The Great Charter (1215) and the Beginning of the English Parliament

4.9

For about two centuries after the Norman Conquest England was ruled by foreign kings. The kings took large sums of money from the barons for the wars in Europe. Those who refused to give the money were arrested.

In 1215 the barons revolted and soon had a large army against the king. They wrote a paper where the rights of the Englishmen were written down.

The king had to sign the Great Charter (Magna Carta).

A council of twenty-five barons were chosen to control the king. That was the beginning of the English Parliament.

In the 17th and the 19th centuries, when the English people revolted against oppression, they took the Great Charter as the banner of the revolution.