Richard and John: Kings at War [Hardcover]

Frank McLynn (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 23, 2007

Legend and lore surround the history of kings Richard and John, from the ballads of Robin Hood and the novels of Sir Walter Scott to Hollywood movies and television. In the myth-making, King Richard, defender of Christendom in the Holy Land, was the “good king,” and his younger brother John was the evil usurper of the kingdom, who lost not only the Crown jewels but also the power of the crown. How much, though, do these popular stereotypes correspond with reality? Frank McLynn, known for a wide range of historical studies, has returned to the original sources to discover what Richard and John, these warring sons of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, were really like, and how their history measures up to their myth. In riveting prose, and with attention to the sources, he turns the tables on modern revisionist historians, showing exactly how incompetent a king John was, despite his intellectual gifts, and how impressive Richard was, despite his long absence from the throne. This is history at its best-revealing and readable.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Choice"
"A ripping good yarn of galloping prose...Recommended."

About the Author

Frank McLynn is the author of many critically acclaimed books, including Napoleon, 1066, Villa and Zapata, and Wagons West. He is a former Visiting Professor in the Department of English at Strathclyde University. He lives in England.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 608 pages
• Publisher: Da Capo Press; 1ST edition (October 23, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0306815796
• ISBN-13: 978-0306815799
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.4 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #909,210 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars One Stop Source for History of Henry II, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Richard Lionheart & John Lackland, August 23, 2008

By 

David M. Dougherty (Arkansas) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Richard and John: Kings at War (Hardcover)

Author McLynn has produced a very creditable work on the family of Henry II (& I should have added Philip Augustus in my title) from a traditionalist standpoint. Yes, his prose is interlaced with opinions, but I found them to be consistent with the evidence. I particularly enjoyed McLynn's portrait of Saladin and the difficulties he faced confronting both the crusaders and enemies within the Muslim world. In a phrase, there was no inside track anywhere.

With respect to both Richard and John, it was refreshing to read a work from a modern academic author who does not condemn Richard for this love of battle or exalt John who faced the impossible task of keeping a patchwork of lands together that lacked a common language or heritage. In addition, the author completely refutes the notion that Richard was a homosexual (another favorite of politically correct authors). He sometimes ends up presenting a wearisome procession of political treaties, the breaking of those treaties and subsequent military conflict, but that was life among the perpetually squabbling petty kings and barons of Europe at the time.

McLynn does yeoman work in attempting to present the Angevin empire as it was without moralizing and criticizing with 20th century hindsight and professed morality. At the time the crusades were seen as noble and in keeping with God's command. Richard was simply doing his duty to God. Today, academics generally condemn the crusades following on Hume's 18th century historical work that set the tone. No doubt we will be judged in the twenty-fifth century as equally misguided and feckless. One should never, never, never judge historical figures by anything other than the conditions and attitudes of their times. McLynn does this admirably.

As a descendant of John (& Henry & Eleanor) I was hoping for some new or legitimate defense of his many faults, but alas, there was none. John has been much loved lately by revisionists (see Turner), but even with my possibly average knowledge of medieval sources, I knew such polemics possessed severe faults and biases. Maybe it is comforting to believe that all great leaders have feet of clay, but some are truly better than others.

Richard was clearly the foremost military leader produced in Europe from 600 to 1700 CE and should be recognized as such. That he treated England as only a part of his empire (and not excessively important) might offend British historians, but that is their problem, not Richard's. His killing of the 3,000 Acre prisoners is usually used to prove his blood lust, but in medieval eyes this hardly raised an eyebrow.

With John, on the other hand, it is difficult to find any redeeming virtues. Modern historians often make much of the difficulties he faced, but other leaders in history (Genghis Khan comes to mind) have faced far greater difficulties and overcome them. John's failures were his own, and the litany of them makes for difficult and boring reading. I can only imagine how difficult they were to write about over and over again.

A sideline in McLynn's treatise is the venality of the Roman Catholic Church and its meddling for hire in the affairs of kings and governments. It was often difficult to separate religion from politics, and bribing Church officals was the order of the day. The recounting of one tiring manipulation after another by the clergy and Pope makes for daunting reading. Yet again, the participants at those times saw nothing unusual or even unethical in such activities.

