The Spectacular Downfall Of The Bad King John | Walking Through History | Absolute History

[Music] my walks take me to every corner of Britain as I seek out history embedded in the landscape in this country you're never very far from mysterious ruins or the shadow of unwelcome visitors so from romantic Moors to Majestic Peaks I'm really enjoying some serious walking each of my walks leads me through a different time and a stunning location to find the stories you can only really appreciate on foot this time I'm in Nottinghamshire walking right through Sherwood Forest and up into the peaks of Derbyshire I'm on the trail of an immensely unpopular King a

brutal medieval Tyrant sworn enemy of Robin Hood and the man forced to accept the Magna Carta or lose his kingdom got it the trail of [Music] today the Peak District National Park is famed among walkers 200 square miles of stunning Derbyshire Parkland open to all over the Border in Nottinghamshire the Peaks give way to the ancient Oaks of Sherwood Forest still famous for its folklore and Legend in the 13th century these two very different Landscapes were a playground for King John [Music] come his Central stronghold as the kingdom turned against him over four days and

70 miles my walk across this region will follow Jon's downfall starting at the medieval boundary to nottinghamshire's Forest I'll discover how his quest for cash made powerful enemies as I reach rufford Abbey on day two I enter the modern remnants of Sherwood and join the trail of Robin Hood that it's on to Derbyshire and up to bolsover Castle before hopping over the M1 to reach my bed for the night day three and I stopped by Chatsworth to dig out some stonking evidence of John's approach to kingship from there the march to Civil War leads me

to monsell head as John's Kingdom unravels my final push takes me to his Fortress at the center of the Peaks and the momentous turning point in our history there was Magna Carta thank you so who was John he was a plantagenet and born in 1167 as Henry II's Fifth and youngest son no one expected him to become king but one by one John's siblings died off edging him closer to the throne and in the year this Nottingham Pub claims to have served its first pint Henry II popped his clogs now just two sons were left

Prince John and Big Brother Richard the first or Richard the lionheart as we know him has always had this glowing reputation hasn't me fearless and brave when he was on the Crusades and Noble and just when he was back home so you've got him all heroic and John Allen asked him villainous but is that fair or is it just a cartoon version of History I couldn't come to this part of the country without stopping by Nottingham Castle [Music] building dates from the 17th century but the site is still famous as the favored hangout of John

and his notorious henchman the Sheriff of Nottingham John was good he was still just a prince together with the rich hunting counties of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire like most Royals at the time he'd spent his childhood in France but this was part of England where he could feel at home the next 20 years would be seismic John would get the throne and he'd be in charge not just of Nottinghamshire but the whole of England and a few years after that he would become so mistrusted that the country would rise up and demand that never again should

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award-winning podcast Network sign up now for a free trial and absolute history fans get 50 off their first three months just be sure to use the code absolute history at checkout to Mark the Magna carta's 800th anniversary it's this story of John's fall from grace that I'm going to explore on my walk [Music] I'm starting 25 miles north of Nottingham I've had a tip-off that one of John's first dastardly acts as king took place at the castle just a few miles from here and I want to find it my route takes me through a landscape

that looks nothing like our modern idea of a forest but a forest this once was like the rest of the Kingdom since the Norman Invasion Royal forests were owned by the monarch [Music] he then leased selected lands back to his most powerful subjects the barons this feudal system had worked for 130 years but just 16 years after John got to the throne the nation would be close to Civil War [Music] John I've arranged to meet medieval historian Graham seal [Music] I suppose the one thing we all know about King John is that he signed the

