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John: An Evil King?
Part of the Penguin Monarchs short, fresh, expert accounts of England's rulers in a collectible format.
118 pages, Hardcover
First published July 30, 2020
About the author
Nicholas Vincent
37 books9 followersProfessor Nicholas Vincent of the University of East Anglia has published a dozen books and some hundred articles on twelfth- and thirteenth-century history for both scholarly and popular audiences, including work on the English and European context of Magna Carta as well as Magna Carta: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2012). When a 1297 issue of Magna Carta recently came up for auction, Professor Vincent was commissioned by Sotheby’s to write the catalogue. During his research he discovered two previously unidentified originals of Magna Carta. For the Magna Carta Project he has been searching archives across Britain, Ireland and France for the charters of King John.
Also published under Nick Vincent.
Also published under Nick Vincent.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
October 26, 2024
Read this in one sitting whilst on a drive into London. Currently at University I am enrolled in a module focusing on Robin Hood, from the original medieval ballads, to what we can ascertain about the historical origins to how it has been mythologised over time. So, to undertake some extra reading (crazy!) I decided to quickly pick up this text on King John. He is known as one of the worst kings, and that would probably be an accurate assumption, but probably for the wrong reasons...
I learnt so much in this accessible, educational and engaging account of John's reign, which serves mainly to provide an opening guide, providing other materials to dive into for a more in-depth analysis.
Great non-fiction that did exactly what I wanted!
4/5 STARS
I learnt so much in this accessible, educational and engaging account of John's reign, which serves mainly to provide an opening guide, providing other materials to dive into for a more in-depth analysis.
Great non-fiction that did exactly what I wanted!
4/5 STARS
September 24, 2021
As I’ve been reading these Penguin Monarchs books, it’s been fun trying to guess the areas of specialization for each of the authors based on what, within the tight constraints of a 100-page book covering years of history, they nonetheless can’t seem to resist spending disproportionate time on. This time around, though I know that Nicholas Vincent is an expert on Magna Carta (and is probably tired of writing about it, which perhaps explains why there’s relatively little about it here), I’d also put money on him specializing in finance and economics in the Middle Ages. This is a book stuffed to bursting with currency figures (each one appearing twice because of a perceived need to convert each sum cited in marks over to pounds—but a mark is 2/3 of a pound: point this out once and that should see your reader through) and with the endless minutiae of John’s constant and exorbitant taxation to raise funds for military expeditions intended to win back Angevin lands he’d gone and lost in France. It’s like the Exchequer’s version of the problem in Thomas Asbridge’s fussily detailed accounts of Richard I’s battlefield exploits, something that’s rather more tedious when it’s endless scutages and taxes on movable goods instead of swords and siege engines.
That aside, though, this is an excellent account of the disastrous reign of King John. Vincent’s aim here, as the question mark on his title makes clear, is much more than any of the previous authors (that I’ve read here so far, anyway) to question rather than just reproduce the prevailing narrative emerging from what he calls “the history of the history,” the long process of telling arguably somewhat unfair and reductionist stories about John to lay various kinds of blame on him. Of course there’s something a bit fun-spoiling about this kind of corrective reimagining, even though it’s right and good and probably brings things much closer to reality, as well as helping us see what we want historical narratives to do for us. Vincent begins by pointing out many of the ideological needs served by a villainized figure like John; identifying him with Magna Carta lets you place at his feet any and all failures of the state that you may perceive as informed by that somewhat over-rated and over-credited document.
Still and all: exaggerated though John’s villainy might often be, when presented with even the most neutral and sober accounting of his many betrayals, incompetences, inadequacies, plunderings, personal deficiencies, cruelties, oath-breakings, etc. as this book does, it becomes impossible to ignore what a terrible ruler and man he was. To be fair, a lot of this is arguably just par for the Angevin course; Vincent notes the irony that “John was to be villainized for doing things that his father and elder brother had done more ruthlessly, yet more effectively.” But Vincent also points out that one of our best reasons for believing the worst of what we’ve heard about John over the years is that even his contemporaries were inclined to believe and help circulate these things about him, which “suggests their inherent verisimilitude.” People in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries were, to say the least, telling very different stories about John’s father and brother.
