John did renege on his promises which caused some of his supporters who signed as guarantors to go with the barons in subsequent conflicts.
I have been able to trace several family lines to the guarantors, William earl of Salisbury, William earl of Warenne, and one line to King John. William earl of Salisbury was also known as William Longspee and was the the son of Henry II by one of his mistresses, half-brother to King John.
The barons were primarily interested in maintaining control of their individual fiefdoms and most didn’t give a damn about the serfs and common man.
The basic concept of limiting royal power have renewed meaning today in this republic that threw off the chains of royal tyranny only to have a kenyan usurper set himself up as an autocratic ruler.
He and his party, one way or the other, need to be swept into the cesspool of history.
Yep. The opposition to him was a coalition of the Church and (most of) the barons. John detached the Church by the simple, though dishonorable, expedient of making England a vassal state of the Papacy. Pope promptly annulled Magna Carta, or tried to, and ordered churchmen to support John.
Interestingly, many modern historians consider John to have been a pretty good king, by modern standards, as opposed to his brother Richard certainly, who was terrible by today’s standards.
But those weren’t the standards that were relevant. No English king, not even Richard III or Charles I, has ever been as unanimously loathed by his people as John. You my note there has never been a John II.
The basic reason is that personal honor was the basis of society at the time. A vassal’s life and property and family were more or less utterly dependent on his lord’s honoring his commitments. When a lord was dishonorable, or perceived to be, everything fell apart.
Richard was perceived as highly honorable, and John as utterly dishonorable.