In truth King John has
had a bad press. He is usually considered one of the worst Kings ever to rule
England which he did for 17 years from 1199 to 1216. John is in the same league
as Edward II, Richard II and Henry VI in terms of inept medieval monarchs. Cruel, militarily
inept, untrustworthy, devious and sadistic are just some of the epithets that
are usually directed against him. It culminated in the Barons forcing him to
sign the “Great Charter” or Magna Carta in a field by the Thames curbing his
dictatorial powers. I was thinking of him as a gazed down on his tomb at
Worcester Cathedral. He asked to be buried in the same church as St Wulfstan, a
local saint, so on his death at Newark( after according to one source eating
unripe peaches and drinking too much cider) his corpse undertook a long cross
country journey before it was buried beside the River Severn.
But Leek owes John a
lot and perhaps his reputation needs to be restored. It was John who granted the Market Charter to
Leek in 1207 as he did for many other towns in the country. Liverpool got its
charter in the same year. This was a consequence of the king needing to raise
additional revenue as a consequence of losing all his family’s possessions and
land in Normandy. John stands poorly in comparison with his brother the
courageous Richard the Lion Heart who only spent a short period in England
before going on the Third Crusade and in consequence bankrupting the country.
John followed in the steps of his father Henry II who energetically got round
the country administering justice. John was in his father’s mould in being a
serious administrator. He was probably the first King since the Conqueror to
know England very well, crisscrossing the
country in frenetic activity, like his father, personally overseeing the
running of his land. His awareness of the country was assisted by his
enthusiastic pursuit of game. John like all the Angevin Kings was a keen hunter
and there is evidence that he hunted throughout the Midlands, the North and the
West Country. As a consequence he was one of the few medieval monarchs to
encourage the building of bridges and improving roads. He was also the first to
recognise the pottery industry in Staffordshire as an order for 4,000 plates
and 500 cups was made to supply a Christmas banquet at Tewkesbury in 1204.
John’s main problem was
an inability to get on with the leading barons and the high handedness he
frequently showed to them would eventually lead to the showdown at Runnymede. This
can be demonstrated by his handling of the most powerful lord in these parts,
the founder of Dieulacres Abbey, Ranulph Earl of Chester a very loyal and
dependable knight. In 1203 John accused him of aiding his enemies in France and
the following year of siding with the rebel Welsh. Despite these slurs Ranulph
remained faithful aiding him in the last
rebellions of his rule and acted as executor of John’s will.
John was unlucky. The
poor economic situation of England forced him to embark upon ever more ingenious
ways of extracting money from the barons which caused ill feeling. The brutal
methods that he employed to ensure their loyalty such as hostage taking only worsened
the situation. The verdict of history on him must be that he had the ability
and energy to be a great king, but all too often he acted like a petty tyrant
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