My thanks as usual to all the experts who have taken the time to respond to my inquiries: Adrian Ailes, Nick Barratt, Paul Brand, David Carpenter, David Crouch, Rick Heiser, John Maddicott, David Morrison, Nigel Saul, Brendan Smith, Matthew Strickland, Paul Webster and Louise Wilkinson. I would especially like to acknowledge the kindness of Harriet Webster and her publisher at Boydell, Richard Barber, for allowing me to make use of her translations of Ralph of Coggeshall’s chronicle and the Dunstable Annals ahead of publication. Thanks also to Nick Vincent for sending me transcripts of John’s charters that have been collected and edited as part of the Angevin Acta project, and to Colin Veach for letting me have an advance copy of his excellent article on William de Briouze. I’ve enjoyed discussing King John on many occasions with Sophie Ambler, who lent me books and articles that would otherwise have been hard to obtain, and kept me informed of all the exciting research being carried out by the rest of the team at the Magna Carta Project. Once again I am enormously grateful to John Gillingham for reading the whole book in draft and informing me of its errors. Any that remain are all my own fault. At LAW I am indebted as ever to my agent, Julian Alexander, and his assistant, Ben Clark. The team at Hutchinson – Sarah Rigby, Jocasta Hamilton, Stephanie Sweeney, Laura Deacon, and Najma Finlay – have been supportive and enthusiastic about this book from the first, and ensured that it was ready in time for the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta. My thanks to David Milner for his skilful copy-editing, Mary Chamberlain for her careful proof-reading, Jeff Edwards for drawing the maps and family tree, Charlotte Lippmann for her picture research and Alex Bell for compiling the index. Lastly, thanks and love to Cie, Peter and William for their support and patience, especially during the final months of writing. I look forward to spending more time with them now it is all done.