Magna Carta which I just happened to have a copy of very good I was hoping show me a good bit well the one that everyone knows is of course Clause 39 which says no Freeman shall be taken or imprisoned or deceased or that means have lands taken away without judgment legal judgment by his peers and some people see it as proto-trial by Jewelery but actually the real clause in here is Clause 61 which is that the Barons insist that if Jon misbehaves they will destroy his castles they will take his land he will become a

phantom of a king so the significance of this is that the Barons are actually constraining him more than that they are collapsing his authority [Music] John's missed ease must have been extraordinary to prompt this first organized attack on the absolute power of a king but was he really the monster history makes out the chronicle Source from later on in the 13th century famously says has foul as hell is it was made yet Fowler still by the presence of King John but you don't agree with the chroniclers do you you think that he was nicer than

they do I do because there's an alternative body of evidence which suggests that he was the administrative evidence the record evidence the charter evidence what does that say about him if you study that closely that suggests that he was energetic conscientious vigorous all of the things which the Chronicles allege that he wasn't it's hard to believe Graham it's very hard to believe [Music] judge for myself I'm continuing my search for John's first castle conquest and that means heading deeper into the Old Forest 800 years ago Royal forests covered four-fifths of Nottinghamshire and around half of

Derbyshire but they weren't just for the king and his mates to hunt in anyone living or working within their boundaries was taxed under a punishing system of forest laws the cash raised from these taxes was collected at the castle I'm trying to find somewhere near the little village of Laxton that is Laxton Church there is Laxton there's the mutton Bailey Castle that's the route I reckon I've been going on so unless I'm dark I think the modern Bailey should be see where those horses are with those trees Beyond oh and it's over there let's see

if I can go around the side oh that's classic absolutely classic got to be a castle look there's the mop there's the Bailey no mind then I'll probably dug it sometime in the last 20 years and forgotten all about it 800 years ago Laxton Castle dominated the landscape and acted as Financial control center for the whole of Sherwood Forest I've asked local historian David crook to share this lost Castle secrets so did this place actually belong to John No it didn't it was the property of a lady called Maude Deco a woman moored yes indeed

it was that usual in the medieval period no but she she had recently lost her husband and as a widow without an heir she fell to the king she was in the king's gift and John just took the the man away from her so now John gets direct administration of the forest yes he does John was always short of money and the forest was one of the best sources of income in the later part of his Reign John nicked the castle off poor Maude just three years into his reign he immediately handed it over to

a Lackey who ratcheted up the forest taxes the king and his men were ruthless but also highly organized and helpfully for us they wrote everything down it's an amazing set of Records it shows where the King was on any particular day for most of his reign isn't that fairly unusual to have the day-to-day life of a medieval Monarch in such detail it's completely new it starts in John's Reign so it's quite exciting for historians and archives very exciting and where's our Castle our Castle is there Lexington which is the other name for waxton and on

the 22nd of September and this year he was at Lexington at the beginning of the day and was at Nottingham later so he went all over the place continued on the move he didn't sit in the palace at Westminster [Music] King John traveled relentlessly averaging between 12 and 15 miles a day and he was always on the lookout for new areas he could squeeze for cash but why in the early years it wasn't just England John was ruling but also roughly two-thirds of modern France he'd inherited this vast overseas Empire from Richard the first along

with a whole load of problems Richard's Crusades had left the kingdom broke so right from the start John's armies were underfunded and outmanned by the French in 1204 disaster struck and John lost control of Normandy cutting him off from his remaining French land [Music] John has been beaten back here to England his reputation and his kingdom are in tatters from now on there's going to be one goal one Obsession that will dominate the rest of his Reign to win back Normandy but that means matching the military muscle of the French and that is going to

cost him money lots and lots of money following John's quest for cash leads me to rufford Abbey [Music] our popular public park but was originally built by cistercian monks whose great wealth unsurprisingly attracted the king's attention medieval historian Claire Taylor explains it's a very mixed relationship the beginning of the Reign John founded Julia B in Hampshire which was very prestigious they were very pleased with that but he'd done that really because they had they'd been upset about his forestry laws and they'd complained to him but then later on in the rain he finds the the

order itself a huge amount of money this Abbey in particular had to to find 300 marks John fined this Abbey around two and a half million pounds in today's money as penalty for refusing to support one of his military campaigns after the loss of Normandy no part of his kingdom was sacred he didn't stop with the cistercians he went right to the top he wasn't afraid to take on the Pope Pope Innocent III was not a pope that you messed with um he was he was one of the first popes that decided that he was

