John Lackland portrayed in the Genealogical Chronicle of the English Kings, 13th century, British Library
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If there’s one historical king that pop culture has decided was gross, it’s King John of England (reigned 1199-1216). Okay, and Richard III. Make that two gross historical kings (there are probably others)! Nonetheless, King John is generally the villain of most stories, particularly those about Robin Hood.
The real King John was the youngest son of King Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine. After his elder brothers all died, John came to throne and was generally a wanker, losing Normany and most of the other French lands under English control and basically ending the Angevin empire.
He first married Isabella, Countess of Gloucester, but had that marriage annulled when he came to the throne. He then married Isabella of Angoulême, and they had several children, including the future King Henry III.
As always, there are several productions for which I can’t find images:
- George Courtenay in Ivanhoe (1913)
- Edward Cooper in Robin Hood, Jr. (1923)
- Donald Wolfit in BBC Sunday Night Theatre: “King John” (1952)
- Roddy McDowall in The Legend of Robin Hood (1968)
- Lawrence Adams in The Ribald Tales of Robin Hood (1969)
- Tim Preece in Ivanhoe (1970)
- John Slade in Voyagers!: “An Arrow Pointing East” (1982)
- Roddy McDowall in The Zany Adventures of Robin Hood (1984)
- Cameron Rhodes in Dark Knight (2000)
Let’s kick of snark week with a look at (one of) history’s most reviled kings!
Herbert Beerbohm Tree in King John (1899)
A film adaptation of the Shakespeare play — in fact, the first known example of such! It was an edited version of what would be a stage production.
Sam De Grasse in Robin Hood (1922)
With Douglas Fairbanks Jr. as Robin; the first film to have a Hollywood premiere.
Ramsay Hill in The Crusades (1935)
A Cecil B. DeMille film focused on Richard the Lionheart’s time crusading.
Claude Rains in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)
More Robin Hood!
George Macready in Rogues of Sherwood Forest (1950)
Yet More Robin Hood.
Hubert Gregg in The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men (1952)
You guessed it!
Guy Rolfe in Ivanhoe (1952)
An adaptation of Sir Walter Scott’s romanticized tale whereby a Saxon knight falls in love with a Jewish woman in medieval England.
Donald Pleasence, Hubert Gregg, & Brian Haines in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1955-60)
A British TV series about you guessed it.
Andrew Keir in Ivanhoe (1958)
Same as above! Except this one was on TV.
John Crawford in The Time Tunnel: “The Revenge of Robin Hood” (1966)
An American scifi TV show in which the US government has created a time machine and the scientists who created it adventure through time.
Nigel Terry in The Lion in Winter (1968)
The EXCELLENT adaptation of a stage play about Henry III and Eleanor of Aquitaine. John is the grossest, most sniveling of their adult children!
Frank Braña in The Magnificent Robin Hood (1970)
A Spanish feature film take on the Hood.
Daniele Dublino in Long Live Robin Hood (1970)
An Italian swashbuckler.
Peter Ustinov (voice) in Robin Hood (1973)
I know y’all will hurt me if I don’t include the Disney version!
David Dixon in The Legend of Robin Hood (1975)
A BBC TV series.
Ron Rifkin in When Things Were Rotten (1975)
A Mel Brooks parody TV series about Robin Hood.
Ian Holm in Robin and Marian (1976)
Older Robin and Marian. Uh oh, it’s our first attractive John!
Paul Spurrier and John Duttine in The Devil’s Crown (1978)
A BBC TV series that dramatized “the reigns of three medieval Kings of England: Henry II and his sons Richard I and John,” per Wikipedia.
Ronald Pickup in Ivanhoe (1982)
A TV movie? miniseries? adapting the Sir Walter Scott novel.
Algimantas Masiulis in The Ballad of the Valiant Knight Ivanhoe (1983)
A Soviet take on Ivanhoe.
Gerald Flood in Doctor Who: “The King’s Demons” (1983)
Time travel!
