Kelsey Hutchins
April 12, 2012
Adv World Studies
The Magna Carta has been around since the year of 1215, and was influencing events all the way into the 1700s. It was a charter, created first in 1100 by Prince Etheired the Peaceful, song of Prince Edgar the Peaceful, and a group of his subjects in order to limit his power and give rights to the people. It helps to protect all rights of the subjects and doesn’t allow the ruler of that country to have as much power as they would have before it was created.
The Glorious Revolution, otherwise known as the Revolution of 1688, was the overthrow of King James II of England by a union of Parliamentarians who strongly opposed King James’ II low tolerance of religion and was led by Dutch stadtholder William III of Orange. He and his fleet of Dutch and English invaded the kingdom successfully, and took the throne of England with his wife, Mary II of England.
This contributed to the American Revolution because the colonists wanted to be free from King George III and also his low tolerance of religion. He wanted everyone to practice just one, and there was no freedom to believe in whatever you wanted. His taxes were high, he was not treating his subjects right, and he had too much power. So a large group of people fled on boats, and created their own country here in what is now America.
They needed to create their own rules, what they wanted their new country to be like. They didn’t want anything like the Glorious Revolution, or what they had just ran away from. So they looked back to the Magna Carta, an extremely old document even back then, and that is how they created the rights that they have today. Freedom of religion, and speech, it all was influenced by the Magna Carta.