going to take on the secular world the Kings and the emperors in 1205 Pope and King clashed the Archbishop of Canterbury had just died and Pope Innocent wanted to put loyal follower Stephen Langton onto this powerful seat but John said he must go to his own Yes Man the bishop of Norwich they squabbled for three years before innocent bought out the big guns and issued an interdict against the English church es where the all of the the clergy in in the land of forbidden from saying math it means that nobody can get married we have

stories about people being put into coffins but they were hung from trees in church grounds so it's people trying to find a way of burying their relatives but the church won't let them do it but then that didn't do any good so he excommunicated John he excommunicated yes John was banished from the church meanwhile many of his subjects were so fearful of being damned To Hell For Eternity they were forced to Worship in secret the churches were shut the doors were barred the bells stopped ringing people were cut off from their religion at a time

when religion was Central to everything and at the same time John was failing diplomatically on an international scale and everyone was groaning under the weight of all the taxis and fines dark days I think so well today's Journey so far has given me plenty to think about as I ended at the little town of ollerton on the fringes of modern Sherwood Forest [Music] today I won't be able to see the wood for the trees as I head into what remains of Sherwood Forest once the heart of King John's stronghold Against the Wild North my route

takes me right through the forest to John's pleasure Palace at King's clipston [Music] then it's over the border to Derbyshire and a linchpin castle at balls over [Music] finally I hop over Chesterfield to end my day at the edge of the Chatsworth estate [Music] it's nice to see some trees I've actually been inside the borders of medieval Forest since I started this walk but this is the first time it's felt like forest or at least our modern idea of forest today 450 acres is a public Nature Reserve but Sherwood is a tiny fragment of what

it was in John's day when he came here frequently to hunt Stags and bore as I've discovered his Royal forests were also earning him money hunting farming or even collecting firewood all required the king's permission and it came at a price under Forest Law after losing Normandy Jon ramped up taxes across all his forests and he squeezed Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire much harder than lands further south I've joined a route John would certainly have traveled the great North Way was the Medieval Main Road linking London to York there was another medieval chap who came this way

or at least he made good use of other people who came this way he had a green uniform a pointy hat with a feather in it catchy themed tune I think you know who I'm talking about it's impossible to come to Sherwood Forest without Conjuring up images of Robin Hood uh could stick back when picking up a stick could get you fined it's not hard to see the appeal of an outlaw who championed the rights of the little people against a wicked King [Music] but did Robin of sure would actually exist well no the legendary

hero we think of today was shaped by centuries of popular ballads 200 years after John died the first ballad that we know of appeared which specifically locates Robin here in Sherwood it went Robin Hood in Sherwood stood hooded and hatted hosed and shored 4 and 30 arrows he bore in his hands that's the bloke isn't it but in hundreds of medieval ballads there's not one mention of King John it was actually 19th century novelist Walter Scott who made John into Robin's villainous foe Hollywood lapped up Scott's version and has regurgitated it ever since [Music] so

the mythical robin only sealed John's dastardly image in the last century there's another chap who didn't help either John's tax collector the Sheriff of Nottingham [Music] some of you may remember a children's show I wrote in which he stalks this very Forest [Music] [Applause] we're in the middle of a forest ridden with unseen danger anything could jump out on us mad axman werewolves lunatics idiots and skirts and Berets you think I'm friend of you the Sheriff of Nottingham is frightened of nobody morning it's Robin Hood the face expanded in England well come on I had

to keep the best part for myself didn't I but what I find really interesting is that the Sheriff of Nottingham did actually exist although from the year 1208 until after King John died the sheriff of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire as he was known would actually have spoken more like this because he was a Frenchman if he didn't understand what that accent was his name was Philip Mark he was a henchman of John's and this Forest would have been part of his patch the proof here he is in the Magna Carta named and shamed paragraph 50 we

