John (Penguin Monarchs): An Evil King?

I have been reading the volumes on these early kings in (mostly) chronological order, and certain themes have continued through hem all.Up until Henry II, the father of Richard and John, every reign had been troubled by infestations of Vikings, over-mighty nobles, plain weak kings, or succession crises (or all of them in at least one case).Henry II, although troubled by most of these - Frenchmen (instead of Vikings), Beckett, Eleanor of Aquitaine and her (and his) sons - did re-establish the rule of law in England, codifying the laws so that they were all written down for the first time, and so could be looked up when needed, carried out another ‘Domesday’ survey so that land ownership was also now written down, and pacified the borders – though the European holdings were more problematic.When Richard inherited the crown of England, he was already planning to go on crusade, and he found England so well-ordered that unlike any of his predecessors, he was able to appoint a set of people to run the country in his absence, and it ran smoothly while he was away up until his capture by the Holy Roman Emperor on his way home, when brother John (only a Count at this time) tried a smash-and-grab raid which upset the apple-cart, but which ultimately proved unsuccessful.Eventually, John inherited the throne, but, whether through nature or nurture, he wasn’t a very good king - if you consider the good of the ‘commonwealth’ to be duty of the head of state.Even less so than Richard, John had no training in the duties of administration or even people-handling, and he came to the throne unsuited to running a medieval empire, and carried-on as he’d always done, treating everything and everyone as his own property.However, the rule of law established by his father was still strong enough that it took many years for John to alienate his subjects, much like Charles I or James II in later years, though John had enough of his family’s skills to ride out he storm, and leave his kingdom to his eldest son, the first king of England to manage that since Alfred’s day (admittedly with a Dauphin crowned King of England and supported by many of John’s barons at he same time).This was a very interesting and well-written book, dispelling many of the myths surrounding John and his reign, but also establishing many facts normally glossed over when amateur writers are telling a good story.

Dear reader art thou a simple person that just wants a learned but easy going introduction to this king?Well done you have found it. Not too many fancy words (But there are a few), not overly long, (But long enough).Enjoy, I did.

I’ve been enjoying the Penguin Monarchs series especially the early kings I’d not studied at all. This is a stand out take on a difficult subject- well done Mr Vincent!

A simple life of King John as what you'd expect from Penguin book 👍

Great little read!

Why is ‘John’ in black? Online it’s gold the same as all the others in the collection!