King John of England

King John of England

The reign of King John of England is a story of "failure" according to the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) (www.bbc.com).KingJohn failed, Dr. Mike Ibeji of the BBC writes, because: one, he lost a portion of western France that England had previously held title to; two, he lost his crown "and many valuables in the mud of East Anglia"; three, King John "drove his subjects to impose the Magna Carta"; and four, he nearly lost the entire Kingdom of England" (Ibeji, 2001).

The irony that is part of King John's rather tattered legacy is that his older brother Richard ("Richard the Lionheart") was "a superstar," Ibeji writes. But for John, he doesn't rate very well in the world of historical non-fiction; he was a "classically bad king" who is seen as a "scheming, untrustworthy coward consumed by greed" (Ibeji, 2001). Along with all those nasty adjectives comes the actual history of King John, which is very grim. For example, he is said to have hanged 28 hostages who were the sons of rebel Welsh chieftains in 1212; he also is known as a brutal autocrat who placed William de Braose's wife and son in a royal prison and let them starve to death.

King John, born in 1164, passed away in 1216; after he had lost most of his holdings (land) in France, his prestige dropped considerably, according to journalist Melissa Snell (www.about.com).Inorder to try and regain some of the prestige he had lost, he "...cracked down on finances, taxing revenues, taxing the Jews, conducting investigations into the royal forests and feudal tenures," among other misguided moves, according to Snell's account.

One key reason John had a rough time and got himself into trouble with many important people - including Pope Innocent III, the Lusigans, the barons and other higher-ups - was that he had a suspicious nature and did a miserable job when it came to diplomacy (Snell, 2007). He was also known to be vengeful and failed again and again at "healing the numerous rifts with his barons" (Snell).

Eleven years before his death, King John put together a very interesting "Charter of the Jews of England" that authorized Jews to "freely and honourably" reside in England and have all the rights they had under King Henry, John's father's grandfather. Those rights included: a) the right to witnesses during a dispute between a Christian and a Jew; b) when a Jew dies his heirs "shall have his money and his debts" and he shall not be "disturbed"; c) the only thing a Jew cannot buy or receive is "things of the church or blood-stained cloth; d) Jews shall be protected and have no "tolls" to pay when purchasing wine, which was the same freedom the English had at that time; e) when a Jew commits a crime he shall be brought before his own Jewish leadership and be judged by his own culture, except when he commits one of the following crimes: homicide, mayhem, premeditated assault, burglary, rape, theft, arson and "treasure-trove" (Medieval Sourcebook: About.com).

Among the things that King John of England is remembered for in the history books is the fact that he signed the Magna Carta, the very first document that assured some form of democracy in a society. This story is chronicled by Anthony Beadles in the journal History Today, who makes clear on page 280 of his journal essay that there was a "dearth of records" during King John's reign which leaves historians with less data (names, dates, and other specifics) than they would like to have had. Both his father and his brother Richard had "close companions" who wrote their histories and catalogued their decisions. The writings that did survive and tell King John's story were monks who "...were often as much concerned with local gossip as with national news" (Beadles, 1979). That having been said, Beadles obviously does have a fairly good grasp of how the Magna Carta came to be put into official law in England. A movement began against King John's policies "over a number of years," Beadles writes. King John "subdued Ireland and Scotland in 1210," and took Wales in 1211. Then he began to annoy and even cause rage among barons and in 1214 John's misadventures abroad were serious enough to have important barons and others begin to plot against him.

In May 1215, serious military opposition lined up against him and on May 17 in fact the rebels who hated King John captured London. "No doubt he was surprised by the extent and rapidity of the rebellion," Beadles write on page 282. The upshot of this rebellion - which became a civil war - was that in the June of 1215 he was forced to sign the Magna Carta (which was originally called the "Articles of the Barons"). He signed it and as a result the English Parliament was launched (democracy rather than autocratic rule) and 37 old English laws that had prevailed prior to the Norman invasion were put back into place. Archbishop Stephen Langton who was one of the most powerful barons in England wrote the Magna Carta.