> things like the Magna Carta, rights of due process, habeas corpus
I think Habeas Corpus is one of the few clauses of Magna Carta that still has legal effect (the former is part of the latter).
And remember that Magna Carta was a deal between the "barons" and King John; the rights that Magna Carta purported to confer, only applied to barons (landowners, basically). In the time of King John, the law as most ordinary people encountered it was simply the local baron.
I think it wasn't until Henry II that there were royal courts set up, to deliver the same law everywhere.
> I think Habeas Corpus is one of the few clauses of Magna Carta that still has legal effect
I am not sure if it has effect because of the Magna Carta, but right to a fair trial is another right that still exists and applied to any "free man".
> I think it wasn't until Henry II that there were royal courts set up, to deliver the same law everywhere.
Yes, but that was still medieval. Yes, it was not one huge improvement. The Magna Carta was a step in a process that started centuries earlier and went to for centuries afterwards.
I think Habeas Corpus is one of the few clauses of Magna Carta that still has legal effect (the former is part of the latter).
And remember that Magna Carta was a deal between the "barons" and King John; the rights that Magna Carta purported to confer, only applied to barons (landowners, basically). In the time of King John, the law as most ordinary people encountered it was simply the local baron.
I think it wasn't until Henry II that there were royal courts set up, to deliver the same law everywhere.