What was he like, John Lackland? (Or, if you prefer, the more withering “John Softsword.”) A frequent scoffer at religion, a betrayer, very likely a murderer at least a few times over (including of his main rival for the throne, his nephew Arthur of Brittany), a vindictive and abusive philanderer, given to “masking his own shame by blaming his subordinates,” an untrustworthy oathbreaker, often childish, petty, cruel. “Quick to collect his winnings, reluctant ever to honour his debts,” Vincent writes, “John undermined all trust. At the same time, he began to demand ever more extravagant assurances of loyalty from those around him.” I’ll spare you any explicit comparisons with, er, our American friends’ recent political troubles, but it’s hard not to hear history rhyming a bit here.
(One that note, one other thing: history likes repeating and rhyming, but some things do come to a decisive end. Vincent closes by pointing out the following about the use of the name “John” in British royalty: “One of the king’s grandsons, born in 1232, was named in his honour but failed to survive infancy. In more recent times, the only royal prince christened John, the youngest son of George V, died in 1919 aged only thirteen, an epileptic, hidden away by his parents. Long before this, in the 1370s, when the barons of Richard II threatened to make common cause with the king’s uncle, John of Gaunt, it was widely murmured that there should be no more talk of kings in England named John. Since then, there has been no such talk. And there probably never will be.”)
That aside, though, this is an excellent account of the disastrous reign of King John. Vincent’s aim here, as the question mark on his title makes clear, is much more than any of the previous authors (that I’ve read here so far, anyway) to question rather than just reproduce the prevailing narrative emerging from what he calls “the history of the history,” the long process of telling arguably somewhat unfair and reductionist stories about John to lay various kinds of blame on him. Of course there’s something a bit fun-spoiling about this kind of corrective reimagining, even though it’s right and good and probably brings things much closer to reality, as well as helping us see what we want historical narratives to do for us. Vincent begins by pointing out many of the ideological needs served by a villainized figure like John; identifying him with Magna Carta lets you place at his feet any and all failures of the state that you may perceive as informed by that somewhat over-rated and over-credited document.
Still and all: exaggerated though John’s villainy might often be, when presented with even the most neutral and sober accounting of his many betrayals, incompetences, inadequacies, plunderings, personal deficiencies, cruelties, oath-breakings, etc. as this book does, it becomes impossible to ignore what a terrible ruler and man he was. To be fair, a lot of this is arguably just par for the Angevin course; Vincent notes the irony that “John was to be villainized for doing things that his father and elder brother had done more ruthlessly, yet more effectively.” But Vincent also points out that one of our best reasons for believing the worst of what we’ve heard about John over the years is that even his contemporaries were inclined to believe and help circulate these things about him, which “suggests their inherent verisimilitude.” People in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries were, to say the least, telling very different stories about John’s father and brother.
What was he like, John Lackland? (Or, if you prefer, the more withering “John Softsword.”) A frequent scoffer at religion, a betrayer, very likely a murderer at least a few times over (including of his main rival for the throne, his nephew Arthur of Brittany), a vindictive and abusive philanderer, given to “masking his own shame by blaming his subordinates,” an untrustworthy oathbreaker, often childish, petty, cruel. “Quick to collect his winnings, reluctant ever to honour his debts,” Vincent writes, “John undermined all trust. At the same time, he began to demand ever more extravagant assurances of loyalty from those around him.” I’ll spare you any explicit comparisons with, er, our American friends’ recent political troubles, but it’s hard not to hear history rhyming a bit here.