Leonard Rossiter in The Life and Death of King John (1984)
Part of the BBC Shakespeare adaptation series.
Phil Davis in Robin of Sherwood (1984-86)
A British fantasy TV series.
Forbes Collins in Maid Marian and her Merry Men (1989)
A British comedic TV series.
Edward Fox in Robin Hood (1991)
The Patrick Bergin/Uma Thurman film, not the Kevin Costner.
Richard Lewis in Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1994)
The Mel Brooks parody feature film.
Ian Falconer in Young Ivanhoe (1995)
A TV movie of the Walter Scott novel.
Ralph Brown in Ivanhoe (1997)
A BBC/A&E take on Walter Scott.
Andrew Bicknell in The New Adventures of Robin Hood (1997-98)
An action/adventure TV show that aired on TNT.
Jonathan Hyde in Princess of Thieves (2001)
A TV film with Keira Knightley as Robin Hood’s daughter.
Soma Marko and Rafe Spall in The Lion in Winter (2003)
A TV film adaptation of the play.
Toby Stephens in Robin Hood (2006-09)
A British TV series. Shit, another hot John!
Jim Howick and Ben Miller in Horrible Histories (2009-)
A British children’s TV series with comic takes on history.
Oscar Isaac in Robin Hood (2010)
The Russell Crowe feature film. Dammit, our third Hot John(TM)!
Paul Giamatti in Ironclad (2011)
A film about the siege of Rochester Castle by King John in 1215.
Which screen King John squicks you out the most?
That´s Richard II not III. Richard III was the one with the princes in the tower so pretty ick too.
Uhhh never mind, I read it all wrong.
Nigel Terry in The Lion in Winter reminds me of the jailer in the Pit of Despair in The Princess Bride.
John is probably only the fourth grossest English king at the worst. He did murder his nephew, but since Dick III murdered two of them, he ought to be considered twice as gross. Henry VIII murdered two wives, so I’d put him ahead of John as well. Dick II married a six-year-old girl, which probably wins him the gold, at least as far as “grossness” is concerned.
Richard I was arguably worse for his country than John was. He only spent about six months in England and him not having a son created a succession crisis and a civil war.
I’d argue that Henry VIII is the Perfect Storm when it comes to ranking the Kings of England by ‘Man Ick’ factor – he managed to combine just about all the failings of the other candidates, except that he somehow managed to go down in history and folklore as ‘Great Harry’.
At least those other jerks got some comeuppance!
Well, young Arthur wasn’t a winsome little kiddy as depicted by Shakespeare; he was leading an an army to try to grab the crown from John (who had been legitimately nominated Richard I’s heir) and when John captured him he was busily besieging his own 78-year-old granny in her castle!
And PLEASE don’t drag out the old ‘eew, paedophilia’ thing re R2. He didn’t jump into bed with young Isabella as soon as they married – indeed he never did; she being under age, she was given a home and court of her own and a governess to look after her. But Richard visited her often, when he brought her presents and told her stories, and they seem to have been very fond of each other in a quite non-sexual way. (One contemporary take on Richard’s marrying her is that as king he had to remarry after the death of his first wife, Anne of Bohemia, but two years later he was still too heartbroken to contemplate putting someone in her place; he could treat little Isabella essentially as the daughter he and Anne had never had.)
As for R1, not spending time in England was about the best thing he could have done for the country. Just about every one of the provinces of the Angevin Empire where he did stay for any length of time rose up in revolt against him sooner or later, citing his ‘greed, cruelty and injustice’. If you’re the most famous and fearsome war-leader in Europe and your vassals still keep rebelling, it’s a sign that your personal rule is quite unusually unbearable.
Hooray for Snark Week! Thank you for posting the Disney version because yes there would have been complaints. [Odds are if Robin Hood was real, Richard and John had nothing to do with him.] Can’t wait to see the other entries for the week.
You’ve got an extra “I” in Henry II in the Hepburn Lion in Winter! I loved seeing all of these.