will entirely remove from their bailiwicks the relations of Gerald athy angelard of sijoin blah blah blah and Philip Mark with his brothers and his nephew Jeffrey and the whole brood of the same in other words by the year 1215 Philip Mark was so unpopular that the Magna Carta specifically states that he and his family should be booted off their land there aren't many names singled out in the Magna Carta the sheriff obviously made some powerful enemies morning I'm all right 800 years ago Sherwood would have been much more open to allow for hunting and farming

but some of these trees would already have taken root today a small team of Foresters care for almost a thousand ancient Oaks the trees are known as veterans cool that's a gorgeous old treat isn't it it's we're just in the process of banding it we're trying to get it to move as one tree again it's a bit thin on top isn't it yeah that's what happens with veterans the first thing they do is they spend the first 300 years to grow and then they spend 300 years to live their life and then they spend their

last 300 years gracefully dying so this is retirement so in this case it's retiring yes do this to all your veteran oxide no it would be costly but also you don't want to go under Forest full of metal work so now we only do it to the most vulnerable ones but and we still look after them all that's fantastic so you've got a thousand old trees and each one has got its own care plan yes yes that's correct [Music] Sherwood's post boy is the major Oak with support from generations of Foresters it's holding up pretty

well considering it's at least eight centuries old [Music] amazing to think that when King John was hunting here this would have been a little Oak just tentatively stretching out its roots [Music] time to leave modern day Sherwood but I'm still well inside John's medieval Forest three miles south of the major Oak lies the village of kings clipston and a window into the king's private life compared to many medieval monarchs John was almost straight laced we only know of seven illegitimate Offspring and all of them were born before John got hitched to French heires Isabella by

most accounts she and John got on quite well who knows maybe he had a softer side John May well have brought Isabella to his Palace at King's clipston deep inside old Sherwood this was one of his most private and most lavish retreats we have lists from the historic documents of chapels accommodation Chambers great Halls we're probably walking through what was the Garden area that's our current belief but why did you bother to invest in this place when he got a whole castle at Laxton just down the road ah well Luxton Castle was for the dull

Administration and paperwork and stamping this is a different thing altogether this is a royal pleasure Gardens a royal Retreat House that could be used for hunting entertaining dignitaries and Romancing I love the fact that we're looking at three walls of a place that John built to have a good time so John knew how to party in contrast to the popular image of him as a frail Weasley man he had a healthy appetite and in middle age a waistline to match [Music] this place saw bad times as well as good in 1212 a royal hunting holiday

ended in disaster to explain and is taking me to the old entrance to the Palace 30 minutes walk to the Northwest I've brought you here because I want to show you this tree this is a very famous tree in Shore forest and it's known as the parliament Oak why well in 1212 We Believe John was hunting through Sherwood Forest when he heard news of a rebellion in Wales and he summoned Barons here under this tree to hold Parliament we can't be certain John held a parliament at this exact spot but he certainly was in this

region when he learned of the Welsh uprising and that was a significant moment in Israel yes we think it was a pivotal moment in his Reign from the point of that Rebellion things start to go downhill for King John [Music] had angered some Welsh Lords when he seized their lands and took their heirs hostage he crushed the Rebellion quickly but even by the standards of the day his next move was brutal John ordered 28 of the Welsh hostages to be hanged from the walls of Nottingham Castle some were as young as 12. I'd been wondering

whether the Robin Hood Legend had helped to give John an unfair reputation but here he is in the year 1212 facing a real Rebellion after years of simmering resentment and what's his solution kills a bunch of kids [Music] I'm finally leaving medieval Sherwood as I cross over the border into Derbyshire and up to the mighty castle at bolsover [Music] Hillside was fortified even before the Normans although the semi-ruined and rather romantic pile here today dates from the 17th century after hanging the hostages John faced mounting discontent and not just from the Welsh powerful Barons north

of here had always been a law unto themselves and now some of them were becoming openly hostile to the king once there'd been an actual Uprising against him in Wales John realized that there was the possibility that something similar might occur elsewhere in his kingdom but he calculated that if it came to a direct confrontation with the rebellious Barons in the north this was one of the key places where he'd be able to hold the line John shored up his defenses and a total of 10 of his castles including this one he was bracing for

