Was King John really such a bad king? (Short Animated Documentary)

0:00 King Jon of England does not have a good

0:02 reputation.

0:02 His reign is seen as one of

0:04 military disaster, political crisis, and

0:06 economic ruin.

0:07 But to what extent was

0:08 all of this his fault?

0:09 Was King Jon a

0:10 bad ruler?

0:10 Was he just unlucky?

0:11 Or were the problems of his reign a combination

0:13 of both?

0:14 So before we begin, it's

0:15 important to tackle a common

0:16 misconception.

0:17 There's an idea that King

0:18 Jon was so incredibly bad that no

0:20 monarch ever gave the name to their

0:21 children, lest they risk another one

0:23 taking the throne.

0:24 This isn't true, and

0:25 there were actually numerous princes

0:27 called Jon, and briefly one was the heir

0:28 to the throne.

0:29 The name of a ruling

0:30 monarch was simply a case of which heir

0:31 made it to adulthood and which didn't.

0:33 And for most of history, this was just

0:35 down to luck.

0:36 Anyway, so as you'll know,

0:37 King John came to the throne after the

0:39 death of his brother, King Richard I,

0:40 aka Richard the Lionheart.

0:42 Richard is most famous for his crusading exploits,

0:44 which won him a lot of good press with

0:46 his contemporaries.

0:47 Furthermore, whilst he was off crusading, Jon was trying to

0:49 undermine him, which soued his

0:51 reputation somewhat.

0:52 And later, when Richard was being held prisoner by the

0:54 Holy Roman Emperor, Jon, along with the

0:56 king of France, tried to bribe the

0:57 emperor not to release him.

0:58 In the end though, Richard was ransomed for an eye

1:00 watering amount of money in 1194 and

1:02 released back to England where he

1:03 allowed Jon to keep his head.

1:04 This was mostly because Richard didn't have any

1:06 children and offering your own brother

1:07 an heir wasn't a good look.

1:09 Although if he had done, England would have at least

1:10 had a King Arthur.

1:11 But alas, no.

1:13 Anyway, Richard died in 1199 and his brother

1:15 succeeded him.

1:16 And whilst the crown of

1:17 England transferred without incident,

1:18 these territories in France used

1:19 different succession laws, meaning that

1:21 they would go to Jon's nephew, the

1:22 affforementioned Arthur, which Jon

1:23 didn't like, and as such, rebellion.

1:25 John wanted to shore up his grip on his

1:27 lands in France to help crush this

1:28 revolt and so he opted for a strategic

1:30 marriage.

1:31 Of course, he was already

1:32 married, but that was quickly anold.

1:34 John was able to do this because he and

1:36 his wife were cousins and they hadn't

1:37 asked the pope.

1:38 Anyway, he soon married

1:39 the lady of these lands, Isabella

1:40 Evangelm.

1:41 The primary issue, well, at

1:42 least one of them, Isabella was only

1:44 about 12 at the time of the wedding, was

1:45 the fact that she was already engaged.

1:47 Her former betrod appealed to King

1:48 Philippe II of France, who then

1:50 commanded Jon to attend his court to

1:52 answer for this insult.

1:53 And since Jon held titles in France which were in

1:55 service to the French king, Philipe

1:56 believed that Jon had no choice but to

1:57 attend.

1:58 Jon of course had a different

1:59 interpretation.

2:00 And so when he continued

2:01 to ignore these summons, it was seen as

2:02 an offense and war.

2:04 As you'll likely know, in times of war, a king would call

2:06 upon his nobles to help him raise armies

2:07 and win glory.

2:08 And whilst Jon did do

2:09 this, he was quick to belittle or ignore

2:10 them whilst on campaign, which when

2:12 combined with the suspiciously timed

2:14 death of the now imprisoned Arthur, led

2:15 many to simply abandon him.

2:16 And by 1204, Jon had lost all of this.

2:19 Now lacking land, Jon was in a bit of a bind.

2:21 Medieval kings were supposed to be

2:23 warriors, but Jon had just shown he

2:24 wasn't too brilliant at that.

2:25 And whilst he did want to retake Normandy and the

2:27 rest of his inheritance, he knew that he

2:28 needed to wait.

2:30 And so he focused on the

2:31 ruling of England instead.

2:32 Unlike his brother, John was very involved in the

2:34 actual day-to-day running of his

2:35 kingdom.

2:36 But because of said brother's

2:37 crusade and ransom, England was broke.

2:39 And so John became obsessed with raising

2:41 money.

2:41 Now Jon was not much of a people

2:43 pleaser and did everything he could to

2:44 be as unlikable as humanly possible.

