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In all the long centuries, that England has been a monarchy.
在漫长的几个世纪里，英国一直是君主制国家。
Some really terrible people have ended up wearing the crown.
一些非常可怕的人最终戴上了皇冠。
It makes sense any system as old as that is bound to produce a few lemons.
这是有道理的，任何像这样古老的君主制国家都必然会遇到一些困难。
Multiple kings have been deposed by their subjects.
多位国王已被他们的臣民废黜。
One Charles I was so hated that he had his head chopped off and the monarchy itself was abolished for over a decade.
有一位查理一世被人憎恨，他被砍下了头，君主制本身也被废除了十多年。
With so many bad examples to choose from, it's difficult to settle on just who was worst.
有这么多糟糕的例子可供选择，很难确定谁是最糟糕的。
But serious consideration must be given to the man that wore the crown of England at the beginning of the 13th century.
但认真考虑后，最糟糕的国王应该是13世纪初那个戴着英格兰王冠的人。
A man that presided over a large and prosperous empire and promptly ruined all of it in a truly spectacular fashion.
一个掌管着一个庞大而繁荣的帝国的人，很快就以一种真正壮观的方式毁掉了它。
King John was never supposed to have been king at all and his unsuitability for the position was quickly made apparent by,well, everything he did.
约翰王根本就不应该是国王，他的所作所为很快就证明了他不适合担任国王。
He had all the cruelty of his predecessors but none of their skill on the battlefield, little of their cunning and absolutely no inclination towards leadership of his subjects.
他拥有前任国王的残忍，却没有他们在战场上的技巧，没有他们的狡猾，也完全没有领导臣民的意愿。
He was the worst of all things, a character so cartoonishly villainous that he ended up serving a fictitious role as the natural foil of that most celebrated of English folk heroes Robin Hood.
他是最糟糕的，一个卡通般邪恶的角色，最终成为英国最著名的民间英雄罗宾汉的天然陪衬，扮演了一个虚构的角色。
He was so bad at ruling England that eventually his people rose up in revolt against him and he died in the midst of a bloody civil war that was entirely his own making.
他不擅长统治英格兰，最终他的人民起义反抗他，他死于一场完全是他自己造成的血腥内战中。
This is the true story of a man who almost single-handedly destroyed an entire kingdom, a man with so few redeeming qualities that even the relatively scarce positive steps taken during his reign were done in an attempt to bring him to heal.
这是一个真实的故事，一个人几乎一手摧毁了整个王国，一个人几乎没有什么可取之处，甚至在他统治期间采取的相对稀少的积极措施都是为了试图治愈他。
John was born on Christmas Eve, 1166, at the royal palace in Oxford.
约翰于1166年平安夜出生在牛津的皇宫。
His father King Henry II had ruled over England for a decade at that time and was in the process of building an empire that included not only England but most of Wales and Ireland and the entire western half of France.
他的父亲亨利二世当时统治了英格兰十年，正在建立一个不仅包括英格兰，还包括威尔士和爱尔兰大部分地区以及整个法国西半部的帝国。
Initially, no one really paid any attention to John since he had three older brothers, his chances of inheriting the English crown or indeed any significant land holdings were very slim.
起初，没有人真正注意到约翰，因为他有三个哥哥，他继承英国王冠或任何重要土地的机会非常渺茫。
As a boy John was seen as King Henry's favorite child, though even, he didn't think highly of his future prospects.
小时候，约翰被认为是亨利国王最喜欢的孩子，尽管亨利国王对他的未来前景并不看好。
He jokingly referred to his son as "John Lackland".
他开玩笑地称自己的儿子为“无地约翰”。
A bad thing to be known by in a society, where how much land you control directly correlated to how powerful and important you were.
在你控制多少土地直接关系到你的权力和重要性的社会，为人所知是件坏事。
The problem it seemed was that henry had too many sons.
问题似乎是亨利的儿子太多了。
The king had planned for his empire to be split up when he died to be divided by princes Harry, Richard and Jeffrey.
国王曾计划在他去世时分割帝国，由哈里王子、理查德王子和杰弗里王子分割。
This left nothing for John, giving any land to him would involve taking it away from one of his brothers something, none of them were willing to countenance.
没有给约翰留下任何土地，给他任何土地都意味着从他的一个兄弟那里夺走一些他们都不愿意支持的东西。
Indeed, the familial squabbles over the vast empire led to a number of armed conflicts between father and sons in the last two decades of Henry's reign.
事实上，在亨利统治的最后20年里，围绕这个庞大帝国的家族争吵导致了父亲和儿子之间的许多武装冲突。
It was after one of these conflicts that John's mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, was imprisoned by her husband, where she would remain until her death.
正是在一次这样的冲突之后，约翰的母亲，阿基坦的埃莉诺, 被她的丈夫监禁，在那里她将一直呆到去世。
John became much more important following the sudden deaths of first prince Henry in 1183 and then prince Geoffrey in 1186, leaving only John and Henry's second son Richard who was now the heir to the throne.
随着第一位亨利王子在1183年突然去世，然后杰弗里王子在1186年突然去世，约翰变得更加重要，只剩下约翰和亨利的次子理查德，理查德现在是王位继承人。
Henry used John to try and control Richard, seemingly threatening to make John his heir, instead of Richard, in order to get him to do what he wanted.
亨利利用约翰试图控制理查德，他似乎威胁要让约翰而不是理查德成为他的继承人，以便让他做他想做的事情。
Richard chafed at this and finally snapped in 1189, allying himself with the king of France Philip II against his father.
理查德对此感到恼火，最终在1189年与法国国王菲利普二世结盟，反对他的父亲。
Henry was ill by then a bleeding ulcer was slowly killing him and the broken old king was forced to capitulate.
亨利那时病了，一场出血的溃疡正在慢慢地夺去他的生命，这位虚弱的老国王被迫投降。
The final straw it seemed was finding out that his favorite son John had decided it was in his best interest to side with his brother in the conflict.
最后一根稻草似乎是发现他最喜欢的儿子约翰决定在冲突中站在他兄弟一边是对他最有利的。
In the middle ages, familial loyalty counted for little when power and wealth were on the line.
在中世纪，当权力和财富岌岌可危时，家族忠诚几乎没有什么意义。
But even by the standards of the day it was a stunning betrayal.
但即使按照当时的标准，这也是一次令人震惊的背叛。
Though, anyone that knew John personally wouldn't have been surprised extreme self-centeredness was already a well-established personality trait in the prince at the time.
任何了解约翰本人的人都不会感到惊讶，极端的自我中心在当时的王子身上已经是一种公认的人格特征。
