Magna Carta did not put an end to royal tyranny. Henry III and his successors were capable of ruling just as badly as King John. Kings continued to make war for their own glory rather than for the public good. Taxes continued to mount. Several of the clauses of Magna Carta went unenforced. Judicial visitation of the counties, for example, remained a haphazard affair. Justice continued to favour the rich over the poor. The influential remained more powerful than those without influence at court. Even so, within society at large, the repeated and frequent reissue of the charter encouraged the growth of a belief in essential rights and liberties standing above the authority of any particular king. On occasion, when baronial or local discontent boiled over, as it did in 1258, 1264 and again in 1297, there were calls not only for the reissue of Magna Carta but for root and branch reform of royal government on behalf of the 'community of the realm'. This 'community', first referred to in the security clause of the Runnymede charter, came to play an increasingly significant role in politics, as the King's need for taxation led to the summoning of 'parliaments' (literally 'speakings together'). Here the barons were expected to approve taxation in return for the hearing of petitions and the redress of their own particular grievances.

Magna Carta did not itself create 'Parliament'. Nonetheless, by requiring that taxation be imposed only after consultation with the 'common counsel of the realm', Magna Carta in many ways pointed the way to the emergence of parliamentary government. Above all, by insisting that there were rights and customs that stood above the authority of any particular king, Magna Carta, in its many reissues and confirmations, embedded the sense that England was a land of liberties. Even the most powerful of tyrants, the charter suggested, would now have to answer to the rule of law.