Magna Carta
The king, too, must obey the law
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The document was originally a peace treaty between a king and his rebellious nobility, and was annulled by the Pope within weeks. Its significance came later, through reissues and through an English legal tradition that read into it principles it barely contained. Clause 39, that no free man shall be imprisoned without lawful judgement of his peers, became the ancestor of habeas corpus and reappears in the US Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
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English barons were tired of King John demanding ever more tax. They forced him to sign a document saying that even the king was not above the law. The idea that rulers must follow rules comes partly from here.
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Part of Terra Saga — the story of Earth on a timeline. terrasaga.org