Magna Carta

Magna Carta
Magna Carta
Created	1215
Location	Various copies

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Magna Carta is an English charter, originally issued in the year 1215, and reissued later in the 13th century in modified versions which omit certain temporary provisions, including the most direct challenges to the monarch's authority. The charter first passed into law in 1225. The 1297 version, with the long title (originally in Latin) The Great Charter of the Liberties of England, and of the Liberties of the Forest, still remains on the statute books of England and Wales.

The 1215 Charter required King John of England to proclaim certain liberties, and accept that his will was not arbitrary, for example by explicitly accepting that no "freeman" (in the sense of non-serf) could be punished except through the law of the land, a right which is still in existence today.

Magna Carta was the first document forced onto an English King by a group of his subjects (the barons) in an attempt to limit his powers by law and protect their privileges. It was preceded and directly influenced by the 1100 Charter of Liberties, when King Henry I had specified particular areas where his powers would be limited.

Despite its recognised importance, by the second half of the 19th century nearly all of its clauses had been repealed in their original form. Three clauses remain part of the law of England and Wales, however, and it is generally considered part of the uncodified constitution. Lord Denning described it as "the greatest constitutional document of all times - the foundation of the freedom of the individual against the arbitrary authority of the despot". ^[1] In a 2005 speech, Lord Woolf described it as "first of a series of instruments that now are recognised as having a special constitutional status" ^[2], the others being the Habeas Corpus Act, the Petition of Right, the Bill of Rights and the Act of Settlement.

The charter was an important part of the extensive historical process that led to the rule of constitutional law in the English speaking world, although it was "far from unique, either in content or form".^[3] In practice, Magna Carta in the medieval period did not in general limit the power of kings, but by the time of the English Civil War it had become an important symbol for those who wished to show that the King was bound by the law. It influenced the early settlers in New England^[4] and inspired later constitutional documents, including the United States Constitution.^[5]

The Great Charter of 1215

Rebellion and creation of the document

Over the course of his reign a combination of higher taxes, unsuccessful wars and conflict with the Pope had made King John unpopular with his barons. Some barons began to conspire against him in 1209 and 1212; promises made to the northern barons and John's submission to the papacy in 1213 delayed a French invasion.^[6]

In 1215 some of the most important barons engaged in open rebellion against their King. This was not unusual; every king since William the Conquerer had faced rebellions. However in every previous case there had been an obvious alternative monarch which the rebellion could rally around. In 1215 however John had no obvious replacement. Arthur of Brittany would have been a possibility, if he had not disappeared (widely believed to have been murdered on the orders of John). The next closest possible alternative was Prince Louis of France, but as the husband of Henry II's granddaughter, his claim was tenuous, and the English had been at war with the French for thirty years. Instead of a king, the barons decided to base their rebellion around John's oppressive government. In January 1215 the barons made an oath that they would "stand fast for the liberty of the church and the realm", and they demanded that King John confirm the Charter of Liberties, from what they viewed as a golden age. ^[7]

John prevaricated. During negotiations between January and June 1215, a document was produced, which historians have termed 'The Unknown Charter of Liberties',^[8] seven of the articles of which would later appear in the 'Articles of the Barons' and the Runnymede Charter.^[9] In May, King John offered to submit issues to a committee of arbitration with the Pope as supreme arbiter,^[10] but the barons continued in their defiance. With the support of Prince Louis the French Dauphin and of King Alexander II of the Scots, they entered London in force on 10 June 1215,^[11] with the city showing its sympathy with their cause by opening its gates to them. They, and many of the moderates not in overt rebellion, forced King John to agree to a document later known as the 'Articles of the Barons', to which his Great Seal was attached in the meadow at Runnymede on 15 June 1215. In return, the barons renewed their oaths of fealty to King John on 19 June 1215. The contemporary, but unreliable^[12] chronicler, Roger of Wendover, recorded the events in his Flores Historiarum.^[13] A formal document to record the agreement was created by the royal chancery on 15 July: this was the original Magna Carta, though it was not known by that name at the time. An unknown number of copies of it were sent out to officials, such as royal sheriffs and bishops.

