Claim: The Magna Carta promised to protect barons from illegal imprisonment in England.

Magna Carta Libertatum -LRB- Medieval Latin for `` the Great Charter of the Liberties '' -RRB- , commonly called Magna Carta -LRB- also Magna Charta ; '' -LRB- the -RRB- Great Charter '' -RRB- , is a charter agreed to by King John of England at Runnymede , near Windsor , on 15 June 1215 . First drafted by the Archbishop of Canterbury to make peace between the unpopular King and a group of rebel barons , it promised the protection of church rights , protection for the barons from illegal imprisonment , access to swift justice , and limitations on feudal payments to the Crown , to be implemented through a council of 25 barons . Neither side stood behind their commitments , and the charter was annulled by Pope Innocent III , leading to the First Barons ' War . After John 's death , the regency government of his young son , Henry III , reissued the document in 1216 , stripped of some of its more radical content , in an unsuccessful bid to build political support for their cause . At the end of the war in 1217 , it formed part of the peace treaty agreed at Lambeth , where the document acquired the name Magna Carta , to distinguish it from the smaller Charter of the Forest which was issued at the same time . Short of funds , Henry reissued the charter again in 1225 in exchange for a grant of new taxes ; his son , Edward I , repeated the exercise in 1297 , this time confirming it as part of England 's statute law .   The charter became part of English political life and was typically renewed by each monarch in turn , although as time went by and the fledgling English Parliament passed new laws , it lost some of its practical significance . At the end of the 16th century there was an upsurge in interest in Magna Carta . Lawyers and historians at the time believed that there was an ancient English constitution , going back to the days of the Anglo-Saxons , that protected individual English freedoms . They argued that the Norman invasion of 1066 had overthrown these rights , and that Magna Carta had been a popular attempt to restore them , making the charter an essential foundation for the contemporary powers of Parliament and legal principles such as habeas corpus . Although this historical account was badly flawed , jurists such as Sir Edward Coke used Magna Carta extensively in the early 17th century , arguing against the divine right of kings propounded by the Stuart monarchs . Both James I and his son Charles I attempted to suppress the discussion of Magna Carta , until the issue was curtailed by the English Civil War of the 1640s and the execution of Charles .   The political myth of Magna Carta and its protection of ancient personal liberties persisted after the Glorious Revolution of 1688 until well into the 19th century . It influenced the early American colonists in the Thirteen Colonies and the formation of the American Constitution in 1787 , which became the supreme law of the land in the new republic of the United States . Research by Victorian historians showed that the original 1215 charter had concerned the medieval relationship between the monarch and the barons , rather than the rights of ordinary people , but the charter remained a powerful , iconic document , even after almost all of its content was repealed from the statute books in the 19th and 20th centuries . Magna Carta still forms an important symbol of liberty today , often cited by politicians and campaigners , and is held in great respect by the British and American legal communities , Lord Denning describing it as `` the greatest constitutional document of all times -- the foundation of the freedom of the individual against the arbitrary authority of the despot '' .   In the 21st century , four exemplifications of the original 1215 charter remain in existence , held by the British Library and the cathedrals of Lincoln and Salisbury . There are also a handful of the subsequent charters in public and private ownership , including copies of the 1297 charter in both the United States and Australia . The original charters were written on parchment sheets using quill pens , in heavily abbreviated medieval Latin , which was the convention for legal documents at that time . Each was sealed with the royal great seal -LRB- made of beeswax and resin sealing wax -RRB- : very few of the seals have survived . Although scholars refer to the 63 numbered `` clauses '' of Magna Carta , this is a modern system of numbering , introduced by Sir William Blackstone in 1759 ; the original charter formed a single , long unbroken text . The four original 1215 charters were displayed together at the British Library for one day , 3 February 2015 , to mark the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta .