Book review: King John: And the Road to Magna Carta by Stephen Church - a monarch at war with his people
England's King John was a loser even to his contemporaries in the 13th century. However, he's a memorable loser - remembered for centuries in areas as diverse as popular culture, history and the law.
by Stephen Church
Basic Books
England's King John was a loser even to his contemporaries in the 13th century. However, he's a memorable loser - remembered for centuries in areas as diverse as popular culture, history and the law.
Professor Stephen Church of the University of East Anglia explains why he mattered in a new biography, King John: And the Road to Magna Carta.
John was the last-born son of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine. He was dubbed "Lackland" because by the time of his birth, the accumulated lands of his parents - England and much of what would become France - were already doled out to his various siblings (which included Richard the Lionheart.)
In the end, John would inherit it all - then lose most of it.
Church plumbs historical documents, such as letters and treaties, to recreate the up-and-down life of John. Luckily, like all rulers, his reign had a bureaucracy, and bureaucracies run on paper. The portrait of the king is richer for the minutiae Church has mined from archives.