JOHN: AN EVIL KING (PENGUIN MONARCHS PB)

Over most of John’s seventeen-year rule, he enjoyed great wealth and power, if not popularity. Yet rebel barons and Magna Carta now overshadow everything else about him. In the public mind, tyranny was thwarted at Runnymede, and John was exposed as both villainous and pathetic. (Contemporary portrayal as a thumbsucking lion has not helped his reputation.) This addition to the Penguin Monarchs series unpicks the character behind one of England's most despised kings. Was he as evil as legend suggests? Or has he been unfairly represented?