Cato’s Letters, Number 38
The world has, from time to time, been led into such a long maze of mistakes by those who gained by deceiving, that whoever would …
liberty
John Winthrop gave his ‘Little Speech On Liberty’
In 1645, while he was deputy-governor of Massachusetts, John Winthrop and his fellow-magistrates had interfered in a local election of a militia officer. When the …
King Charles Delivers the ‘Answer to the Nineteen Propositions’ to Parliament
Two of Charles I advisers drafted and persuaded the king to issue a document, His Majesty’s Answer to the Nineteen Propositions of Both Houses of …
The ‘Petition of Right’ Approved by King Charles I in England
The Petition of Right (see document) is a statement of the objectives of the 1628 English legal reform movement that led to the Civil War …
John Ball, a leader in the Peasants’ Revolt, is hung, drawn and quartered in the presence of Richard II of England
John Ball was born in St Albans in about 1340. Twenty years later he was working as a priest in York. He eventually became the …
King John Affixes His Seal to the Magna Carta, an Inspiration for the US Constitution and Bill of Rights
“The democratic aspiration is no mere recent phase in human history . . . It was written in Magna Carta.” –Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1941 Inaugural …