Pope Innocent III, siding with King John, condemned the charter as 'illegal, unjust, harmful to royal rights and shameful to the English people,' voiding the landmark agreement barely a month after it was sealed at Runnymede. The annulment triggered the First Barons' War, though Magna Carta's principles would be revived and reissued repeatedly in the following decades, cementing its legacy.
The barons who forced King John to seal Magna Carta in June 1215 believed they had secured lasting limits on royal power. John, however, had no intention of honoring a document extracted under duress, and he appealed directly to his overlord in Rome.
Pope Innocent III, who considered England a papal fief since John had submitted to him in 1213, obliged swiftly and forcefully. His bull declared the charter void, freeing John from his obligations and branding the rebel barons as enemies of legitimate authority.
The annulment ignited the First Barons' War, a conflict that saw French prince Louis invited to invade England and claim the throne. Yet the genie could not be put back in the bottle: after John's death in 1216, his son's regents reissued Magna Carta to secure baronial support, beginning a tradition of reissuance that would embed its principles into English common law for centuries to come.
Key people: Pope Innocent III, King John