McLynn has produced a masterful and scholarly work, although like others, I sometimes found the writing style producing ennui. Nevertheless, it is well worth reading for a thorough understanding of the times and the major players affecting England. There were not a lot of new disclosures here, but through McLynn's encyclopedic presentation from medieval sources, the characters came to life in a setting that can be understood by the modern reader (if it can ever be understood given our a priori framework of knowledge). History is well served. What more can one ask?

19 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A long book with little new to say..., December 16, 2007

By 

JaneConsumer (Philadelphia, PA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Richard and John: Kings at War (Hardcover)

While I'm a British history ethusiast, I'm not an expert; nor am I an historian. I'm a researcher, and I base my comments on my reading of about 3/4's of the book as well as my own research.

I slogged through most of the book, and I do mean "slog." Sentences go on for lines and paragraphs run half a page. The writing is pompous, archaic and repetitive.

Speaking of Henry II's son Henry, McLynn writes: "[T]he Young King adored to spend money, but hated its reality.... [H]e was rescued time and again by his father or William Marshal, which simply made him more resentful, since that meant, in his mind, that they were partronisng him or 'giving him laws'." (p.66) Good grief. Where's the editor?

While I could (and did) put up with the writing, I had a lot of trouble with the arrogance. It's one thing to take a traditionalist viewpoint and back it up with source citations. He does, and I have no problem with it. But he also intersperses his own opinion without stating it as such.

As reviewer Jonathan Sumption writes for THE SPECTATOR (14 October 2006), "[T]here are many things about human personality in the Middle Ages that are not knowable. McLynn writes as if he had met Richard and John. That is the problem."

Further, McLynn is often inaccurate with small details. For instance, about Eleanor of Acquitaine, he writes: She "had a dark complexion, black eyes, black hair and was curvaceous with a superb figure that never ran to fat even in old age." For the following sentence about her inheritence, he cites several biographers, including Alison Weir.

One wonders if he read Weir, who states: "No one, however, left a description of Eleanor or even recorded the colour of her hair and eyes." (Eleanor of Aquitaine: A Life, Ballantine Books, 2001, p. 18)

If he gets the small details wrong, how can we trust the bigger picture? As reviewer Murrough O'Brien, who gives the book a mostly positive review, writes for THE INDEPENDENT (22 October 2006), "We've settled down now into the idea that Richard, for all his single-minded militarism, was basically OK, and that John, for all his talents, basically wasn't." That's the thesis in a nutshell ... for 500 pages.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Brothers at war, December 31, 2007

By 

Robert Fripp "RobertFripp.ca/" (Toronto, ON) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Richard and John: Kings at War (Hardcover)

I admire "Richard and John: Kings at War." But one suspects that a rush to meet its release date hurried the editing, creating a faustian bargain for this book.

"Richard and John: Kings at War" is encyclopedic. I have read this period widely, but still found a new treasure-trove of facts. And back-stairs whispers. Her contemporary chroniclers gave Eleanor of Aquitaine a bad press. Now, Frank McLynn's diligent research shows the rest of this weird family faring no better. He lets us into secrets, confiding foibles of perhaps the most dysfunctional imperial family since First Century Rome.

Readers will recognize sibling rivalry between brothers of unequal aptitute. To this, add faction-fights between parents playing favorites to influence their sons, while also fighting France, the Church and each other. Fans of the Asian board game "Go" -- objective: seize and control territory -- will understand the Angevins intuitively! Richard is the brother (or classmate) we envied: he captains the teams, gets the girls and is deemed most likely to win. John grits his teeth, struggles and slips into poor moral and practical judgments.

Those who strive to read "Richard and John: Kings at War" from end to end may struggle, too. It's that editing challenge I mentioned.

I dissent from McLynn's description of Eleanor of Aquitaine; and from Alison Weir's opinion, which he quotes, that Eleanor's likeness is unknown. The British set-designer Claude Marks had a deep knowledge of medieval Poitou and Aquitaine. Moving to New York, Marks lectured at the Metropolitan Museum, whose medieval busts of Henry and Eleanor he considered plausible likenesses. In "Pilgrims, Heretics, and Lovers" Marks also cites a contemporary source for Eleanor's eye color. (I confess bias: I commissioned a portrait modeled from that bust of Eleanor. Then a forensic artist working from the same bust projected Eleanor's features into old age for me.)

That aside, in summary, readers familiar with the general story who skim over rough passages will find "Richard and John" informative. Amusing and entertaining, too.

Robert Fripp, author,

"Power of a Woman. Memoirs of a turbulent life: Eleanor of Aquitaine"