trouble from north and west [Music] to follow the march to Magna Carta I need to head closer to enemy territory but someone's gone and put the M1 in my way so I'm leapfrogging over it tomorrow I'll pick up King John's Trail in the fabled walking country of the Peak District day three and I'm walking right across King John's Front Line against an increasingly rebellious North [Music] the castle yesterday afternoon I discovered that King John had been spooked into Shoring up his defenses all over this region and by the year 1212 in small parts of the

country at least this rumbling discontent and escalated into violent uprising my route takes me over the Moors to Chatsworth and some first-hand evidence from John's reign [Music] then I joined the stunning monsell Trail as I head into the heart of the Peak District National Park after almost two days spent crossing the medieval Forest of Nottinghamshire in just a few miles I'll reach another The Forest of the peak covered around 200 square miles it rivaled Sherwood in size and in the amount of tax John could squeeze from it he inherited his Forest laws from the Normans

whose feudal system was all about controlling the population but more than any Monarch before cash-strapped John turned his kingdom into a business while I was reading up in preparation for this walk something really rather exciting cropped up it seems that Chatsworth are in possession of some original archive material in other words Prime resources that go back right to the time of King John and give us a really Vivid picture of what was going on around here my route from the East brings me the Walkers back way to the great house in John's Reign records show

a medieval Hamlet here also called Chatsworth and perched on the fringes of his Forest of the peak [Music] it was more than 500 years before the Dukes of Devonshire began taming the valley into the world famous Parkland Gardens and spectacular water features we know today but what I've come to see isn't on the guided tour I've arranged for Magna Carta expert Dr Sophie Ambler to join me down in the bowels of the building oh there's two of them there's two of them these beautiful Charters were legal documents issued by John himself when he held court

near here over 800 years ago first thing that strikes me about these is that they're incredibly good Nick We Begin here with King John's title now this is it's quite a long title as title is gay John by the grace of God King of England Lord of Ireland count of warns you know that we have granted and in this Charter confirmed to William fitzwalkerlin and his heirs that the manner of stainsby may be free of Forest Law so is it actually like a deal between the king and a particular subject that the subject pays money

and King John gives him something in return Yes William fitzwalkin offered 60 marks for the confirmation of three Charters that's about that's 40 pounds which to somebody like William fitzwalkland was quite a lot of money what does he get out of this deal what that means is that William is free to cultivate his lands and develop his Estates as he sees fit so under Forest Law you couldn't cut down trees you couldn't hunt you couldn't fish without getting permission from the King this is deregulation isn't it this is a businessman suddenly being Unshackled and being

able to make money out of the forest yes it's life-changing it's an investment because this is not just a grant for him but also for his heirs and from John's point of view it's good business it's very good business for King John he confirmed hundreds and hundreds of Charters all of those tidy little sums add up to quite a lot and that's a lot of money in the coffers by deregulating chunks of his forests in return for cash John was selling off the family silver [Music] 12 years he quadrupled the total Royal Revenue to 83

000 pounds a year which is over 100 million in today's money no mean feat even for a mean King [Music] just west of Chatsworth the old town of Bakewell sits on the boundary of John's Great Derbyshire money spinner The Forest of the peak like the rest of the region bakewell's got John's sticky fingerprints all over it done deal he even handed over the ancient Town Church of All Saints to an ambitious Bishop hunting forests castles churches everything had a price [Music] heading west out of Bakewell the monsell trail runs along eight and a half miles

of the old Midland Railway in the last 20 years it's become a main walking route Into the Heart of the Peak District National Park [Music] on my walk it's been easy to see how John made enemies after the loss of Normandy he was ruthless in his taxes and he could certainly be cruel but he was a medieval King tyranny is in the job description so just what tipped England from simmering resentment into rising up and producing the Magna Carta I'm hoping medieval historian Lauren Johnson can help me join the dots I think the trouble with

