h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Of course the only people to benefit from the Magna Carta were the Barons themselves. All free men already enjoyed the protection of procedures when being disciplined by any lord. In the short term in anycase the Magna Carta was a failure as the kingdom fell into civil war, with Pope Innocent III annulling it and transforming the kingdom into a papal fief.

What about : "No free men shall be taken or imprisoned or in anyway injured exept by the law of the land or his equals"... Whould´nt it express that any free man (different to the bondmen..), not only aristocrats, are under protection of a common law...??

With 21st Century eyes, yes, your quote does look as though the Barons were enshrining the liberty of all freemen, but put it into the historical context from which they wrote the Magna Carta. In my view I don’t think that a bunch of Gangland bosses, which effectively is all they were, would want to loosen their own power in anyway. All they intended to do was to weaken the one person who had any power over them, the King. The only person they had recourse to for any grievance was the King, they wanted to undermine that power. Ultimately the Magna Carta can be seen as blueprint for liberty, but its not what the original intent of the document was for.