Why is King John the classic villain?
By Tom Geoghegan BBC News Magazine
1 March 2011 Last updated at 12:16 GMT
Paul Giamatti is the latest to play King John as a villain in Ironclad
A new film about King John further underlines history's judgement of the medieval English
monarch as a cruel tyrant. But among the dozens of bad kings and despots, why is John
always the pantomime villain?
Surrendering lands in France, forced into a humiliating climbdown with the nobility and
excommunicated by the Church. Not to mention being blamed for the murder of his nephew.
The medieval reign of King John has been characterised by disaster and his reputation
languishes among the lowest for all the kings and queens of England.
This poor standing is illustrated by his persistently negative appearances in British cultural
life 800 years on. Depictions on television, stage and big screen, particularly in Robin Hood
films, usually present a man who is treacherous and weak.
_________________________________________________________________________
Life of a king...


1166: Born in Oxford, youngest of four sons of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine
Nicknamed Lackland because no obvious inheritance







1189: Brother Richard becomes king and names nephew Arthur as heir
1192: Tries unsuccessfully to seize throne
1199: Richard is killed and John becomes king
1204: Loses much of western France in war
1207: Quarrels with pope over who should be Archbishop of Canterbury and
excommunicated
1215: Signs Magna Carta
1216: Dies from food poisoning
_________________________________________________________________________
In 1938's The Adventures of Robin Hood, John (played by Claude Rains) is an overtaxing
oppressor, while Disney's Robin Hood showed John as a cowardly lion sucking his thumb.
A new film Ironclad, released in the UK on Friday, stars American actor Paul Giamatti as the
villainous king laying siege to the noble barons in Rochester Castle, in the civil war that
followed the Magna Carta.
So why do we always like to bash King John?
Make no mistake, he was a bad king, says John Hudson, of the Institute of Medieval Studies
at the University of St Andrews.
"He was a very considerable failure as a king. 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.
_________________________________________________________________________
...and the king lives on





1590s: Life and Death of King John, by William Shakespeare (with Leonard Rossiter,
above)
1819: Ivanhoe, a novel by Walter Scott
1938: The Adventures of Robin Hood featured Claude Rains as John and Errol Flynn
as Robin
1968: The Lion in Winter film
1973: Robin Hood animation by Disney
"A lot of very effective medieval kings are cruel and inspire fear but he hasn't inspired trust.
For people to trust a king and fear him is essential but people don't trust him.
"People wanted someone to be heroic and not to interfere with their lives. 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. At least The Lion in Winter, starring Katharine Hepburn and Peter
O'Toole as John's parents Eleanor and Henry II, portrays the family tensions acutely and
gives a sense of the personal power struggles within the Plantagenet dynasty.
John grew up in a feuding family. He was born in Oxford in 1166, 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 case for redemption John Hudson Historian
"It's two-fold. One, that he inherited a very difficult situation, especially in France. Two, he
seems to be very involved in the administration of the king more than previous kings had
been. But being very much involved in administration is not a vital attribute to being king."
_________________________________________________________________________
The rebellion was short-lived but Henry II punished his wife by imprisoning her for 16 years.
On Henry's death in 1189, 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 1216, 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.
'John the punchbag'
The Tudors were more sympathetic to him, although Shakespeare's The Life and Death of
King John provides a mixed portrayal of the monarch as treacherous and ruthless, but also
patriotic in standing up to Rome.
King John and Magna Carta
But it was the Victorians who made King John the pantomime villain he is today, says Paul
Sturtevant, who is researching Hollywood depictions of the medieval period, at the University
of Leeds.
"The Victorians used King John as a punchbag. Prior to the 18th and 19th Century, Robin
Hood was not put in a historical place. It wasn't about the monarch at all, just Robin Hood
and his adventures.
"So the Robin Hood stories being placed in John's reign is a recent thing. He's portrayed as
a pantomime villain because a number of accounts from the time suggest that people found
him quite unpleasant as a person. So the question is to what degree those sources are
accurate."
The Victorians latched on to John's moral failings like his cruelty and his sexual deviancy,
taking mistresses married to barons, and this repulsed their newly formed idea of medieval
knights as perfect gentlemen.
