e Common Law the
basis of modern law in all English-speaking countries.

Henry's successor was his son Richard I, whose government was quite
unimportant except for the romantic personal adventures of the king
when on a crusade, and in his continental dominions. Henry's second
son John reigned from 1199 to 1216. Although of good natural
abilities, he was extraordinarily indolent, mean, treacherous, and
obstinate. By his inactivity during a long quarrel with the king of
France he lost all his provinces on the Continent, except those in the
far south. His contest with the Pope had ended in failure and
humiliation. He had angered the barons by arbitrary taxation and by
many individual acts of outrage or oppression. Finally he had
alienated the affections of the mass of the population by introducing
foreign mercenaries to support his tyranny and permitting to them
unbridled excess and violence. As a result of this widespread
unpopularity, a rebellion was organized, including almost the whole of
the baronage of England, guided by the counsels of Stephen Langton,
archbishop of Canterbury, and supported by the citizens of London. The
indefiniteness of feudal relations was a constant temptation to kings
and other lords to carry their exactions and demands upon their
tenants to an unreasonable and oppressive length. Henry I, on his
accession in 1100, in order to gain popularity, had voluntarily
granted a charter reciting a number of these forms of oppression and
promising to put an end to them. The rebellious barons now took this
old charter as a basis, added to it many points which had become
questions of dispute during the century since it had been granted, and
others which were of special interest to townsmen and the middle and
even lower classes. They then demanded the king's promise to issue a
charter containing these points. John resisted for a while, but at
last gave way and signed the document which has since been known as
the "Great Charter," or Magna Carta. This has always been considered
as, in a certain sense, the guarantee of English liberties and the
foundation of the settled constitution of the kingdom. The fact that
it was forced from a reluctant king by those who spoke for the whole
nation, that it placed definite limitations on his power, and that it
was confirmed again and again by later kings, has done more to give it
this position than its temporary and in many cases insignificant
provisions, accompanied onl