2:46 He was paranoid, cruel, and not very pious,

2:48 which didn't endear him to, well,

2:50 anyone.

2:50 And since Jon had plotted

2:51 against a king himself, he believed that

2:53 his elves and baronss were likely

2:54 plotting against him, too.

2:55 As such, he wanted to weaken them, and even those

2:57 who were fiercely loyal to him were

2:58 subject to arbitrary fines and had to

3:00 pay him to inherit or remarry.

3:01 If they refused, Jon would then deprive them of

3:03 their lands, which made the rest of the

3:04 nobles very nervous.

3:05 In 1208, Jon got

3:07 into a fight with the pope over who got

3:08 to be the next Archbishop of Canterbury.

3:10 And when he refused to behave, he got

3:11 himself excommunicated the next year.

3:13 This was a big deal and caused massive

3:14 disruption to the day-to-day lives of

3:16 many English people.

3:17 And so after three

3:18 years of this, he agreed to pay filty to

3:19 the pope in return for his

3:20 excommunication being reversed.

3:22 But again, his reputation was pretty much in

3:23 the toilet at this point.

3:25 John continued his long and proud tradition of

3:26 upsetting everyone around him until

3:28 1214, which was when he, the pope, and

3:30 the Holy Roman Emperor all decided to

3:31 humble Philip II and so agreed to invade

3:33 France.

3:34 His nobles refused to help.

3:35 John ended up achieving nothing and the next

3:37 year they were in open rebellion against

3:38 him.

3:39 After many of his supporters

3:40 abandoned him, he was forced to

3:41 negotiate and this is when he signed the

3:43 famous Magna Carta.

3:44 This document is seen as the beginning of the end of

3:46 absolute monarchy in England and as the

3:47 foundation of the rights of free men.

3:49 Whilst this isn't strictly untrue, the

3:51 vast majority of people at the time

3:52 weren't free and the primary role of the

3:54 document was to give the baronss of

3:55 England far far greater power.

3:56 John signed it and 5 seconds after the

3:58 baron's armies had disbanded, he reaged

4:00 and restarted the war.

4:01 John did much better this time and the baronss then

4:03 asked the king of Scotland to invade the

4:04 north to help out.

4:05 They also invited Prince Louie, the heir to the French

4:07 throne, to rule England and save them

4:08 from Jon.

4:09 Louieie accepted and along

4:10 with the Scottish and the rebels

4:11 occupied these parts of England.

4:13 At this point, Jon wasn't in a good place, but

4:15 this would be fixed in 1216 when he

4:17 died.

4:17 His young son was crowned Henry

4:18 III, and with Jon gone, the reasons for

4:20 the rebellion were dead, too.

4:21 Louie was told to go home, and the nobles

4:23 eventually agreed to a watered down

4:24 version of Magna Carta.

4:26 In the end, Jon

4:26 died facing a rebellion of his nobles

4:28 and foreign invasions of his kingdom.

4:30 Whilst he did inherit a kingdom under

4:31 financial strain, he personally made

4:33 everything much, much worse.

4:34 He upset his great lords who were vital to his

4:36 power base, and alongside his middling

4:37 general ship, he lost most of his French

4:39 lands.

4:39 He was deeply unlikable and this

4:41 combined with his paranoia meant that he

4:42 acted in a way that was deeply offensive

4:44 to the sensibilities of the time.

4:45 To summarize, King Jon didn't get the best

4:47 start.

4:48 However, he sucked and so made it

4:49 all much much worse and many of the

4:50 problems of his reign went away the

4:52 second he died.

4:53 I hope you enjoyed this

4:54 episode with a special thanks to my

4:56 patrons James Bizinette, Sky Chappelle,

4:58 Carttoka, YN Hockey, Anthony Beckett,

5:00 Marvin Cassau, Winston Kaywood, Gustav

5:02 Swan, Captain Syidog, Andy McGeeh, Alex

5:04 Schwin, Copper Tone, Robert C.

5:06 Perkins Ma Ahmed AF Firefly Spencer Lightfoot

5:09 Castle Bravo Rod D Martin Respectable

5:11 Level of Chaos Spinning Three Plates

5:12 Arthur Hosie Jr.

5:14 Uduan Wang, Shuen, Kimun, Yun, the McWer, Michael Halbert,

5:17 the Jim Stannon, Kitro, The Flying

5:19 Deutseland, Starry Knights, Bonnie

5:21 Bounds, Jim Sternberg, Remco, Hoistman,

5:23 Bet Kabot, Lord Beak, and Charles The

5:25 fastest.