KIng John – Ingliando

On this day, at Runnymede, near Windsor, King John of England sealed what would later be known as the Magna Carta, an agreement drafted by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Cardinal Stephen Langton, to make peace between the unpopular king and a group of rebel barons. The royal charter promised the protection of church rights, protection for the barons from illegal imprisonment, access to swift and impartial justice, and limitations on feudal payments to the Crown, to be implemented through a council of 25 barons. Although it was only really concerned with the medieval relationship between the monarch and the barons, and not ordinary subjects, the Magna Carta still forms an important symbol of liberty today and is held in great respect by the British and American legal communities. In 1956, Lord Denning described it as “the greatest constitutional document of all times – the foundation of the freedom of the individual against the arbitrary authority of the despot.“