The Magna Carta promised the protection of state rights.
Magna Carta . First drafted by the Archbishop of Canterbury to make peace between the unpopular King and a group of rebel barons , it promised the protection of church rights , protection for the barons from illegal imprisonment , access to swift justice , and limitations on feudal payments to the Crown , to be implemented through a council of 25 barons . Lawyers and historians at the time believed that there was an ancient English constitution , going back to the days of the Anglo-Saxons , that protected individual English freedoms .