1215
Magna Carta, the Great Charter, signed with the royal seal today in 1215 by King John Lackland, though actually there would be several more versions, revisions, amendments, in the decade that followed - nearly a third of the text was deleted or substantially rewritten - and the final and definitive version, the one that endured into history, the one still theoretically on the statute book in the United Kingdom to this day, though actually all but three of its sixty-three clauses have been repealed, really belongs to John's successor, his son (just 9 years old when his father died), King Henry III (r. 1216–72), who issued his final version on February 11th 1225.
A paragraph built of sentences with qualifications! Ah yes, deliberately - whereas (as the lawyers say) Magna Carta is the founding statement of Democracy and Liberty in England; whereas (in the other sense of that word), in the eight hundred years that have followed, very little has happened with it but more, and then still more qualifications, limitations, proscriptions.
Illuminated replica, circa 1300 |
Sixty-three clauses in the original document, of which one of the survivors defends the rights and liberties of what was then a very different English Church, and another confirms the somewhat meaningless "liberties and customs" of London and several other towns. The third survivor, Clause 39, is the one that probably mattered most then, and definitely still does today, though it needs to be seen in context to be fully grasped. It granted to "free men" the right to justice and a fair trial; a principle that would be enshrined in the American Bill of Rights (1791), as well as many other constitutional documents around the world, culminating in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, and the European Convention on Human Rights of 1950. It states, in full, that:
"No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgement of his equals or by the law of the land. To no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay right or justice."
Issued for the 800th anniversary in 2015 |
Of the sixty clauses that have not survived, most dealt with specific Baronial grievances regarding the ownership of land, the regulation of the justice system, and medieval taxes that have no modern equivalent (such interesting options for future Chancellors as "scutage" and "socage" - the former money paid by a vassal to his lord in lieu of military service; the latter a tenure of land by means of rent or non-military service). Others demanded the removal of fish weirs from the Thames, the Medway and throughout England; the dismissal of several named royal servants; the standardisation of various weights and measures; and all manner of other activities of the sort that politicians can always find use for when their vote is needed or a continuing coalition depends on them. So it was conceded by the much-bullied king that no taxes could be demanded without the "general consent of the realm" - again meaning the leading Barons and the Churchmen - while re-establishing several privileges that had been lost, while linking fines to the severity of the offence so as not to threaten an individual's livelihood. Of the lost items that we should regret, it confirmed that a widow could not be forced to remarry against her wishes.
All of this is the what; but what of the why?
Bear in mind that there had never been a national sovereign until William of Normandy conquered the Saxon kingdom in the central south of Britain in 1066, and then expanded it every whichway, taking the Jute and Frisian and Angle kingdoms in the south-east, then the Cymry (Welsh), the Viking north, the lands of the Picts and the Scots, finally that of the Eirish, whence his sobriquet "the Conqueror". His son William Rufus was thus the first authentically national monarch to inherit a kingdom, after which Henry I, the civil war involving Stephen and Mathilda, Henry II who barely set foot in the realm but ruled it as an absentee landlord from Poitiers, and his son Richard I likewise - Richard only once set foot in England, for ten days in 1190, for his coronation, and he spoke not a single word of Aenglish. By the time Richard went on Crusade and left his brother John in charge, and in a form of charge that left him immune from such few laws as there were, the Barons (most of them Franco-Normans who likewise knew no Aenglish, but who owned all the land and had no great interest in servility to an absentee landlord, and no wish to be involved in wars in France - especially when John lost the Battle of Bouvines in 1214), the Barons decided that enough was not, for themselves at least, enough. They wanted more, and now was the time to get it.
Now, because there was also the little matter of the church. The Pope had appointed Stephen Langton as Archbishop of Canterbury; John had rejected the appointment; the Pope had issued an "interdict", prohibiting people in England from receiving the sacraments, excommunicating John; John had no choice but to formally surrender his kingdom to the Pope, which he did in 1213, shortly before going to war in France. However bad a bad king, better a bad king than a distant Pope. Now had arrived.
Langton had the support of several Barons, who called for a meeting with John, Langton himself, and the Papal Legate who had just arrived from Rome. The aim at this stage was to have John affirm the Charter of Henry I, a pre-Magna Carta if you like, in which Henry had promised "to abolish all the evil customs by which the kingdom of England has been unjustly oppressed". John refused. The Barons responded by renouncing their oaths of allegiance to him, appointing Robert fitz Walter as their leader, and marching on, indeed capturing London. Now John was powerless politically, militarily and spiritually. Negotiation at Runnymede was simply a matter of the terms of his surrender.
The Barons (officially "The Sureties for the
Enforcement"): William d'Aubigny, Lord of Belvoir
Castle, Roger Bigod, Earl of Norfolk and Suffolk, Hugh Bigod, Heir
to the Earldoms of Norfolk and Suffolk, Henry de Bohun, Earl of
Hereford, Richard de Clare, Earl of Hertford, Gilbert de Clare, heir
to the earldom of Hertford, John FitzRobert, Lord of Warkworth
Castle, Robert FitzWalter de Clare, Lord of Dunmow
Castle, William de Fortibus, Earl of Albemarle, William Hardel, Mayor
of the City of London, William de Huntingfield, Sheriff of Norfolk
and Suffolk, John de Lacy, Lord of Pontefract Castle, William de
Lanvallei, Lord of Standway Castle, William Malet, Sheriff of Somerset
and Dorset, Geoffrey de Mandeville, Earl of Essex and
Gloucester, William Marshall Jr, heir to the earldom of
Pembroke, Roger de Montbegon, Lord of Hornby Castle, Lancashire
Richard de Montfichet, Baron of Stanstead, William de Mowbray, Lord
of Axholme Castle, Richard de Percy, Baron, Saire/Saher de
Quincy, Earl of Winchester, Robert de Ros, Lord of Hamlake Castle, Geoffrey
de Saye, Baron, Robert de Vere, heir to the earldom of Oxford, Eustace de
Vesci, Lord of Alnwick Castle
The Witnesses: Bishops: Stephen Langton, Archbishop of
Canterbury, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, Henry de Loundres,
Archbishop of Dublin; E., Bishop of London, Jocelin of Wells,
Bishop of Bath and Wells; Peter des Roches, Bishop of Winchester; Hugh
de Wells, Bishop of Lincoln; Herbert Poore (aka "Robert"), Bishop
of Salisbury; W., Bishop of Rochester; Walter de Gray, Bishop
of Worcester; Geoffrey de Burgo, Bishop of Ely; Hugh de Mapenor,
Bishop of Hereford; Richard Poore, Bishop of Chichester (brother of
Herbert/Robert above); W., Bishop of Exeter; Llywelyn the Great.
Also the other Welsh Princes: Master Pandulff, subdeacon and member
of the Papal Household; Brother Aymeric, Master of the Knights
Templar in England; Alexander II of Scotland
You can read the full document by clicking here.
1381
Three last observations, based on clever-clever comments emailed to me by readers:
i) No, June 15th was not a significant date in the Thatcher case, but I have included the piece here as an addendum to the 1381 piece; with a link to March 31
ii) I have no idea if Future Foreign Secretary Jack Straw was on the 1990 march
iii) No, this is not why we call them "Straw Polls"
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