King John sealed Magna Carta at Runnymede

On 15 June 1215, in a meadow called Runnymede between Windsor and Staines, King John of England affixed his seal to Magna Carta, the “Great Charter.” He did so under duress: roughly 40 rebel barons, fed up with crushing taxes and arbitrary justice, had taken up arms, and the charter was the price of avoiding civil war.

Drafted with help from Archbishop Stephen Langton, the document promised protection of church rights, limits on feudal payments, and — most enduringly — that no free man could be imprisoned or stripped of property “except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.”

Justice, it declared, would be sold to no one, denied to no one, and delayed for no one.

The peace it bought collapsed within weeks, and the pope annulled it. Yet reissued versions survived, and its language echoes through later constitutions. A charter sealed to end one squabble became a foundation of the rule of law.