The Barons Forced King John to Sign the Magna Carta Because He Was a Bad King Who Was Ruling Badly. to What Extent Do You Agree with This Statement??

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To some extent, I agree with this statement as John had many faults such as, he was a bad fighter and the people of medieval England liked their kings to be great warriors. He lost all of the land in France and some sources written by barons say that it was because he was idle and was not bothering to fight. He was also over taxing the barons which obviously was not sensible as the barons in medieval times had a lot of power. If they inherited land, king John would get a large share of it, or if they didn’t want to fight in a battle, they would have to pay a large amount of money to the king. However I also disagree with this statement for as many reasons as I agree with it, one being that Johns brother was Richard the Lion Heart. He was king before John and was well known for being a great warrior. He fought on lots of crusades and won many battles. The people compared John to his brother and next to Richard, John did not appear to be a good king. People expected John to be as good as his brother and when he didn’t meet their expectations, they gave him a hard time and called him a bad king. Another reason that John was called a bad king was because he lost a lot of land in France. Some say that this is because he was idle but when the matter is looked into, we discover that it was actually because he didn’t have the baron’s support. Afraid that they would lose their land in France, they betrayed John and promised that they would be loyal to Philip whilst over in France. John was not a typical medieval king; he was very interested in his people. He spent much of his free time travelling around England visiting his subjects, something that Richard had never even considered. But one of the main reasons John was portrayed as a bad king was that the barons were against him as he tried to control them, so they spread rumours about him and made him sound worse than he
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