Stephen Church - Author Talk and Signing
Stephen Church will be talking about his new biography of King John
Friday 17th April
7.00 pm
The Collection, Auditorium
£4
No English king has suffered a worse press down the ages than King John: Bad King John, the Sheriff of Nottingham and Robin Hood, Magna Carta - how does one disentangle the legend from the truth?
John was the youngest of the five sons of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, the great empire-builders of the Angevin dynasty. A fiercely competitive and dysfunctional family, it had turned in upon itself even before Henry II's death in 1189. John had small hope of securing any family inheritance until the deaths of two of his older brothers and the disappearance on crusade of Richard the Lionheart. But on Richard's death in 1199, John took possession of the vast - and vastly wealthy - Angevin lands in England and on the Continent. But by his death in 1215, he had squandered his inheritance, his treasury was empty and even his English kingdom had come close to ruin. In King John: The Making of a Tyrant, Stephen Church vividly recounts exactly how John contrived to lose almost all that he had inherited. But John's reign is also the story of Magna Carta, which, eight hundred years later, is still one of the crucial elements of Britain's constitutional monarchy and, indeed, of Western democracy.
Thousands of court documents containing the king's instructions and wishes survive, alongside contemporary and near contemporary chronicles, as well as other previously unpublished documents. Stephen Church can thus tell John's story - from boyhood in the abbey at Fontevraud, through the various succession crises of his early adulthood, to accession, rebellion and civil war, to Magna Carta and death - with more detail than ever before. Authoritative, vivid and compellingly readable, this is history at its visceral best.
About the Author
Stephen Church is professor of medieval history at the University of East Anglia, and widely acclaimed as an expert on twelfth-century kingship, especially the reign of King John. He is a member of the council of the Society of Antiquaries and is actively involved in the national commemoration of the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta in 2015. He lives in Norwich.
Tickets available from Lindum Books in Bailgate and The Collection reception desk.
If you can not attend Lindum Books can arrange dedicated copies for you. For more information contact Lindum Books on 01522 262374 or email info@lindumbooks.co.uk or The Collection on 01522 782040