John got worse and worse until at last his barons could not stand his actions any longer. So they made him prisoner and took him to a little island in the Thames River called Runnymede. Here they forced John to agree to certain things which they had written down in Latin. This was in the Year 1215; and 1215 was a bad date for John, but a good date for the English people. This list of things which the barons made John agree to was called by the Latin name for a great agreement, which is Magna Carta, or Charta.
John did not agree to Magna Carta willingly, however. He was as angry and furious as a spoiled child, who kicks and screams when forced to do something he does not want to do. But he had to agree, nevertheless.
John was unable to write his name, and so he could not sign the agreement as people sign contracts nowadays. But he wore a seal-ring which was used by people who could not sign their names, and this seal he pressed into a piece of hot wax which was dropped on the agreement where one would have signed.
John agreed in Magna Carta to give the barons some of the rights that we think every human being should have anyway, without an agreement. For instance, a person certainly has the right to keep the money that he earns, and he has the right not to have it taken away from him unlawfully. A person also has the right not to be put in prison or be punished by the king or any one else unless he has done something wrong and unless he has had a fair trial. These are two of the rights that John agreed to in Magna Carta. There were quite a number of others.
John didn’t keep his agreement, however. He broke it the very first time he had a good chance, as a person usually does when he is forced to agree to something against his will. But John died pretty soon; and so, as far as he was concerned, Magna Carta didn’t matter much. But kings who came after him were made to agree to the same things. So ever after 1215 the king in England was supposed to be the servant of the people, and not the people servants of the king as they had been before that time.
55
A Great Story-Teller
Far away from England,
Far off in the direction of the rising sun,