(One that note, one other thing: history likes repeating and rhyming, but some things do come to a decisive end. Vincent closes by pointing out the following about the use of the name “John” in British royalty: “One of the king’s grandsons, born in 1232, was named in his honour but failed to survive infancy. In more recent times, the only royal prince christened John, the youngest son of George V, died in 1919 aged only thirteen, an epileptic, hidden away by his parents. Long before this, in the 1370s, when the barons of Richard II threatened to make common cause with the king’s uncle, John of Gaunt, it was widely murmured that there should be no more talk of kings in England named John. Since then, there has been no such talk. And there probably never will be.”)
December 12, 2020
Among the best of the Penguin Monarchs series—a brisk, readable, and scholarly short treatment of John’s life and reign.
Vincent begins with the question of whether John was evil or not and spends the rest of the book answering by way of narrative. He situates John in the context of his father Henry II’s family and court and even the character of the Plantagenets more generally, who were regarded as wicked and cruel even in their own time, as well as examining the influence John’s early experience exercising authority in Ireland, where more brutal norms prevailed, had on his later reign as king.
He also makes clear the parameters of the preexisting conflicts that would embroil John and how events like the murder of St Thomas Becket or the capture, ransom, and death of his older brother Richard the Lion Heart gave shape to the conflicts of John’s reign—his wars in France, his struggle with the Church and particularly Pope Innocent III. He covers the circumstances surrounding Magna Carta well and offers a good, succinct explanation of what its actual significance was both at the time and later. And it also becomes clear how John’s character and decisions drove the rebellions that marked his last year and a half of life.
Vincent does such a good job not only on the outline of John’s life but also on the big picture that by the end, as the net closes on John all sides—Scotland and Ireland, Wales, his own kingdom, and worst of all France—this incredibly complicated scenario not only makes sense, but you can feel the desperation of John’s situation. A remarkable accomplishment for a book of just over a hundred pages.
Perhaps the most remarkable chapter deals with John’s character, the deadly third rail of medieval history. In a twenty-page pause before the final chapter on Runnymede and John’s death, Vincent examines closely what we can know about his character and personality. The stunning answer is a lot. By closely reading contemporary sources, especially the king’s own correspondence, Vincent argues that we can indeed get a picture of the unserious, duplicitous, wasteful, and cruel man described in the many more over-the-top stories told after his death—his seductions of the pubescent daughters of his barons, his cold-blooded murder, with his own hands, of his nephew Arthur. And even the obviously phony stories can tell us something, he argues, in that medieval people knew John to be the kind of man about whom those kind of things could be believed. It’s a fascinating chapter steeped in expert interpretation of the primary sources, and I was riveted.
Not every day that you’re riveted by historiographical analysis of the Chancery Rolls. That’s saying something.
Was John evil? Vincent doesn’t say yes exactly, but it’s clear even from this short book that John was a bad king—mostly because he was a bad man. Impious, conniving, cruel, faithless, somehow both aggressive and cowardly, and, all the worse, incompetent. Perhaps his only redeeming feature was his ability to crack a joke (which is also one of the only redeeming things about the Ridley Scott Robin Hood, in which Oscar Isaac steals the show as John), though even his wit was often used for cruel ends.
I feel like I’m shortchanging Vincent’s book with this brief description. Suffice it to say that this short biography of John is clear, surprisingly comprehensive for 102 pages, and not only tells the story of John’s life well but situates him clearly enough in his time to make the broader context of his life understandable. It’s excellent. A rewarding read.
Highly recommended.
Vincent begins with the question of whether John was evil or not and spends the rest of the book answering by way of narrative. He situates John in the context of his father Henry II’s family and court and even the character of the Plantagenets more generally, who were regarded as wicked and cruel even in their own time, as well as examining the influence John’s early experience exercising authority in Ireland, where more brutal norms prevailed, had on his later reign as king.
