King John Essay
King John - Good or Bad?
King John was the reigning king from 1189-1199. His reign was not the most righteous reign, as many citizens thought that he was a disbeliever, then other people thought he was a wasted more money than ever before. In fact, his reign as king was not as successful as his father’s reign, he did a lot wrong as king including putting his country into poverty, rising taxes, falling out with the pope and losing his position in the French monarchy. Lots of his deeds had great fault but what really happened? King John was a very irrespective of the church, because he fell out with the pope, bringing a interdict over the whole of Britain, this meaning that no one could hold marriages, funerals, baptisms or christenings. What he did to fall out with the pope is he said to the pope that he didn’t want the man that the pope recommended (Stephen Langton) and that he wanted someone else King John just went against it and said that the monarchy was more important than the church and that the church didn’t matter, so King John went along with John De Gray the man that he wanted and made him the new Arch Bishop of Canterbury, the fall out affected Britain greatly, especially all of the churches and monastery’s. This made him a very bad king because there were many religious people in the country at the time, such as priests and monks and peasants praying for food and money. Poverty and lack of food and money was a big problem during King Johns reign, because all he did was raise taxes to make up for his loses. He taxed the poor and the hungry and all of the barons turned on him. Raising the taxes meant that he could make enough money to build an army and invade France to get more land for the very unhappy barons, he invaded once and was defeated, he then tried to invade a second time but the barons refused to pay him anymore money, because the poverty was too much. He used so much money to build up armies that then got crushed by the Normans.
King John was the reigning king from 1189-1199. His reign was not the most righteous reign, as many citizens thought that he was a disbeliever, then other people thought he was a wasted more money than ever before. In fact, his reign as king was not as successful as his father’s reign, he did a lot wrong as king including putting his country into poverty, rising taxes, falling out with the pope and losing his position in the French monarchy. Lots of his deeds had great fault but what really happened? King John was a very irrespective of the church, because he fell out with the pope, bringing a interdict over the whole of Britain, this meaning that no one could hold marriages, funerals, baptisms or christenings. What he did to fall out with the pope is he said to the pope that he didn’t want the man that the pope recommended (Stephen Langton) and that he wanted someone else King John just went against it and said that the monarchy was more important than the church and that the church didn’t matter, so King John went along with John De Gray the man that he wanted and made him the new Arch Bishop of Canterbury, the fall out affected Britain greatly, especially all of the churches and monastery’s. This made him a very bad king because there were many religious people in the country at the time, such as priests and monks and peasants praying for food and money. Poverty and lack of food and money was a big problem during King Johns reign, because all he did was raise taxes to make up for his loses. He taxed the poor and the hungry and all of the barons turned on him. Raising the taxes meant that he could make enough money to build an army and invade France to get more land for the very unhappy barons, he invaded once and was defeated, he then tried to invade a second time but the barons refused to pay him anymore money, because the poverty was too much. He used so much money to build up armies that then got crushed by the Normans.