Who is magna carta for kids

The king needed control over the city, since it was so wealthy and was an enormous source of income for him, and so he heeded the demands of the people, and vowed to stop taking their goods.

And that is when the Magna Carta was born. Even the king. A section of the document reads:. No free man shall be imprisoned or stripped of his rights or possessions… except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land. Translation: nobody will be put in prison or punished unless they are found guilty by trial. AND those in power kings, queens, prime ministers cannot just send someone to prison, or take their things because they feel like it - the person has to have been found guilty of breaking a law.

Essentially the Magna Carta protected normal, every day people from being completely controlled by their rulers, giving them the freedom to live their lives the way they choose, own things without fearing they will be taken away, and have freedom and independence.

It also allowed the general population to hold their rulers to account. John had lost a battle against the French, been excommunicated by the Pope — , and feared civil war at home. He met the barons at Runnymede, 20 miles south-west of London, in June The content of the Carta was designed to re-balance power between the King and his subjects, but especially between John and the barons.

When King John set his seal on Magna Carta he conceded the fundamental principle that even as king he was not above the law. That meant kings would not have as much power as they did before. The Carta also laid down rules of inheritance , and that convictions required some kind of official process.

It stated that people had rights not to be unlawfully imprisoned. In other words, the king is bound to rule within the law. Thirteen original copies of the Carta were made and distributed. Only four survive today. The British Library brought all four copies together in February , so that scholars could examine them side by side. The Magna Carta was written in Latin and was really the first constitution, in writing that existed in the history of Europe.

Of the sixty three clauses, many were on the topic of the property rights of power citizens and the barons, including limited intentions of the farmers. The benefits of the charter were really for the elite class of people, without giving the general citizens any voice in the government. By the 17th century, two acts of English legislation were added: the Petition of Right and the Habeas Corpus Act. The Magna Carta is a significant document in the evolution of civil rights and is considered to be the first document of human freedom.

It placed England on the road to a democratic state and introduced the lawyers in England to the concept of Human Rights as we know it now. King John made himself very unpopular during his reign by his constant demands for money. No, King John found the terms in the Magna Carta unacceptable.

He only signed the document to keep peace with the rebel barons - to buy time - and did not keep to what he agreed to. Civil war broke out in England.