After the sealing of Magna Carta in 1215 and the death of King John the following year, England went forward into the 13th century with great hope. But this hope was soon destroyed. As recorded by contemporary chroniclers, the reigns of the next four Plantagenet monarchs were marked by a series of continuing horrors, of famine and war, disorder and cruelty, culminating with the Black Death - the plague that swept across Europe and killed almost half its population.