The Effects of Magna Carta on Britain's Constitutional and Parliamentary Development

Abstract

My particular interest in this essay is to introduce how people applied the content of the Great Charter for similar reasons, since the king’s great power gave rise to dissatisfaction in the oncoming centuries as well. I am going to explore how people interpreted, reinterpreted, or even distorted various clauses of Magna Carta using them for their own purposes from the reign of Edward I up to the end of the seventeenth century. Moreover, I intend to highlight what other important events and documents – besides Magna Carta, the ancient contract – contributed to the decrease of the monarch’s power and to the creation of the British constitution.