Know what yonder document is?
It’s the Magna Carta (Latin, "Great Charter").
The document is considered a landmark in the development of constitutional government.
Basically, a buncha barons twisted King John of England’s arm into ceding a buncha his authority.
It was signed today, June 15, in A.D. 1215 at Runnymede, which is not a kind of soft cheese, despite its name.
The document was immediately repudiated by him, plunging England into a civil war.
He died during the civil war (of dysentery–ouch!).
Pope Innocent III–who had bad relations with John–also didn’t cotton to the document.
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Author: Jimmy Akin
Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."
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Know what yonder document is?
He’s commonly known as “Bad King John” too. Notice that there hasn’t been another English king named John since.
He was also called “Softsword” — a dig at his lack of military prowess, as compared to that of his elder brother, Richard the Lion Heart. Also, he was later called “Lackland”, because during his reign, the English monarchy (the King was also Duke of Normandy since the time of William the Conqueror) lost much of its land holdings in France. As if that weren’t enough, John is also alleged to have his nephew Arthur put out of the way in order to solidify his own grip on the throne. His relations with the Church deteriorated to the point that Pope Innocent III placed England under Interdict for (I think) three years. Definitely not a nice guy!
Did I read somewhere that the then Abp. of Canterbury helped draft the Magna Carta and helped its enforcement on grubby King J.?
Actually, he was named “Lackland” from childhood. IIRC, the eldest prince (Henry) had Normandy, Richard had the Aquitaine, and Geoffrey had Brittany. John got a rock. He whined about his “Lackland” nickname and was given Ireland, which was bad luck for the Irish.
John did have his good moments. But considering he brought down the interdict on England, lost huge bits of the French lands, and did all that other stuff, the good administrative bits don’t tend to be remembered.