Answered by Ernest W. Adams on June 11th, 2016

In 1183 the son and heir of King Henry II of England died of dysentery. There was no strict rule of succession at that time, and it was up to Henry to choose a new successor from among his three remaining legitimate sons. (He had a lot of other illegitimate children too.) The trouble was, none of them loved him much, and besides, they had joined their older and now deceased brother in two different revolts against their father’s rule. The oldest of the three, Richard the Lionheart, was a brilliant soldier and probably gay. The middle one was a schemer whom nobody much liked, and the youngest was John, who turned out to be such a psychopath that no subsequent king in Britain has ever been named John from that day to this. Henry wanted John to be his heir, but his incredibly talented and wealthy queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine, wanted Richard. Eleanor had led the revolts against her husband, so Henry was keeping her locked in a castle, but let her out periodically to travel with him and help him run things.

Henry eventually chose Richard, but after he died and Richard was king, John tried to usurp the throne while Richard was away on crusade. Richard got captured; his mother (now freed) ransomed him; he resumed the throne, and was killed by a crossbow bolt in a siege. He died without any children, so John became king anyway and was so bad his barons revolted and forced him to sign the Magna Carta, which is the foundation of the freedoms we enjoy today.

History is about people.

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