“parchment challenged absolute authority again and again, most notably in the terrible and bloody British civil wars in the 1640s, when Magna Carta went face to face against the authority of a divinely appointed king, Charles I. And the law won. The king was tried, judged and executed. In those wars, people were dragged to the gallows holding copies of Magna Carta. It became as sacred as the Christian cross. The Great Charter itself”