John of England signs Magna Carta. Illustration from Cassell's History of England (1902)

The 1215 document contained a large section which is now called clause 61 (the original document was not actually divided into clauses). This section established a committee of 25 barons who could at any time meet and overrule the will of the King if he defied the provisions of the Charter, seizing his castles and possessions if it was considered necessary.^[14] This was based on a mediaeval legal practice known as distraint, but it was the first time it had been applied to a monarch. In addition, the King was to take an oath of loyalty to the committee.

Distrust between the two sides was overwhelming; what the barons really sought was the overthrow of the King, the demand for a charter was a "mere subterfuge".^[15] Clause 61 was a serious challenge to John's authority as a ruling monarch. He renounced it as soon as the barons left London; Pope Innocent III also annulled the "shameful and demeaning agreement, forced upon the King by violence and fear." He rejected any call for restraints on the King, saying it impaired John's dignity. He saw it as an affront to the Church's authority over the King and the 'papal territories' of England and Ireland, and he released John from his oath to obey it. The rebels knew that King John could never be restrained by Magna Carta and so they sought a new King.^[16]

England was plunged into a civil war, known as the First Barons' War. With the failure of Magna Carta to achieve peace or restrain John, the barons reverted to the more traditional type of rebellion by trying to replace the monarch they disliked with an alternative; in a measure of some desperation, desite the tenuousness of his claim, despite the fact that he was French, they offered the crown of England to Prince Louis of France. ^[17]

As a means of preventing war the Magna Carta was a failure, rejected by the barons,^[18] and was legally valid for no more than three months.^[19] It was the death of King John in 1216 which secured the future of Magna Carta.^[20]

Participant list

Barons, Bishops and Abbots who were party to Magna Carta.^[21]

Others

Magna Carta of Chester

The Runnymede Charter of Liberties did not apply to Chester, which at the time was a separate feudal domain. Earl Ranulf granted his own Magna Carta.^[22] Some of its articles were similar to the Runnymede Charter.^[23]

The Great Charter 1216–1297

The Charter 1216

King John's nine-year-old son Henry was crowned King of England in Gloucester Abbey, though much of England lay under the usurper Prince Louis. The papal legate Guala Bicchieri declared the struggle against Louis and the Barons a holy war,^[24] and the loyalists led by William Marshal rallied around the new King. Earl Ranulf of Chester left the Regency to Marshall. Marshall and Guala issued a Charter of Liberties, based on the Runnymede Charter, in the King's name on 12 November 1216 as a Royal concession, in an attempt to undermine the rebels^[25].

The Charter differed from that of 1215 in only having 42 as compared to 61 clauses; most notably the infamous article 61 of the Runnymede Charter was removed.The Charter was also issued separately for Ireland.

The Charters 1217: the origins of the name Magna Carta

Following the end of the First Barons War and the Treaty of Lambeth, the Charter of Liberties (carta libertatum) was issued again in the manner of 1216, again amended and issued separately for Ireland. The 42 clauses of the 1216 issue were expanded to 47. Significantly, a fragment of the original charter would be expanded with new material to form a complementary charter, the Charter of the Forest; the two Charters would thereafter be linked. Magna carta libertatum was then used by scribes to differentiate the larger and more important charter of common liberties from the Forest Charter.^[26] The term was used retrospectively to describe the previous Charters, with what had previously been described as carta libertatum becoming known simply as Magna Carta.

The Great Charter 1225

Having reached the age of majority, King Henry III was called upon to confirm the Charters. Henry reissued Magna Carta in a shorter version with only 37 articles, as a concession of liberties in return for a fifteenth part of moveable goods.^[4] This was the first version of the Charter to enter English law.^[27] The Charter of Liberties included a new statement that the Charter had been issued spontaneously and of the King's own free will. In 1227, Henry III declared all future charters had to be issued under his own seal and state under what warrant they were claimed; this proclamation questioned the validity of all previous acts done in his name or his predecessors.^[28] It was not until 1237, and the carta parva, that both of the 1225 Charters were confirmed and granted in perpetuity.^[29]

