"The Great Charter was a concession, not a gift, as John proved when he cancelled it (with papal help), but it was restored early in Henry III's reign and remained as a foundational charter of liberties and rights available to an ever-increasing part of the nation as growing wealth and growing law swept in layers of society well below the ranks that had first promoted it. The real significance of that famous confrontation at Runnymede where John surrendered to the pressures of barons and prelates could not be long evaded: it put an end to the despotic potential within Anglo-Norman kingship, anchored the principle of co-operation, and instituted a relationship between king and baronage marked by a mutual and watchful supiciousness which endured for the rest of the Middle Ages."