John died on campaign in Norfolk, facing the windswept waters of the Wash. Fighting had quickened his appetite, and he ate a meal so hearty it paid him back with a fatal spasm of dysentery. As for the barons of England, they had had no appetite for civil war, much less rule from France. So when John's nine-year-old son was proclaimed Henry III at Gloucester Cathedral, they rallied to him. But what they were rallying to was not so much a person now as a contract, the understanding guaranteed by the reissue of the charter that, from now on, the government of England had to be accountable to the sovereignty of the law. The ramshackle conglomerate of the Angevin empire had fallen apart almost as quickly as it had risen, but in the England to which it was reduced something solid was left, something that's best measured not in masonry or mileage, but in magistrates. So the best thing that can be said for the Angevins was that they left behind a country that didn't need them any more. Why hunt for Excalibur when you had something much more potent - Magna Carta.


约翰在战争中死于诺福克，波涛汹涌的大海，拍打着海岸。打仗让他胃口大增，他太过心急地狼吞虎咽，结果导致他死于痢疾的痉挛。对英格兰的贵族来说，他们不想应付内战，也不想被法国统治。所以，当约翰九岁的儿子在，格罗斯特大教堂被立为亨利三世，他们重新聚集在他的名下，他们效劳的已不止是一个人，而是一份条约。重新修订的宪章已明确规定，从现在起，英格兰政府，必须对法律的独立负责。摇摇欲坠的安茹王朝，来也冲冲，去也匆匆，但对于英格兰，这一切都归结为一笔坚实的财富。这笔财富并非一砖一瓦，或是一毫一厘，而是代代相传的司法体制。所以安茹王室的最大贡献在于，他们之后的国家是个不再需要王室插手的国家。神剑的时代已经过去[亚瑟王的石中剑]，如今我们有了更强力的武器，《大宪章》。