King John

by Wilfred Lewis Warren

Shipped from UK, please allow 10 to 21 business days for arrival. . xviii, 350 p. : ill., maps ; 24 cm.. . Includes bibliographical references (p. 329-336) and index.. .

Genres: History, Biography, Nonfiction, Medieval History, Medieval, European History, British Literature

350 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1961

About the author

Wilfred Lewis Warren was a historian who specialised in Norman and Angevin England. Born in 1929, he was educated at the High School, Newcastle-under-Lyme, and at Exeter College, Oxford, where he was an Open Scholar in History. He received his D Phil in 1955 for a thesis on Simon Sudbury, Bishop of London and Archbishop of Canterbury, 1361-81. He taught at Queen's University, Belfast from 1955 until his retirement in 1993.

Reviews

[John Anthony · Rating 4 out of 5]

King John by W. L. Warren

First published in 1961, Warren was probably the first historian in recent times to assess the King objectively - ie with research based scepticism of the Victorian historians who wrote of John as the son of perdition. This is no apology for John, Warren gives us warts and all in a readable and balanced assessment.

After a useful preface the book is divided into 8 chapters, each with several pertinent sub headings. I give a few egs of subs below (to give more would make this review far too long)

Chapter 1 The Genesis of a Sinister Reputation
The chroniclers and the Angevins
'The terrible verdict'.
C 2. Gaining a Kingdom
Mother and Father
The Devil's brood (c 1140-85)
Lord of Ireland – a lost opportunity (1185-9)
Richard's heir (1199)
C3. Losing a Duchy
The fight for an inheritance (1199-1200)
'John Softsword'
'Deserted by his own men' (1202-3)
Normandy Lost (1204)
C4. King of England
Divided counsel (1204-5)
Suspicion and discontent
The defence of Aquitaine (1206)
The birth of the royal navy
Personal government
Meeting the cost
C 5. King Versus Pope
War between Church and State (1207-9)
An excommunicate king (1208-c. 1211)
C6. King John and His Barons
Angevin monarchy
John's way with his barons
C7. The Road To Runnymede
Reconciliation with Rome (1213)
The Charter of Liberties (1215)
C8. The Road To Newark (where John died)
Civil war (1215-16)
Epilogue
This is a portrait of a flawed human being (egs of cruelty and kindness) with the makings of a more than half decent king. A very able administrator, hard working, great attention to detail. Founder of the navy, able military strategist but lacking in boldness when it mattered. Preferred peasants to nobles.

Certainly not our worst monarch by any means and some of his achievements deserve to be better known, especially in 2016, the 800th anniversary of his death.

Did his feisty stance against Rome inspire Henry VIII and his man Cromwell in the ultimate break? Was there even a germ of John in the Brexit vote of 2016? Or is history merely 'repeating' itself again?

[Sarah u · Rating 4 out of 5]

"He had the mental abilities of a great king, but the inclinations of a petty tyrant."


This is an excellent analysis of the reign of king John. Rather than presenting a 'baddie', Warren has crafted a scholarly yet accessible portrayal of a widely misunderstood monarch. It wasn't all disaster, it wasn't all tyranny; some of John's opponents were just as shifty as he was. This is a rewarding read for anyone interested in John's reign, though a little heavy going in places.

One little niggle is the citations. They are meticulous and complete, but are numbered by page, not chapter. As the notes are end rather than foot, this could be a little frustrating.


One further thought- this book was written in 1961, so some of the research is naturally outdated. The new Yale edition features a foreword by D.A. Carpenter, which I recommend is read before reading the main text.

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my favourite biography of King John.

W.L. Warren writes very well and rather memorably, with plenty of metaphors and style. "The ability of Henry II and Richard I to pop up as through a trap door, with the suddenness of a demon king, had never ceased to astound their contemporaries, and it was not lacking in John."

