Magna Carta by Dan Jones
7 out of 10King John, considerably less successful in foreign military campaigns than his lionhearted predecessor, lost many remote assets and racked up large debts. His solution was to become a tyrant--to the discontent of clerics, merchants, and barons. A rebel army held London where locals where sympathetic to their cause. Agreeing to arbitration in 1215, John met the rebels in the swampy meadow of Runnymede where they presented the Magna Carta as a treaty. The charter is full of specific details calling for restrictions on the King in areas such as taxation, inscription and official appointees. It states that law must proceed punishment. Peace was short lived. The French got involved and fighting continued for many more years. After John's death, his young son Henry III espoused that he would abide by the stipulations in the MC. The document then slipped into legal obscurity and largely forgotten. It was resurrected as a symbol against the Stuarts in the English Civil War. Though it does not advocate democracy, the Magna Carta also served as inspiration for American revolutionary doctrines as well as the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Not bad for a failed peace treaty.