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The successor of the famous King Richard the Lionheart, Juan Sin Tierra, was detested by the English barons whom he had forced to pay many fines and taxes. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Langton, showed the barons an old letter in which the king, Henry I (who was French) promised to observe the customs of the English. The English barons then decided to also draft a letter in which the rights of the English were recorded and which obliged the king to swear to respect it from now on. The barons swore that if he refused, they would wage war on him until he gave in (1214).
Since then the English have called Magna Carta "the foundation of English liberties." It did not prevent the king from ruling badly; but it determined in writing, in an indisputable manner, the customs that the king and his advisors had the duty to observe. The king himself no longer had the right to act according to his whim. As the English said, "he was subject to the law", that is, obliged to respect it.