Or (on the siege of Chateau Gaillard). "If Richard had lived for another five years, though, there would have been one noticeable difference in the course of the campaign. The king himself would have been on the heights above Les Andelys as dawn broke, to give the signal for the combined attack on the Frenchcamp; however ready the Normans were to surrender, Philip would not have been able to march up the valley of the Orne to Caen without fear of a sudden assault by Richard and his household cavalry; and even when all else had gone, Richard would have been urging the citizens of Rouen to arms, and parrying the first assault with blows from his great sword. John stayed in England biting his nails."

Warren is neither an out and out defender of John nor does he fully believe in the dark legend of John's supreme wickedness as historians like Kate Norgate have done. (Following on from the non-contemporary chroniclers Roger of Wendover and Matthew Paris.)

Perhaps the biggest problem with this book is that it is now over fifty years old. The edition I read helped with this as it included a foreward by D.A. Carpenter on work that has been published since this book.

A recommended book. I wish more biographies were written this well.

[Loretta]

I've only just started this but already, I can see it's going to be a delight. No drudgery getting through this book. And it has some lovely titbits and snippets of extra information which just makes it come alive. I'm not really of a scholarly turn of mind and I find research a bit of a strain sometimes but this is one research book which won't be giving me a headache.

Interestingly, it seems that another book I was reading for research into the same time period, Roger of Wendover's Flowers of History, gets short shrift for doing a hatchet job on John. Bearing in mind that apparently, Roger and Matthew Paris who 'improved' Roger's work many years on, were inclined to believe rumour and weird myths, which gives their credibily a bit of a jolt. The fact that they hooked in to all the bad stuff about John without giving credence to any good stuff indicates they were completely biased, according to Warren. I was struggling with thos even though they had interesting bits here and there, so I may not place too high a reliance on what Roger has to say, now.

By the way, I am reading a different edition of the book than the one shown but don't have the energy to change it. It's the same book, different cover, that's all, as far as I can tell.

I particluarly love the description of travelling with Henry II by Peter of Blois, p 23.

[Robin]

This book was recommended to me by historical fiction author, Elizabeth Chadwick during a Twitter conversation.

I am only on page 2 of the first chapter: The Genesis of a Sinister Reputation.

'I am become as it were a monster unto many.' Psalm lxi. 6

"From the devil they game', growled St Bernard, 'and to the Devil they will return.' He was referring to the Angevins. Heady stuff.

So far, although it is a biography published in the 1961, it is very readable and thoroughly captivating.

[Jeremy Perron · Rating 5 out of 5]

King John the first, last, and only is famous for two things, and one of those things he did not really do. As a prince, he is known to have chased around Robin Hood--that is fiction. As the King of England, he signed the famous Magna Carta; he did do that, but Warren points out that it is not quite the historic event that many thought it was. W.L. Warren attempts in this biography of King John to strip way the myth--particularly negative myth--about a ruler who in his view was quite competent but just really unlucky.

Historical giants surround King John throughout his life. His father is the famous King Henry II who established Common Law in England. His mother is the famous Eleanor of Aquitaine, who was the wife of two kings and the mother of two kings . His famous brother Richard the Lionhearted, was a celebrated and overrated crusader. His archrival is King Philip II of France, known as Philip Augustus, who begins the process of transforming France into a nation by expanding French royal power at the expense of King John. Amongst these great people John seems small by comparison and his reputation suffers.

"The persisting images are of Henry as a strong and beneficent ruler, of Richard as a glamorous hero, and of John as a villainous failure; but these sharp contrasts reflect the attitudes of the more influential of the chroniclers rather than real differences of personality. The dominant impression of Henry is closest to reality, that of John furthest removed." (p.4)

Warren describes John as the son who was most like his father--who is generally regarded as great monarch. Like his father, John is interested in governing his kingdom. This passion is in direct contrast to his brothers who saw kingship as something that was prestigious but not something one needed spend their energies on. As a ruler, John is a great politician who suffers from a lot of reverses. The fact the he manages to survive all of them is testament to his ability but that is not to say he his actions should not invoke criticism. How he handled the loss of Normandy was not one of his prouder moments.