"To the Victorian mindset, he was everything they didn't want in an English king. They
reimagined the period in terms of courtly love and chivalry."
Most historians would agree he was quite a bad king but whether he was a caricature of evil
is another question entirely, he says.
John's most famous moment is signing the Magna Carta
"Almost all the depictions of King John out there are Robin Hood ones and as a result he's
the villain, either bumbling and idiotic or in the Disney animation he's a lion who sucks his
thumb. He's infantile, with a snake as a patsy."
The truth is that he was an inept politician but he wasn't a tyrant, says Mr Sturtevant. His
conflicts were not with his subjects but with barons, the Pope or the French.
"I see him a bit like Barack Obama in so far as he inherited a nightmare situation from his
predecessor but because he was a bad politician he didn't help himself to get out of it.
"Richard still has a really good reputation as the heroic, lion-hearted king but he spent only
six months of his life in England and the rest either on crusade in Holy Land or at war in
France."
To pay for his foreign wars, not to mention a huge ransom when he was captured, Richard
had raised taxes far higher than any level England had experienced. By the time John was
crowned king, the cupboard was bare, but his fiscal demands led to unrest.
Mike Ibeji, who researched King John for Simon Schama's History of Britain on the BBC,
says it was in the interests of those who put John's successor Henry III on the throne to
portray him negatively. King John was very unlucky, he says, but he also made his own bad
luck.
Continue reading the main story
A king's ransom
On the way back from the Holy Land in 1192, Richard I was imprisoned by Duke Leopold of
Austria and handed over to the German emperor Henry VI, who ransomed him for the huge
sum of 150,000 marks. Historian David Boyle estimates that sum could be the equivalent of
about £2bn today. It was paid by English taxes, and contributed to the parlous finances
inherited by King John.

Kings John and Richard: Brothers and rivals
"There are several times during John's reign where he actually has the upper hand, where
he's in a position where if he just does things the right way, he's going to end up succeeding
in what he's trying to do.
"But he always overplays his hand and goes too far because he's in a position of power and
can't rein back. So he doesn't have a sense of scale and that's his biggest problem."
For example, he quelled a rebellion in France but when his nephew and enemy Arthur then
dies in his custody, the finger of suspicion points at John and the revulsion felt in France
renews the revolt and leads to defeat. A kingdom that once stretched from the Scottish
border to the Pyrenees was falling apart.
What John will always be remembered for, apart from antagonising Robin Hood, is the
Magna Carta, which limited royal power and restated English law. And some of his
defenders say that at least he provoked the barons into introducing one of history's most
famous documents.
In the History of the English-Speaking Peoples, Winston Churchill wrote: "When the long
tally is added, it will be seen that the British nation and the English-speaking world owe far
more to the vices of John than to the labours of virtuous sovereigns; for it was through the
union of many forces against him that the most famous milestone of our rights and freedom
was in fact set up."
Send us your comments using the form below. A selection will be published.
One side-effect of John's reputation for villainy, and Robin Hood's mythical career, is that
one of England's greatest heroes - William Marshall - is virtually unknown in his homeland.
Apart from all his other exploits, it was Marshall, as Regent to the young Henry III, who re-
promulgated Magna Carta (after John had renounced it). The strength of the charter dates
from that event, not Runnymede.
David Craig, London
As the author of several novels involving King John and as the author of two novels about
the great William Marshal (The Greatest Knight and The Scarlet Lion), I have studied John's
reign extensively, often in primary source. I have come to the same conclusion as his main
biographer, WL Warren, that John had the abilities of a great king and the inclinations of a
petty tyrant.
Elizabeth Chadwick, Nottingham
John lost swathes of Norman France. This came after a spending spree on large fortresses
in borderlands that were never very loyal to him. Needless to say, some of the fortresses
didn't see a single siege before joining Philip II. That said, despite his questionable ethics
and abilities, signing England over to the Papacy was a masterstroke. At a time when
England was vulnerable to invasion from nearly anybody, England was afforded Papal
protection. Without this supposedly negative course of action, maybe England would have
been consigned to the same pages as Castille, Aquitaine and Flanders in history?
