Posted on 04/06/2024 9:28:08 PM PDT by CheshireTheCat
On this date in 1196, William FitzOsbert was torn from church sanctuary and hanged for one of medieval London’s most famous rebellions.
The setting is an England of King Richard I, meaning an England with an absentee king levying heavy taxes on his putative home realm to bankroll his foreign adventures. In reviewing the period’s Pipe Rolls, Doris Stenton remarked that they “give the impression of a country taxed to the limit.” Certainly the laboring classes believed themselves squeezed past dry, for “more frequently than usual,” in the words of the contemporary chronicler Roger of Hoveden, “aids to no small amount were imposed upon them, and the rich men, sparing their own purses, wanted the poor to pay everything.”
Our man FitzOsbert (or Fitz Osbert) was an educated lawyer who had been on Crusade with the occulted king, a fellow distinguished in appearance by his facial hair — “Longbeard” was his nickname — and in his manner by an evident grant of charisma. A later historian judges him “sharp of wit and some deal lettered; a bold man of speech, and sad of his countenance, and took upon him greater deeds than he could wield.”...
(Excerpt) Read more at executedtoday.com ...
Maybe John was a better king than his brother. I can’t remember that far back.
bttt
John was as cruel as Richard and John had to tax the country into near oblivion to pay Richards debts, including a ransom to Henry VI (Kingdom of Naples emperor (1191-1197), Holy Roman Empire king (1169-1197), Germany). About the only difference between the two is that Richard was an excellent soldier and John was not.
Roger that.
I think John was not a terrible military commander, at least at the X’s and O’s of assembling, moving and deploying troops. His problem was his toxic personality. A nobleman would rebel, John would assemble an army, and bring him to heel, and then three of the noblemen who had just served in John’s army, enraged at his treatment of them, would rebel themselves, at the first opportunity.
Interesting...
Well, at least those days are gone.
/s
Well, John did lose all the French properties, but at least he was in England where Richard detested England. I’ve read that Richard was also toxic but was “pretty” and bought into his mothers “Courts of Love”. Johns toxic behavior gave them the Magna Carta, Richards just gave England a stack of debt.
How high were those heavy taxes?
I suspect we may have surpassed them in the US.
I don’t think the poor should pay for everything, but everyone should have skin in the game. It’s not right if 1/2 the population pays no taxes at all.
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