Magna Carta was the barons’ attempt to address this problem – to come up with a framework to constrain this furious and infuriating idiot they were stuck with. It’s got some big ideas in it, most notably clauses 39 and 40, which are still part of British law today: ‘No free man shall be seized, imprisoned, dispossessed, outlawed, exiled or ruined in any way, nor in any way proceeded against, except by the lawful judgement of his peers and the law of the land’ and ‘To no one will we sell, to no one will we deny or delay right or justice.’