Douglas Fairbanks, Senior, not Junior.
That’s not Jim Howick in your top image under Horrible Histories. His King John is here at 15:12 https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01j8pfx/horrible-histories-series-4-episode-11
It’s amusing to note that, of the veritable Rogues Gallery of villains above, no fewer than two (Mr Nigel Terry in EXCALIBUR and Mr Edward Fox in PRINCE VALIANT) also played King Arthur.
Talk about the ultimate duality of monarchy!
For the record, my personal favourites are (In no particular order) Mr Claude Rains, Mr Edward Fox, Mr Toby Stephens and Mr Oscar Isaacs – with Mr Edward Fox as a particular favourite, because he manages to own every inch of the screen in kingly style, while still coming across as a shifty piece of work and a difficult man to work for.
Basically, my favourite sort of King John is one that’s talented enough to be plausible, plausible enough to be dangerous and seldom more than one reverse away from acute petulance.
Glad to see the shout-out for Edward Fox, veteran of many frock flicks. But why is such an extremely Anglo-Saxon actor playing a Norman ruler–especially when the flick made such a big deal of Saxon-Norman conflict.
Interesting note: John the First was, in fact, of partly Anglo-Saxon descent through Matilda of Scotland (Whose mother was the daughter and sister of men with the strongest right of blood to the English throne).
Amusingly, certain Norman chroniclers of the time referred to the Conqueror’s youngest son and his bride as ‘Godric and Godgifu’ as a result of this very non-Norman match.
Mathilda of Scotland, it should be noted, was King John’s great-grandmother (It’s also worth noting that King John was born in Oxford, England and that his eldest son was born in Winchester, the old capital of King Alfred – and Henry III was the first king since the Conquest to give his sons Saxon names).
a friend of mine credits ronald pickup with saving his young daughters life on the set of ivanhoe. the bbc asked re-enactors in as extras, specifially asking for children for the crowd scene. and treated us appalingly. People were left in full sun with no respite during a heatwave, the wardrobe ladies had removed all headcoverings (and anything authentic to the c13th for that matter) and the director denied any breaks or water for hours on end, people were dropping like flies. My friends 5 year old began showing signs of serious heatstroke, so he took her to the crew for help and they were in the midst of brushing off the problem when the late mr pickup, a granda himself, saw what was happening and ordered the crew to bring water, electric fans etc, and have the child taken to the shade – basically had her treated like a princess.
pickup= top bloke
director= complete prick
wardrobe dept=I have no words, possibly they’d read a lady bird book, but they were expecting women to strip to thier underwear and change outfits in public with a lot of men leering around, utter bitches
The King John in “The King’s Demons” is a robot duplicate, the real one isn’t depicted.
The Disney version is hands down the best!
Don’t miss young Roger Moore in the still from ‘Ivanhoe’ (1958)!
How could one miss him? He really was a most deplorably handsome man and had the nerve to be charming too!
The 1950s TV series of Robin Hood was an essential part of my childhood – being the Beeb they repeated it for years after they finished making it. Anyone of my generation (Boomer) here can almost certainly hum the theme tune.
For overall grossness, I feel Nigel Terry wins the prize. John really was an unpleasant piece of work, but so were all his brothers, and little Arthur was taking after them. The best thing John ever did for his own son, Henry III, was dying while the lad was still a child. Family dynamics in the royal family cooled down for nearly a century after that.
As for least likeable English king, Edward II has to be in the running. Yes, he was gay, but that didn’t mean he had empathy or decency.
Not only was John as played by Nigel Terry pimply and sweaty, Alias (Jane Merrow) says he smells like compost.
I love Claude Rains but then again, I love the entire Errol Flynn Robin Hood.
First, I cheered out loud for Snark Week and got strange looks.
Randomly the King John line from Disney’s Robin Hood, “Mother always liked Richard better”, will enter my brain.
I remember reading somewhere that Diana was not allowed to name her son’s after her father for fear there would be another King John.