Throughout the history there have been great leaders. Men and women remembered and admired
for their strength, courage and wisdom. And then here was this guy. King John ruled England
between 1199 and 1216. But he wasn't known as a good king.
What?
In fact King John the Bad is what people still call him.
They don't call me that! They don't call me that?
Oh, Nooo sire.
For the most part John's remembered as being well, not that nice. He was known as cruel
and spiteful and jealous and vain but that was okay because he was never really supposed
to have any power. John was the youngest son of a big royal family but his older brothers
kept dying. One of them, Richard, managed to rule for a good ten years. They called
him King Richard Lionheart and he was loved and respected by his people. But then he died
and as the only brother left, John took the throne. Early in his reign John managed to
lose a lot of his empire in northern France and he spent the next decade fighting expensive
wars to try to win it back again. To pay for that he taxed his Barons, the rich people who were
in charge of his lands.
Is that all there is? Yes Sire.
It's not going to be enough, is it? No sire.
Well, we're going have to raise the taxes again. Are you sure that's a good idea?
Yeah, why? Well, you've already raised them eleven times.
The Barons are revolting. I know they're revolting! That Robert Fitzwalter,
he smells like horse dung! No, they're ready to revolt.
They're unhappy with you sire! Why would they be unhappy?
Well, you are taking their money and their property.
Ahh, Sir William. Have you come to give me more money for the war?
Well um. No. Well that's okay. I'll take your land and
your castle and your land. You can't do that!
Ha Ha! I can do what I like, I'm the king. Guards! Arrest him.
Ah, I love being king!
By 1215 the Barons had had enough.
I've had enough of this. This is getting ridiculous.
He took my castle.
and he stole my abbey.. but then he sold it back to me! We need to do something!
We'll form and army, take over London and force him to listen to us!
[ALL] Yeah!!
And that's what they did. On the 15th of June they met at a place called Runnymede to negotiate.
The Barons made the king agree to a bunch of promises, like not raising taxes without
the consent of barons, respecting the rights of the church and not punishing people, imprisoning
them or taking their property without a trial by jury.
The rules were written down in a document which later became known as the Magna Carta.
Of course, King John being King John broke most of those promises and a civil war broke out.
But later kings would re-issue the Magna Carta and it eventually became British law.
To many it represented something really important: That kings weren't all powerful and that their
subjects had rights that had to be respected. The Magna Carta helped to inspire Thomas Jefferson
when he wrote the American Declaration of independence. And after World War Two some
of its principles made their way into the UN's Universal Declaration of Human rights.
Eleanor Roosevelt: "This universal declaration of human rights may well become
the international Magna Carta of all men everywhere."
You can still find its influence in Australian law and there's a copy from 1297 kept in Parliament house.
800 years on the Magna Carta is still seen as a document that's worth celebrating.
It made people think differently about power and rights.
And even earned a not so great king an important place in history.