Todays Royal pondering features King John, a monarch best known for creating the Magna Carta at Runnymead in Surrey. The Magna Carta was in fact a Peace Treaty between the King and his Barons.

The Magna Carta was a charter of rights agreed to by King John of England in 1215, and was Europe’s first written constitution. Prior to the implementation of the Magna Carta, English monarchs were considered above the law of the land and ruled with relatively absolute power.

Thankfully this blog is not an Opus Magnum so I need to turn the expectation down a little.

King John was not considered by many to be a particularly good or kind King but in England he scored a sartorial first. King John was the first person to be recorded as wearing a dressing gown. The Kings overshirt for rising in the night.

In his last days there would be a lot of rising in the night. The King was suffering from Dysentry and somewhat foolishly ate an excessive amount of peaches which finished him off.