| STORY SUMMARY
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| King John (Lackland) was a bad king. At least, that’s how history remembers him. He tried to steal the throne from his brother, Richard the Lion-Hearted, while that king was out of the country. And he was the devious royal of the Robin Hood legends.
Yet, King John gave his barons (and ultimately the world) the Magna Carta, one of the most respected legal documents ever written and a cornerstone of modern constitutions.
Who was King John? What was Britain like during 1215, the year John and his nobles met in a field called Runnymede (not far from today’s Windsor Castle)? Why did the king, who believed he had a divine right to rule, agree to grant his nobles anything?
In this story behind the “Great Charter,” step back in time to medieval England. Meet King John. See the field where he agreed to the Magna Carta. Learn his real motives. See one of the four surviving original documents.
Meet Innocent III, then pope, and learn how he reacted to such an unexpected event. Discover why the religious leader considered a British king to be his vassal. Examine the document, still considered to be Britain’s “statute number one,” to understand the civil rights it provides.
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