was he willing to tolerate any challenges to his authority. For six long years, John and the pope struggled over the appointment of the Archbishop of Canterbury, a clash that led to the king's excommunication.
As king of England, John taxed his people heavily to fund his futile attempt to reconquer the lands lost to the king of France. The cost to his people of this failure was great, but it was greater still for John. In 1215, his subjects rose in rebellion against their king and forced upon him a new constitution by which he was to rule. The principles underlying this constitution--enshrined in the terms of Magna Carta--would go on to shape democratic constitutions across the globe, including our own.
In this authoritative biography, Church describes how it was that a king famous for his misrule gave rise to Magna Carta, the blueprint for good governance.
Synopsis
King John has long been dubbed one of the vilest” of English kings. He was brutish, untrustworthy, and ruled as a virtual tyrantand yet his reign changed the course of English history. As renowned medieval historian Stephen Church argues, Johns importance has for too long been overshadowed by more heroic family members like Richard the Lionhearted and Eleanor of Aquitaine.
John was a skilled political manipulator, but his traditional belief in the unchecked power of the sovereign became increasingly unpopular during his reign, leading to frequent confrontations between the king and his barons. In 1215, a group of barons rebelled in response to Johns repressive fiscal policies. The peace treaty that resulted was the Magna Carta, which enshrined the kings obligation to rule within the framework of the law.
King John offers an authoritative portrait of King John and the moment that signaled the end of the age of absolute monarchy and the dawn of constitutional law.
About the Author
Stephen Church is a professor of medieval history at the University of East Anglia and the author of
The Household Knights of King John. He lives in Norwich, England.
Table of Contents
Introduction
1. Lackland
2. Ireland, 1185
3. Brother in Arms
4. Troublesome Brother
5. Winner Takes All
6. Retreat to the Citadel
7. Inside the Citadel
8. The Citadel Under Siege
9. Lord of the British Isles
10. The Enemy at the Gate
11. The Garrison Turns on Its Leader
12. The Walls Breached
Conclusion