John's Reign is you have a situation that's been bubbling away for a really long time this sense of the king interfering in people's lives the fact particularly the Barons lives but all kings were doing that weren't they yeah you're absolutely right but the difference with the previous Kings is that they have this Continental set of lands that they can pop over to and use to Source funds from and spend time in whereas John after the loss of Normandy is in England all the time so he's constantly on their doorstep pressing them for money what about

the hanging of the Welsh hostages that kind of helped no I don't think it did the trouble is that just as the Welsh Rebellion is really getting going you have this situation where King John finally discovers a plot that might have been going on for a while the Barons not only want to actually move him aside and take power for themselves they actually want to have him killed so three years before Magna Carta was on the table there was a plot to murder the king the ringleaders were powerful Northern Barons who hadn't forgiven him for

the loss of their own French Estates when he had lost Normandy not to mention all the taxes so John's in the right old pickle is there any way out for him well one option of course is to go and actually try and crush the men in the north but that is a real dangerous situation for him to be getting into the much more obvious solution what he has been building towards for the past 10 years is to go back and try and retake Normandy which also sounds pretty dangerous it is pretty dangerous but at least

it's dangerous outside his own kingdom yeah and he demands soldiers from the people of England all of the Barons and again the north men say no we are not sending You Soldiers we're not sending you money we're not going to help this isn't our fight so he goes to Normandy unfortunately somewhat on demand he has some successes during his time there but when it gets to the Battle of bouvine where the king of France absolutely trounces all of the opposition that's the most decisive battle probably of the entire Middle Ages after the battle of bouvine

it's not a case really of whether there's going to be an English Rebellion it's just a case of when it's going to happen [Music] John's catastrophic trouncing by Philip of France at bovine was the last straw for his seething barons it's a bit of an Emperor's New Clothes moment really isn't it John's been squeezing money out of everybody left right and Center on the promise that one day he'll get Normandy back but when the moment comes he can't deliver and with France off the agenda he's now got a new problem he could lose this country

as well [Music] the final day of my walk and it's the big one as I follow the slide to Civil War that produced the most famous document in English History the Magna Carta from monster head I follow the Limestone Way Northwest through John's Old Forest at the peak to reach peveral Castle then on a final push towards Kinder Scout I'll look for the Legacy his Reign has left us today [Music] following Jon's defeat in France in 1214 war with the Barons looked inevitable drastic action was needed John went cap in hand to the pope ending

his five-year excommunication and securing a powerful Ally unfortunately it was too little too late when violence erupted it wasn't in the North or even Wales it was in London in a shock move on the 17th of May 1215 Rebel Baron seized the tower pulling the might of John's Capital City from under him his kingdom was shrinking fast where can John feel safe it was said anyone who held peveral castle and its sister Fortress at bolsover held the whole region peverell was built in 1176 by John's dad Henry II much high on a Limestone Ridge turns

almost sheer Ravines to incredible defensive advantage I wouldn't want to be the one attacking this place in the days before Canon imagine trying to Lug a Siege engine up here or even just walk up in a suit of armor oh you have a Connery by the time he got to here oh John had loyal retainers installed right through his Midland stronghold all the way from Laxton to this Castle [Music] but even if his men could hold this Central core of the country it wouldn't be enough to save his throne John had already lost too much

support elsewhere the only thing for it was to meet the Barons and negotiate terms in June 1215 John traveled to Runnymede in Surrey John just pushed it too far he demanded too many taxes and by 12 15 the lid blew off I've asked medieval historian Richard eels to help me make sense of this momentous turning point in English History he'd lost control of just too much of the ruling class they've realized that royal power was so strong that they had to band together they had to go to the center of government to where John was

and force him to accept concessions at the national scale so that's what gives us Magna Carta [Music] June John put his seal to a charter limiting his own royal power [Music] 800 years later Magna Carta has been woven into our nation's DNA but on the field at Runnymede it was a peace treaty hurriedly thrown together by deputations from both sides it's got some things in it which look to us like great statements of principles no free man should be imprisoned or ruined without trial by his peers and that's great stuff but then there's also another

