Maybe going back and studying his extended family, especially his parents (Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine) would help? But I don't really think he had friends -- cronies, maybe -- but not friends.
As for de Braose, (iirc) John had a falling out with him and imprisoned the man's wife and one of his sons until they died. (He also imprisoned some of the man's grandsons but they lived.
This is why I love reading this group! It doesn't matter how obscure the question, there's always someone who's studied the subject, and is willing to share.
I’ve always suspected that the deepest attachments of medieval royalty were actually to people of such low rank that their names are rarely known to history. You might rarely have spoken to your parents or your siblings (even supposing you lived in the same household as them, which was by no means a given); but your nanny, and the groom who put you on your first pony aged three, were reliable constants in your life.
But these people were by definition always inferior to oneself in rank, totally reliant on one’s favour and obliged to obey. (About the only realistically medieval thing in Ridley Scott’s film Robin Hood was John’s affection for his fictional foster-brother. Movie-John has a huge emotional and practical reliance on Godfrey but takes for granted that he can kick him around, and that their relationship is and should be all about him and not Godfrey
( ... )
yeah, like white slave-owners' children being brought up by slaves in the pre-war South USA. Lots of hang-ups. Splitting, transference, projection; hatred, aggression, deep fear of the (secretly intimate) Other.
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As for de Braose, (iirc) John had a falling out with him and imprisoned the man's wife and one of his sons until they died. (He also imprisoned some of the man's grandsons but they lived.
Hope this helps some.
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But these people were by definition always inferior to oneself in rank, totally reliant on one’s favour and obliged to obey. (About the only realistically medieval thing in Ridley Scott’s film Robin Hood was John’s affection for his fictional foster-brother. Movie-John has a huge emotional and practical reliance on Godfrey but takes for granted that he can kick him around, and that their relationship is and should be all about him and not Godfrey ( ... )
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