At Runnymede near London, England, King John was forced by rebellious barons to sign the Magna Carta, a historic document limiting royal power. In the turbulent civil wars that immediately followed, the original physical copies of the charter faced active destruction, confiscation, and loss as the king completely renounced the agreement. Through sheer luck and the careful secrecy of cathedral scribes, four original copies miraculously survived the chaotic medieval fires and military raids of the 13th century.

The survival of the Magna Carta provided a foundational lexicon of liberty, law, and rights that heavily saturated English political poetry and prose. It later became a massive rhetorical touchstone for political poets during the English Civil War and the Romantic era who wrote about freedom from tyranny.