lot of Clauses that are really just about immediate tactics in 1215 that we're going to Chuck out of the country a number of particular you know friends of John that we don't like all foreign soldiers and crossbowmen have to be thrown out so it's a ragbag document did John ever have any intention of sticking to it probably not I mean the historical evidence won't tell us what's going on in people's minds but we do know that pretty quickly he started asking the pope to release him from his promise his oath to keep to the turns

of the charter it was meant to produce peace but actually It produced a slide to Civil War the extremists on both sides took over it's not just John on the baron side on the rebel side there are quite a lot of people who really hate John and they don't really want to make a deal with them they want to depose him or kill him what we're getting as with so many Civil Wars and disputes you know going on now is a slide to extremism so in 1215 Magna Carta failed as a peace treaty and was

thrown aside now the Barons War began John furiously rallied his supporters but even this region was no longer safe Mighty Balls over Castle came under siege not from the rebels but from the king's own allies who were now squabbling over The Spoils of his crumbling Authority down in London the Barons threw open the gates to Prince Louis of France giving the rebel factions a figurehead to Rally behind the final leg of my walk towards Kinder Scout is also the most dramatic [Music] the great Ridge of Rush of edge gives Walkers what must be some of

the best views in the country in the months after Runnymede John was far from defeated he powered around the country stamping on insurrection but then 1216 brought disaster if one famous account is to be believed the King was traveling to Norfolk when he started feeling ill oh sorry guys he turned around but sent his baggage train onto the causeway to cross the great Estuary of the wash trouble was they'd not checked their tide timetable carriages sunk into the mud and the tide swept the Convoy away in that accident he lost something really ominous his crown

jewels which had been in one of the carriages and he never recovered from his illness on the 19th of October in the year 1216 in the middle of the Civil War he died in Newark back in Nottinghamshire on the outskirts of Sherwood he was suffering from dysentery and rumor had it that he'd gorged on a surface of peaches and knowing the Royal appetite could have been true [Music] as I passed through the beautiful edale Valley I've followed John's rise and fall across almost 70 miles and 17 long years there's a lot of really obviously bad

stuff isn't there he's ruthless and cruel and does a lot of things which today we would consider barbaric but this is the 13th century for goodness sake if you're a feudal King that kind of behavior goes with the territory John was a failure as a king but he wasn't some kind of cartoon villain Magna Carta railed against absolute power but that problem had been around since 1066 John's blundering just made it a whole lot worse the great Charter only became ingrained in our history thanks to compromises made after Jon's death the advisors to his Heir

his nine-year-old son Henry negotiated peace and a new and improved version of the charter was issued the Barons wore melted away over the centuries Magna Carta has been cited as the Cornerstone of everything from Land rights to trial by jury what started in the year 1215 bit by bit has become our modern democracy and now our common rights stretched to all corners of Our Lives including walking of course [Music] I'm finishing my journey with a modern story that invokes the spirit of Magna Carta and took place here at the center of John's Forest of the

peak joining me is journalist and fellow Walker Rowley Smith this is Kenda Scout up ahead of us and this is where in 1932 the famous Mass trespass took place it was a move by a group of young Manchester walkers to overcome the fact that they could see these fantastic Moors from their homes from their factories but they couldn't walk on them and they decided that if there was enough of them they could do something about this so they organized this Mass trespass and as a result of which six were arrested merely for walking on the

Moors thanks to the trespassers Defiance of private landowners here on Kinder Scout all this land is now open to walkers in fact their action kick-started the right to Rome movement across the whole country oh that's quite a climb yeah it was worth it wasn't it oh yeah what have you it's a privilege to be up here really so is the fight one no Scotland has got de facto access to all of its Countryside we want the Scottish model here so as far as I'm concerned the fight goes on so what started back in the 13th

century with a struggle against oppressive Forest laws and ended with Magna Carta actually is still going on into the 21st century absolutely right I think we should set a good example don't you I think we're coming around and get on let's go [Music]