Tim, York
John was a bad King politically, but he was also the first "English" King since 1066... he
could speak English - the language of the peasants, none of the other kings could - and he
was the first since the Conquest to be buried in England. He also, unwittingly, made England
the blueprint for democracy in the world establishing parliament centuries before other
nations - both the Declaration of Independence from France and the USA are based on the
Magna Carta.
Mark, Canterbury
As a child I loved the A A Milne poem 'King John's Christmas'. Although it begins "King John
was not a good man" it portrays him as a sad, misunderstood figure who wants nothing more
than a "big red india-rubber ball" for Christmas. It still brings a tear to my eye when the
object of his desire hurtles through the window past his royal head and bounces on his bed
on Christmas day.
Hilary, London
I am surprised that no-one has mentioned the two most notorious facts about King John,
namely that he lost the Crown Jewels in the Wash, & died of a surfeit of lampreys, both
evidence of thoroughly bad character.
Tony Ridge, York
History is bunk and inevitably 'written' by the victors who are hardly likely to give a fair and
just account! History books still lazily print the long accepted versions (notably Richard 111)
thereby perpetuating the myths. Richard 111 is always portrayed as a deformed and
murdering tyrant (thanks to Will Shakespeare's fairy tale) who was deservedly trounced by
Henry Tudor. In fact Henry Tudor immediately put to death whole families, dated the battle
as taking place the day before thus proclaiming that anyone fighting on Richard's side was
guilty of treason, and throughout his reign put to death anyone foolish enough to get in his
way! Yet Henry is always shown as a good king who gave us 'stability' whilst Richard is
portrayed as a heinous monster for murdering his nephews, the Princes in the Tower (more
nonsense as they were still seen playing whilst he reigned - not so after Henry Tudor
married their sister!) In reality, Richard gave us the start of a just and fair legal system and
would have gone on to further prove his worth but was too trusting which was his downfall.
Jill Scuffham, Basingstoke
Magna Carta was an attempt by the wealthy to weaken the central government for their
benefit, it did nothing for the ordinary working folk. The same can be said for the constitution
of this country, if you have forgotten ordinary working class white men did not get the vote
until 10 or so years after the adoption of the constitution.
Xavier, Pineland, USA
To talk of 'good' and 'bad' in history is almost always meaningless. By 'good', people
generally mean successful, or portraying traditionally desirable qualities. This is shown in the
reputations of Richard I and Henry V, who are portrayed as good kings, because (ironically)
of their 'manly' aggression and successful fighting; and Henry VI, who is portrayed as a bad
king, even though he was a thoroughly kind, and brave, man. But you can't shift people
away from their caricatures. They won't see Elizabeth I as a vacillating ditherer, Victoria as a
headstrong girl, and they persist in seeing Charles II as nothing more than a dashing young
rake and Cromwell as a miserable old killjoy. It is not just the modern view: most of our
history was written by the Plantagenets, then the Tudors, then adapted by the Victorians.
Even Simon Schama and his researchers clearly share the popular belief that between
Alfred the Great and William I, nothing much happened.
John Stuart Guthrie, Yate, England
The media haven't always portrayed John in a negative light - for example in Doctor Who the
King's Deamons, his desire to have the Magna Carta signed is explored.
Maddie,
Often the "bad" kings have been the best for the country in the long run. John did loose
much of the French territories - yet that was a good thing. Forcing the English kings to
concentrate more on England than their French estates (which they always considered more
important). Remember King Richard spent almost all his reign outside of England. And his
mismanagement led to the Magna Carta - a core document in English history. So while he
may have been a poor king, his legacy was actually a stronger England in the future.
Paul Benwell,
John was a bad King but Richard "the lionheart" was a psychopath with no interest in
England at all, who didn't speak a word of English, and left England to be run by Bishop
Marshall who came up with more stealth taxes than any modern govt could dream of. The
system of coroners courts was solely created by Richard to extort even more taxes from us
to fund his foreign wars.
Peter, Notts
Really interesting - although I love the fact that the most anyone can say for John is, 'He was
such an idiot at least all his Barons revolted and gave us Magna Carta'. Hardly a blueprint
for kingship, is it - 'be completely incompetent, it'll provoke the nation into progress' (!) One
of the few major historical figures NOT due a timely revision...?
Richard Goff, Croydon