THE Charter remained on the statute books - Edward I reaffirmed it in 1297 - but it was not until the 1680s, when James II suspended Parliament, set his troops on his own people, and leant on Judge Jeffreys to pervert the courts, that English jurists began to see the Great Charter in a new light. Through John, they argued, all English Kings and their ministers had signed a contract binding them not to exploit the nation for their own convenience.

James fled in 1688, and under William and Mary a new ‘constitutional monarchy’ was established in which the power of the Crown, the executive branch of government, was strictly limited by law. William Penn was one of several English-born lawmakers of the time who took Magna Carta as a model for American colonies, and the American Constitution of 1788, as well as the Bill of Rights of 1791, borrow freely from the language of the Great Charter.

The Great Charter was not a dead letter now.