"Richard himself could not have beaten that combination. If Richard had lived for another five years, though, there would have been one notable difference in the course of the campaign. The king himself would have been on the heights above Les Andelys as dawn broke, to give the single of the combined attack on the French camp; however ready the Normans were to surrender, Philip would not have been able to march up the valley of the Orne to Caen without fear of sudden assault by Richard and his household cavalry; and even when all else had gone, Richard would have been urging the citizens of Rouen to arms, and parrying the first assault with blows from his great sword. John stayed in England biting his nails." (p.99)

Throughout the book Warren tries his best to present what John was like as a person. Part of his negative reputation comes from the fact that most the people who disliked him were nobles whose interests would often conflict with the royal interest. These nobles, as the most literate men of the kingdom would often wright the history of John's reign. King John was often could show great acts of kindness with the average everyday people who worked for him.

"On the other hand he will make presents to men who have served him well--barrels of wine, it may be, or even a hundred head of deer. When he hears that the son of his henchmen William Brewer has fallen into the hands of the French, John helps to pay his ransom. When his valet Petit falls ill and has to stay behind in Somerset, the sheriff is instructed to see that he wants for nothing. John was, it seems, the old-fashioned kind of paternalistic employer who is intolerant of laxity in his workers but ready to set his own shoulder to the wheel, able to talk familiarly with the lowest of them, and remember their birthdays and their babies. John's trouble was that he could not get along with the men who claimed to be his fellow directors." (p.145)

Magna Carta has been considered by people since the 17th century to be the most important aspect of King John's reign. However, Warren points out that the whole event was overrated and what we were taught in school is mostly a false image.

"One of the most remarkable things about Magna Carta is the obscurity of its antecedents. This obscurity extends from the dating of the charter itself, back over the preceding negotiations and parleys to the muster of rebellion. One of the few things that can be said with certainty is that the hallowed tradition, derived largely from Wendover, is false which pictures a baronage united in arms against the Crown, confronting a cowed and humiliated king at Runnymede on 15 June 1215, and obliging him, with praiseworthy restraint, to set his seal to a statement of constitutional liberties with it had drawn up. It does not make the picture more true merely to darken the colours by saying that the baronial rebels were reactionaries pursuing selfish class interests." (p.224)

The important thing about Magna Carta is not what it actually was but an idea that it came to represent. That idea is: a government is legitimate only if it has the consent of the governed, that idea became the bedrock of Anglo-American thought on government.

"As such it opened the way to periodic revisions of custom and law, and implied that the government should not be conducted to damage the governed. Moreover, merely by existing it was a standing condemnation of the rule of arbitrary will. Even in the emasculated form in which it eventually got on to the statute book, an appeal to Magna Carta was a shorthand way of proclaiming the rule of law. Its actual provisions exercised little influence on the development of the constitution until misinterpreted by 17th century lawyers to mean trial by jury, and no taxation without the consent of representatives; yet their interpretations are not wholly absurd, for they accurately reflected the spirit if not the purpose of the 13th century original. It should be remembered, however, that the charter which the 17th century politicians studied with such zeal was not the one issued by John in 1215, but a truncated and modified version promulgated by his son, Henry III, in 1225." (p.240)

King John is a great book. I would recommend this book to anyone who wanted to know more about the life a reign of one of the most important (not great) monarchs in the history of the world. This book shows the reader the truth behind the historical events surrounding the signing of Magna Carta, and the revelation that maybe John is not the villain history holds him to be.

[Megan]

King John, Revised edition (English Monarchs) by W. L. Warren (1978)

[Keeper of the Privy Seal · Rating 3 out of 5]

First and foremost, my review is not based upon the quality of the book, but merely my own experience reading this. This book is rather old (over 60yrs), not that that is a deterrent by any means, if anything it speaks volumes about the masterful quality of the book, and how it’s still the definitive piece on John’s reign.