He also makes clear the parameters of the preexisting conflicts that would embroil John and how events like the murder of St Thomas Becket or the capture, ransom, and death of his older brother Richard the Lion Heart gave shape to the conflicts of John’s reign—his wars in France, his struggle with the Church and particularly Pope Innocent III. He covers the circumstances surrounding Magna Carta well and offers a good, succinct explanation of what its actual significance was both at the time and later. And it also becomes clear how John’s character and decisions drove the rebellions that marked his last year and a half of life.
Vincent does such a good job not only on the outline of John’s life but also on the big picture that by the end, as the net closes on John all sides—Scotland and Ireland, Wales, his own kingdom, and worst of all France—this incredibly complicated scenario not only makes sense, but you can feel the desperation of John’s situation. A remarkable accomplishment for a book of just over a hundred pages.
Perhaps the most remarkable chapter deals with John’s character, the deadly third rail of medieval history. In a twenty-page pause before the final chapter on Runnymede and John’s death, Vincent examines closely what we can know about his character and personality. The stunning answer is a lot. By closely reading contemporary sources, especially the king’s own correspondence, Vincent argues that we can indeed get a picture of the unserious, duplicitous, wasteful, and cruel man described in the many more over-the-top stories told after his death—his seductions of the pubescent daughters of his barons, his cold-blooded murder, with his own hands, of his nephew Arthur. And even the obviously phony stories can tell us something, he argues, in that medieval people knew John to be the kind of man about whom those kind of things could be believed. It’s a fascinating chapter steeped in expert interpretation of the primary sources, and I was riveted.
Not every day that you’re riveted by historiographical analysis of the Chancery Rolls. That’s saying something.
Was John evil? Vincent doesn’t say yes exactly, but it’s clear even from this short book that John was a bad king—mostly because he was a bad man. Impious, conniving, cruel, faithless, somehow both aggressive and cowardly, and, all the worse, incompetent. Perhaps his only redeeming feature was his ability to crack a joke (which is also one of the only redeeming things about the Ridley Scott Robin Hood, in which Oscar Isaac steals the show as John), though even his wit was often used for cruel ends.
I feel like I’m shortchanging Vincent’s book with this brief description. Suffice it to say that this short biography of John is clear, surprisingly comprehensive for 102 pages, and not only tells the story of John’s life well but situates him clearly enough in his time to make the broader context of his life understandable. It’s excellent. A rewarding read.
Highly recommended.
December 18, 2024
The final conclusion: "This was perhaps not an evil king, nor even the pantomime villain of later legend. John lacked neither brains nor guile. But his political intelligence, like his personality, was warped by cruelty, dishonesty and mistrust." ~ The beginning asks, John was a bad king.
Was he bad because unlucky, or bad was he inherently evil, and while the conclusion doesn't reach a verdict I feel the actions do point to: "Yes, evil."
Overall, this work presents John as more competent then other biographies, and does lay some of his falures more on bad luck. However there is no getting around that John seemed to take delight in hurting others, which always came back to haunt him.
Extremely high level at under 2oo pages, so a good starter but lacks some depth. That said, still had critical new points to make. In particular, I was fascinated by the idea that young 18 year old John was particularly scarred (for lack of a better word) by the warfare practiced by the Irish that would horrify his Norman companions.
But what Impact did Ireland have upon the future King John? Was it here, for example, that John acquired his later obsession with hostage-taking? Hostages were a fundamental aspect of Irish politics, and in Ireland, unlike England or France, they were regularly and brutally killed in reprisal for breaches of a peace impossible for either native or invading Englishmen to maintain." and
"Was it in these same circumstances that he acquired his equally notorious delight in watching judicial duels - with the ritual battles between accused and accuser in which one party, favoured by God, would batter the other to death.
Was he bad because unlucky, or bad was he inherently evil, and while the conclusion doesn't reach a verdict I feel the actions do point to: "Yes, evil."
Overall, this work presents John as more competent then other biographies, and does lay some of his falures more on bad luck. However there is no getting around that John seemed to take delight in hurting others, which always came back to haunt him.
