Hello everyone and welcome to the History of England Episode 51, The Fowler Presence.

This week's book recommendation, given that we are now launching the career of Bad King

John is King John by W. L. Warren. Warren was one of those historians who sought to

some degree to rehabilitate John. He doesn't try and whitewash it but he points out the

good stuff he did and the mitigations for some of the bad stuff. Anything you want to

know about John is in there without the book being over long.

So this week we have to explain why Richard found war to be something of a pain in the

neck and imagine that we're cooks from Shalu and kill Richard the Lionheart so that we can

spend more time with his family in the form of Brother John. There are a number of versions

of Richard's death and I did a very quick rough survey to see which one was the most popular

version. Everyone agrees that he died at a place called Shalu Shabal, Nilemouge in

Aquitaine and everyone agrees that the castle wasn't worth the rough end of a pineapple.

That people disagree why Richard should have been there in the first place.

The one that heads the list in my most unscientificive surveys is the one where a treasure trove

was discovered at the place and Richard was arrogantly determined to get his hands on it.

So he arrived at the fateful castle of Shalu because the local Lord had refused to hand

it all over and Richard was having none of it in that kind of high-handed nobless or bleesh

way that he was most certainly capable of. It's worth noting that there are plenty of

academic historians Warren, for example, who say exactly the same thing.

Well instead of that, here's the story that seems to make most sense to me. Mainly because

the two historians I've spent most of my time following, Jillingham and Frank Barlow

happily agree on it.

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