This "Great Charter," as it is translated from the Latin, was not in King John's best interests. It wasn't his original thought, either. Nor was it the original thought of the barons who forced it on him. The Magna Carta was copied, nearly word for word, from "The Charter of Liberties of Henry I," an earlier charter from an earlier king granting civil liberties to the English nobility. (More about that story and Henry I in our next episode.)

Today we know the Magna Carta as the forerunner of American rights and liberties. People refer to it with reverence. But if granting the Great Charter wasn't in the king's best interests, and if the king was all-powerful, why did he agree to it? Or did he? What really happened to bring King John and his nobles together that June day in 1215?

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