Extremely high level at under 2oo pages, so a good starter but lacks some depth. That said, still had critical new points to make. In particular, I was fascinated by the idea that young 18 year old John was particularly scarred (for lack of a better word) by the warfare practiced by the Irish that would horrify his Norman companions.
But what Impact did Ireland have upon the future King John? Was it here, for example, that John acquired his later obsession with hostage-taking? Hostages were a fundamental aspect of Irish politics, and in Ireland, unlike England or France, they were regularly and brutally killed in reprisal for breaches of a peace impossible for either native or invading Englishmen to maintain." and
"Was it in these same circumstances that he acquired his equally notorious delight in watching judicial duels - with the ritual battles between accused and accuser in which one party, favoured by God, would batter the other to death.
March 1, 2022
3.5 rounded up to 4
Despite title quite castigating of John's ineptitude but points out he wasn't evil.
The author makes the case John was 'an atheist' but I'm not sure I agree. This is based on John's impatience and irreverence for The Catholic Church but perhaps the ritual nonsense bothered him without him not believing in God entirely. I don't know that seems extreme for that time period.
Somewhat sexist view of women covered in this history. He also passes on many exaggerations that have already been explained, such as Richard I's homosexuality. It's possible he was bisexual but we can't really deduce that from existing info. He had illegitimate children and 'sodomy' didn't only mean anal sex at the time he confessed to it, it could cover various what were considered sexual depravities. Sharing a bed with another man, crying, hugging etc were normal at the time Richard I lived and not an indicator of homosexuality, nor is it an indicator of homosexuality now. It's unclear if his contemporaries viewed him as a lover of men. He was a terrible King, brother, son and husband tho🤷🏾♀️😩
I liked that the author tied Magna Carta to Kimg Stephen's Treaty of Winchester in which he recognizes Henry II as his heir.
In the end I really enjoyed this look at John. I don't agree that he's England's worst King. In fact his history of crimes sounds similar to Henry VIII🤷🏾♀️
Despite title quite castigating of John's ineptitude but points out he wasn't evil.
The author makes the case John was 'an atheist' but I'm not sure I agree. This is based on John's impatience and irreverence for The Catholic Church but perhaps the ritual nonsense bothered him without him not believing in God entirely. I don't know that seems extreme for that time period.
Somewhat sexist view of women covered in this history. He also passes on many exaggerations that have already been explained, such as Richard I's homosexuality. It's possible he was bisexual but we can't really deduce that from existing info. He had illegitimate children and 'sodomy' didn't only mean anal sex at the time he confessed to it, it could cover various what were considered sexual depravities. Sharing a bed with another man, crying, hugging etc were normal at the time Richard I lived and not an indicator of homosexuality, nor is it an indicator of homosexuality now. It's unclear if his contemporaries viewed him as a lover of men. He was a terrible King, brother, son and husband tho🤷🏾♀️😩
I liked that the author tied Magna Carta to Kimg Stephen's Treaty of Winchester in which he recognizes Henry II as his heir.
In the end I really enjoyed this look at John. I don't agree that he's England's worst King. In fact his history of crimes sounds similar to Henry VIII🤷🏾♀️
August 30, 2020
I think it’s fair to say that everything I knew about King John was wrong.
September 20, 2024
The author gives a brief study of John and his reign, but it sheds plenty of light on the character of John, neither whitewashing nor vilifying him unduly. This seems like level reporting based on the primary sources. I found it useful particularly as a character study. For a deeper study of the reign, one would turn elsewhere.
October 23, 2020
In this short biography in the Penguin Monarchs series, Nicholas Vincent does not attempt to rehabilitate King John, observing that both his contemporaries and subsequent historians judged him to be a bad King and it is unlikely that there will ever be another British king named John. Instead, Vincent discusses whether John's disastrous reign arose from an inherently evil personality or his circumstances or both of these factors. There is some very interesting analysis of John's early career as Lord of Ireland as Vincent notes that John employed the brutal tactics from his time in Ireland in his later treatment of his English barons including the capture and murder of hostages.
