Today (June 15, 2015) marks the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta, a document paving the way to constitutional government. English barons forced King John to approve the charter in 1215 in Runnymede, southwest of London. By appending his seal to the Magna Carta, John was the first monarch to submit to demands for a detailed limitation to the powers of the sovereign. Not only did the document limit royal power, but it made clear even the king had to obey the law. This charter granted many rights to the English aristocracy, but many years later it became a model for those who demanded democratic and individual rights for all.
During the first years of the 1200’s John’s policies had led to the loss of long-held estates in Northern France, eliminating an important source of his nobles’ wealth. Also, his arguments with the church (over such matters as the right to appoint archbishops of Canterbury) resulted in a decline in national pride as England became a fiefdom of the Pope, and the imposition of heavy taxes to fund the army added to a simmering discontent that boiled over into rebellion in 1215. On June 15, in return for promises of loyalty, John met with his barons and clerics in Runnymede, on the banks of the River Thames southwest of London and agreed to provisions outlined in a lengthy manuscript that would curtail his authority. An amended version was approved 4 days later, and a formal record of the understanding was prepared by the royal chancery on July 15. Revised versions of Magna Carta were issued in 1216, 1217, 1225, 1264, and 1297. The 63 clauses in the document covered many aspects of life dealing with the church, land holding arrangements, the legal system, royal appointments, urban trade, and the means by which the monarch could be held to the agreement. Most focussed on the circumstances of the time and are of little importance to modern society, but these three have a lasting legacy:
(38) In future no official shall place a man on trial upon his own unsupported statement, without producing credible witnesses to the truth of it.
(39) 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 way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land.
(40) To no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay right or justice.
Historian and author, Dan Jones, author of The Plantagenets: The Warrior Kings and Queens Who Made England, provides a historical synopsis-context for the Magna Carta and the terrible king who was forced to sign it:
“John’s reputation is one of the worst kings in English history, a diabolical murderer who brought tyranny and constitutional crisis to his realm…. In the most sympathetic analysis, John’s greatest crime was to have been king as fortune’s wheel rolled downward. He had all his family’s most ruthless instincts allied with none of their good fortune. He presided weakly over the loss of Normandy, and once the duchy was lost he twice failed to win it back. He did not inspire men to great deeds with the force of his personality, yet it is fair to wonder if Henry II or even Richard might have regained Normandy from the position that John occupied in 1204…. As it was, a disastrous civil war, capped by a French invasion, was John’s immediate legacy to his family. In 1215 the Magna Carta was nothing more than a failed peace treaty. John was not to know—any more than the barons who negotiated its terms with him would have done—that his name and the myth of the document sealed at Runnymede would be bound together in English history forever…. The Magna Carta would be reissued time and time again in the years immediately following John’s death, and interpreting this intricate document on the limits of the powers of a king would be at the heart of every constitutional battle that was fought during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. As Henry III struggled to regain the rights and territories that his father had lost, the Great Charter gradually came to define the terms of engagement between king and community. When it was reissued in 1225, the Magna Carta was nailed to church doors and displayed in town squares across England, gaining legendary status as a document whose spirit stood for the duty of English kings to govern within the laws they made.”
Even though Pope Innocent III annulled the Magna Carta in August of 1215, declaring it null and void and having been sealed under duress, the document was resuscitated over time. Over the course of the next 800 years, the idea of Magna Carta gathered momentum and assumed a greater authority in respect of the central key clauses concerning liberty and justice. The central clauses have not only stood the test of time, but have a potency of their own which has seen off hundreds of attempts at annulment, repeal, modification and suspension by successive monarchs and governments.
Sources: World Book Encyclopedia, 2015 edition; Historical Dictionary of the British Monarchy by Kenneth J. Panton; http://www.bl.uk/magna-carta/articles/magna-carta-english-translation; and The Plantagenets: The Warrior Kings and Queens Who Made England by Dan Jones
Thanks for the education, Joe!
PTxS