The first tax revolt: 800 years later, the Magna Carta stands boldly as spiritual predecessor to the Bill of Rights and U.S. Constitution

The last four original copies will be on display on February 3

This year will mark the eighth centennial of the signing of the Magna Carta by King John at Runnymede near Windsor, on June 15, 2015.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - The Magna Carta was one of the first documents that limited the power of the English crown, and was extremely influential as a foundation of the British parliamentary system, and thus the Republican system of the United States.

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It started when English Barons, upset over feudal payments to the English Crown, as well as the current justice system for nobles, rebelled, and managed to force King John to sign. Though this original "Great Charter" did not bind King John for more than a year, later years and successive "Great Charters - or amendments thereof - brought a great deal of power to the nobility, and weakened the power of the sovereign.

This year, Britain will start celebrating the document on February 3, where the only four known copies of the Magna Carta from 1215 will be brought together at the British Library; 1,215 people, chosen by public lot, will be able to view these historic and ancient documents.

While a brief overview of the Magna Carta is taught in most of the English-speaking world, few know what the so-called Great Charter actually was.

The Magna Carta was a peace treaty, or more specifically a failed one. This document was drafted by the Archbishop of Canterbury in order to make peace between the very unpopular King John and coalition of barons who had rebelled against him.

This draft protected the rights of the Catholic Church in England, protected the barons from illegal imprisonment, gave them access to swift justice and limited the amount of money the English Crown could collect as feudal payments.

These acts were to be enforced by a council of 25 barons, but neither side actually followed through with their end of the bargain, and less than a year later the treaty was annulled by Pope Innocent III, which led to the First Barons War, which eventually caused a second Magna Carta to be signed by King John's son in 1216.

The most famous clauses within the Magna Carta are echoed, though in somewhat less archaic wording, in the U.S. Constitution.

Clause 39 says: "No free man is to be arrested, or imprisoned, or disseised (have their legal property wrongly seized), or outlawed, or exiled, or in any other way ruined, nor will we go against him or send against him, except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land."

And clause 40 says: "To no one will we sell, to no one will be deny or delay, right or justice."

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These clauses laid down a foundation for the rights and freedoms of English subjects that would be later built upon through more documents imposed on the Crown, as well as in legal courts.

Great Enlightenment thinkers and even the American Founding Fathers drew on this portion of the Magna Carta. And the U.S. Bill of Rights and Declaration of Independence echo these sentiments.

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