Norway, c.920–c.961
Haakon was a Christian, and on becoming king he attempted to introduce the religion to his subjects, going so far as to invite missionaries from England to his country. But as soon as he gauged the response of his subjects to the idea (they hated it) he promptly embraced his pagan religion of old.
Chroniclers deemed Haakon to be ‘good’ not by dint of his faith but because of two other factors. First, he was a good administrator, eager for peace and order and energetic in his reform of the military and judicial system. Second, he was a good soldier. One contemporary poet records how, in the middle of a battle against the Danish, Haakon ‘threw off his war-gear [and]… joked with his men’. Perhaps due to his skimpy battledress, Haakon was mortally wounded while attempting to drive back a third Danish invasion in 960. He was given a lavish pagan funeral.
Hywel the Good
Hywel, king of Wales, c.882–950
Hywel, the only Welsh king to be named ‘Dda’ or ‘Good’, occupied a period in Welsh history remarkable for its stability and harmony. His secret seems to have been his diplomatic good sense in recognizing and respecting the culture and principles of organization of his English neighbours. The first recorded act of his reign, for instance, is a visit to Edward the ELDER to pay him homage. This, however, may be a decidedly English appraisal of Hywel’s reign. In Welsh history he is renowned as a great national lawmaker.
John the Good
John II, king of France, 1319–64
John the Good was bad through and through, with the fifteenth-century chronicler Pierre Cochon describing him as ‘the worst and cruellest king who ever lived’. Why his contemporaries called this son of Philip the LUCKY ( see GALLIC PRACTICE ) ‘the Good’ is a matter for conjecture. Perhaps it was because of his devotion to the chivalric code – he founded the Order of the Star, a decidedly second-rate rival to the Order of the Garter. Or perhaps it was due to his alleged generosity to the poor – once, we are told, he gave a purse of money to a milkmaid whose pails were knocked over by his greyhounds.
These acts, however, cannot mask a reign of aggression and duplicity. At the outset of his reign, for instance, John alienated his entire nobility by executing the charming and much-loved Constable of France, the Comte d’Eu. He then turned his attention abroad to his two bitter enemies, Edward the BANKRUPT of England and ‘Charles the Bad’ of Navarre, and spent the following years making and breaking truces with both.
Roundly thrashed by Edward the BLACK PRINCE at the battle of Poitiers, John was imprisoned in England, where he remained for some time because he was unable to raise his ransom money. Finally hostages were accepted in his place but when one of them (John’s own son Louis) escaped, John did what he must have considered the chivalrous thing, and returned to England and voluntary captivity. Behind bars once more, he quickly fell ill of an ‘unknown malady’ and died.
Magnus the Good
Magnus I, king of Norway and Denmark, 1024–47
Back in eleventh-century Scandinavia, goodness meant military courage, and Magnus’s goodness was amply demonstrated by his fearless exploits when fighting the Wends in southern Jutland. According to legend, the night before a major battle in which Magnus’s forces were considerably outnumbered, the king dreamt he saw his father, ‘Olaf the Saint’, who assured him of victory. Fortified by his vision, the next morning Magnus doffed his mail shirt and strode into battle wearing nothing above the waist except a red silk shirt. According to Adam of Bremen, 15,000 Wendish corpses littered the battlefield that day. Soon thereafter Magnus died of disease at the tender age of twenty-three, leaving the sort of reputation that poets and saga writers loved to eulogize.
Philip the Good
Philip III, duke of Burgundy, 1396–1467
Philip enjoyed the good life. His official
Haakon was a Christian, and on becoming king he attempted to introduce the religion to his subjects, going so far as to invite missionaries from England to his country. But as soon as he gauged the response of his subjects to the idea (they hated it) he promptly embraced his pagan religion of old.
Chroniclers deemed Haakon to be ‘good’ not by dint of his faith but because of two other factors. First, he was a good administrator, eager for peace and order and energetic in his reform of the military and judicial system. Second, he was a good soldier. One contemporary poet records how, in the middle of a battle against the Danish, Haakon ‘threw off his war-gear [and]… joked with his men’. Perhaps due to his skimpy battledress, Haakon was mortally wounded while attempting to drive back a third Danish invasion in 960. He was given a lavish pagan funeral.
Hywel the Good
Hywel, king of Wales, c.882–950
Hywel, the only Welsh king to be named ‘Dda’ or ‘Good’, occupied a period in Welsh history remarkable for its stability and harmony. His secret seems to have been his diplomatic good sense in recognizing and respecting the culture and principles of organization of his English neighbours. The first recorded act of his reign, for instance, is a visit to Edward the ELDER to pay him homage. This, however, may be a decidedly English appraisal of Hywel’s reign. In Welsh history he is renowned as a great national lawmaker.
John the Good
John II, king of France, 1319–64
John the Good was bad through and through, with the fifteenth-century chronicler Pierre Cochon describing him as ‘the worst and cruellest king who ever lived’. Why his contemporaries called this son of Philip the LUCKY ( see GALLIC PRACTICE ) ‘the Good’ is a matter for conjecture. Perhaps it was because of his devotion to the chivalric code – he founded the Order of the Star, a decidedly second-rate rival to the Order of the Garter. Or perhaps it was due to his alleged generosity to the poor – once, we are told, he gave a purse of money to a milkmaid whose pails were knocked over by his greyhounds.
These acts, however, cannot mask a reign of aggression and duplicity. At the outset of his reign, for instance, John alienated his entire nobility by executing the charming and much-loved Constable of France, the Comte d’Eu. He then turned his attention abroad to his two bitter enemies, Edward the BANKRUPT of England and ‘Charles the Bad’ of Navarre, and spent the following years making and breaking truces with both.
Roundly thrashed by Edward the BLACK PRINCE at the battle of Poitiers, John was imprisoned in England, where he remained for some time because he was unable to raise his ransom money. Finally hostages were accepted in his place but when one of them (John’s own son Louis) escaped, John did what he must have considered the chivalrous thing, and returned to England and voluntary captivity. Behind bars once more, he quickly fell ill of an ‘unknown malady’ and died.
Magnus the Good
Magnus I, king of Norway and Denmark, 1024–47
Back in eleventh-century Scandinavia, goodness meant military courage, and Magnus’s goodness was amply demonstrated by his fearless exploits when fighting the Wends in southern Jutland. According to legend, the night before a major battle in which Magnus’s forces were considerably outnumbered, the king dreamt he saw his father, ‘Olaf the Saint’, who assured him of victory. Fortified by his vision, the next morning Magnus doffed his mail shirt and strode into battle wearing nothing above the waist except a red silk shirt. According to Adam of Bremen, 15,000 Wendish corpses littered the battlefield that day. Soon thereafter Magnus died of disease at the tender age of twenty-three, leaving the sort of reputation that poets and saga writers loved to eulogize.
Philip the Good
Philip III, duke of Burgundy, 1396–1467
Philip enjoyed the good life. His official
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