In the chapter concerning John's character, there is discussion of the King's predatory attitude toward women and I would have been interested to read more of the author's analysis of John's relationship with his queen, Isabella of Angouleme, in this context. (The author has written about Isabella as "John's Jezebel" in a chapter of another volume). Isabella seems to have been kept in the background but also to have had a strong personality of her own.
In the chapter concerning John's character, there is discussion of the King's predatory attitude toward women and I would have been interested to read more of the author's analysis of John's relationship with his queen, Isabella of Angouleme, in this context. (The author has written about Isabella as "John's Jezebel" in a chapter of another volume). Isabella seems to have been kept in the background but also to have had a strong personality of her own.
September 5, 2020
A quick read on a much maligned king. A nice update for the 21st century, nothing surprising for those who've read Warren's biography, but surprises for those who've gotten their info from Robin Hood movies. It doesn't absolve him, John seemed to have very deep character flaws, but neither was he history's greatest monster. He did what he could do given the circumstances he was given, which was an ignored and fractious body politic from Scotland to the Pyrenees that heroic Richard I was little interested in administering
May 2, 2023
Another excellent title in the Penguin Monarchs series. Probably the most ‘chatty’ book I’ve read in the series so far, I particularly liked the comparisons to the present day that are dotted throughout. The book begins with a thorough discussion of previous histories of John’s reign, from which one learns that much that has been written about how bad King John was, is basically propaganda. Then we have as many facts as can be gleaned from historical records, which to my mind, show he was a monster. At the end of the book, the author still seems to be giving John the benefit of the doubt!
December 7, 2025
This series is consistently high quality, but this one stands out even among them. With a goal to keep the books short there's often a limited amount of depth the authors have time for, but Vincent manages to be so succinct with his details that he gets directly to the meat of things with very little time wasted.
This book covered not just the life story of King John but also the way his reputation evolved during his life and after his death, the ways in which that reputation may and may not have been deserved, and drew useful parallels between the political/economic events of his reign and similar events throughout history and into the modern age, allowing everything to sit in a layer of context that doesn't depend on an understanding of Medieval England (or France). Honestly my grasp on the 13th century might be better than my grasp on the 21st, so sometimes this was helpful to me in reverse, but that's neither here nor there.
This book covered not just the life story of King John but also the way his reputation evolved during his life and after his death, the ways in which that reputation may and may not have been deserved, and drew useful parallels between the political/economic events of his reign and similar events throughout history and into the modern age, allowing everything to sit in a layer of context that doesn't depend on an understanding of Medieval England (or France). Honestly my grasp on the 13th century might be better than my grasp on the 21st, so sometimes this was helpful to me in reverse, but that's neither here nor there.
August 5, 2026
This is presumably one of the monarchs whom authors were hoping to get allocated in this series, and Vincent does a convincing job of bringing nuance to John’s life. Although John comes across just as appallingly as you would expect, there are moments where Vincent interrogates the sources, and how much we should lean on them. On to Henry III!
January 17, 2021
Another fantastic title from the Penguin Monarchs series - well structured around a series of questions. Vincent's approach in offering so many unanswered questions about John has a beautiful consequence in that definitive statements about the figure take on all the more authority.
September 20, 2022
Terribly dry - a literary cinnamon challenge. It is the extensiveness of the research which still moves me to give this three stars.
April 2, 2023
A well balanced synopsis of King John’s reign. Interesting, fast paced and informative. A must read for any one studying medieval history.
September 29, 2024
I’ve read 4 penguin monarchs books before this. This is the best one I’ve read so far. Very easy to read. It does not obsess over Magna Carta and you get a wide and varied view of the king. It makes me want to read more about John. Very well structured and written.
October 12, 2021
Another fine addition to the Penguin Monarchs series as the author does a good job with the least palatable English monarch. It is as fair a portrayal as this particular king could expect.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews