King John ruled England from 1199 to 1216, and the film lays out the case against him: he murders his nephew Arthur of Brittany to secure the throne, squanders soldiers' wages on excess while campaigns in France collapse, and starves prisoners to death, including hostages taken from rival noble families. Accounts of sexual violence against the wives and daughters of his own barons follow him through the centuries as historians revisit the record. The film sets these charges against the testimony of chroniclers and modern historians like Jim Bradbury, who credits John as a hard-working administrator and capable general, and Ralph Turner, who catalogs the pettiness and cruelty that made him easy to hate. It traces how that reputation hardened into the Robin Hood legend's villain and how the barons' rebellion against his misrule forced him to seal the Magna Carta in 1215, a document that first put legal limits on a king's power. The film weighs villain against administrator without settling on one.