Commentary on King John by Mike Ibeji on the BBC History Website - worth a look if you have a couple of spare hours:

"To his contemporaries and to later historians, Richard was a superstar. By comparison, John was a weedy little tick."

John has had bad press; he wasn't so bad, especially in the light of his times. Still, he was all washed up in 1215. Died the next year. It may have been peaches and new cider or it may have been poison administered by a monk. On the other hand he wasn't young and he could easily just have died from a heart attack or a stroke.





The idiot also known as Capfka ...