06/15/2026
On June 15, 1215, King John of England affixed his seal to the Magna Carta at Runnymede, a meadow along the River Thames. The document was, in immediate terms, a peace treaty between a failing king and his rebellious barons, not a great charter of human liberty. Most of its clauses concern the specific feudal grievances of the English nobility. And yet its long-term significance proved enormous. The principle embedded in Clause 39, that no free man shall be imprisoned or stripped of his rights except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land, became a cornerstone of English common law and, centuries later, of American constitutional thought.