The Good:
As a thorough look into King John as a king, a man and his reputation, this book is fantastic. Meticulous research and critical thinking are on display here for all to see, there is no doubt about it. King John had all the tools to be an able monarch—he was an exceptionally talented administrator who inherited a terrible financial situation in the wake of his predecessors. He was, you could argue (to a degree) right to be paranoid of his barons and their loyalty. But of course, John had that famous cruel streak that inspired no love for his subjects, if anything it inspired the total opposite. W.L Warren remains objective throughout and provides an excellent assessment of the King’s reign.

The not-so-good:
As someone new to the reign of John I bit off more than I could chew with this book. Ideally you would be best served having read a book that’s a bit lighter on the detail, to begin with. The chronology, as presented by Warren, is very confusing. The first 100 pages or so follow a streamlined story that emphasises John’s rise to power and his relationship with his Angevin inheritance. Perfect! However, from there onwards the book delves straight into aspects of John’s kingship, and the chronology of the story gets shoved to the background, before readjusting itself for the last 50-60 pages or so.

In conclusion:
For someone who’s already familiar with the reign and period this will take your knowledge a step further. If you’re new, like me, add it to your ‘to-do’ list for sure, but perhaps start a bit lighter (in my opinion).

[Bruce Brocka · Rating 5 out of 5]

W.L. Warren's now 60 year old work has held up very well over the years. For an academic biography it is well written, and doesn't leave the reader in the lurch on more technical aspects. The Magna Carter is in an appendix, with commentary, but I'e suggest Carpenters 'Magna Carta' in the Penguin Classics series for a better exposition on that.

Warren concentrates on the political history, carefully exploring the good (yes there were a few!) and bad (downright evil), and the interactions with his earls and barons. Next I'll read Stephen Church's 2015 work for something of an update, although I got the shorter version from Penguin Monarch's "John - An Evil King?" by Nicholas Vincent.

On a bibliographical note, the 1961, 1978, and 1997 editions are all the same, except the 1997 versions have a preface to update the reader somewhat and assess the work, as well as an updated bibliography. Tragically, there is no e-book version of this deserving work.

[Kathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

John Lackland has always been over shadowed by his incredible mother, his indomitable father, and his brother Richard of the Lion Heart. But, as Warren, makes very clear, John is an interesting character on his own and not quite the villain pop culture has made him. I confess to getting a bit bogged down with all the detail and the enormous cast that was 12th/13th century Europe, but King John was still a most enjoyable read.

2020: I'd give it four stars this time, perhaps because I know a little more English history than I did in 2012. Still, I found it a very dense read.

[Nick Artrip · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this quite a bit more than Warren's work on Henry II. The writing is a bit dry, I did brielfy lose consciousness while reading about King John's tax policies, but I appreciate the balance Warren offers in appraisal of this particular monarch. There's no denying he was a wicked man, but he also was also very thorough in his administrative duties, and if he had only kept a closer eye to his Barons instead of the treasury maybe things would have played out smoother for bad old John.

[Royce Ratterman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Be sure to read the introduction for pertinent information regarding this work.
An exciting read for the researching historian. Read for personal research.
I found this work of immense interest and the contents helpful and inspiring - number rating relates to the book's contribution to my needs.
Overall, this work is a good resource for the historian, researcher, and enthusiast.

[sophie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Detailed and fairly interesting account of the reign of King John. I appreciate the lack of bias and how the author stresses the importance of incredibly bias sources during the medieval periods of Europe. At times I found it a little dry, but I was not surprised by that at all. Overall I would give this book four stars out of five.

[Russell Hall · Rating 5 out of 5]

What made John the notorious king, forever vilified down to becoming a Disney villain? W.L. Warren answers this question in his book. Though it does seem to minimize the Magna Carta, that is beyond the scope of his book's stated message.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

A balanced look at King John, which, without ignoring his flaws, presents a more balanced view of this notorious king and his times.