The Great Charter 1297: Statute

Edward I of England reissued the Charters of 1225 in 1297 in return for a new tax.^[30] "Constitutionally, the Magna Carta of Edward I is the most important".^[31] This version remains in Statute today (albeit with most articles now repealed—see below).^{[32] [33]}

Later History of the Charter

Reconfirmations of the Charter

Between the 13th and 15th centuries the Magna Carta would have a history of being reconfirmed, 32 times according to Sir Edward Coke, but possibly as many as 45 times.^[34]

Repeal of articles of the Charter

The repeal of clause 26 in 1829, by the Offences against the Person Act 1828 (9 Geo. 4 c. 31 s. 1),^[35] was the first time a clause of Magna Carta was repealed. With the document's perceived inviolability broken, in the next 140 years nearly the whole charter was repealed, leaving just Clauses 1, 9, and 29 still in force after 1969. Most of it was repealed in England and Wales by the Statute Law Revision Act 1863, and in Ireland by the Statute Law (Ireland) Revision Act 1872.^[35]

Content

Magna carta cum statutis angliae, (Great Charter with English Statutes) page 1 of manuscript, fourteenth century.

Magna Carta was originally written in Latin. A large part of the Charter at Runnymede was copied, nearly word for word, from the Charter of Liberties of Henry I, issued when Henry became king in 1100, in which he said he would respect certain rights of the Church and the barons, for example not forcing heirs to pay a fee when they inherited.

As the Charter went through various issues many of the clauses included in the Runnymede charter were removed. Some clauses would form a supplementary Charter in 1217, the Charter of the forest. It is worth emphasising that the 1215 charter was not numbered and was not divided into paragraphs or separate clauses. The clause numbering system was applied retrospectively to separate out the many different parts of the charter, but the divisions now applied to the 1215 charter do not necessarily reflect the views of the participants as to which parts of the charter should be considered as a whole and which should be considered distinct.

Clauses still in force today

The clauses of the 1297 Magna Carta which are still on statute are

• Clause 1, the freedom of the English Church.
• Clause 9 (clause 13 in the 1215 charter), the "ancient liberties" of the City of London.
• Clause 29 (clause 39 in the 1215 charter), a right to due process.

• 1. FIRST, We have granted to God, and by this our present Charter have confirmed, for Us and our Heirs for ever, that the Church of England shall be free, and shall have all her whole Rights and Liberties inviolable. We have granted also, and given to all the Freemen of our Realm, for Us and our Heirs for ever, these Liberties under-written, to have and to hold to them and their Heirs, of Us and our Heirs for ever.

• 9. THE City of London shall have all the old Liberties and Customs which it hath been used to have. Moreover We will and grant, that all other Cities, Boroughs, Towns, and the Barons of the Five Ports, as with all other Ports, shall have all their Liberties and free Customs.

• 29. NO Freeman shall be taken or imprisoned, or be disseised of his Freehold, or Liberties, or free Customs, or be outlawed, or exiled, or any other wise destroyed; nor will We not pass upon him, nor condemn him, but by lawful judgment of his Peers, or by the Law of the land. We will sell to no man, we will not deny or defer to any man either Justice or Right.^[35]

Clauses in Runnymede Charter but not in later Charters

• Clauses 10 and 11 related to money lending and Jews in England. Jewish involvement with money lending caused Christian resentment, because the Church forbade usury; it was seen as vice and was punishable by excommunication, although Jews, as non-Christians, could not be excommunicated and were thus in a legal grey area. Secular leaders, unlike the Church, tolerated the practice of Jewish usury because it gave the leaders an opportunity for personal enrichment. This resulted in a complicated legal situation: debtors were frequently trying to bring their Jewish creditors before Church courts, where debts would be absolved as illegal, while the Jews were trying to get their debtors tried in secular courts, where they would be able to collect both principal and interest. There were many attempts over centuries to resolve this problem, and Magna Carta contains one example of the legal code of the time on this issue. The charter concludes this section with the words "Debts owing to other than Jews shall be dealt with likewise", so it is debatable the extent to which Jews were being singled out by these clauses.
• Clauses 12 and 14 state that taxes (in the language of the time, "scutage or aid") can only only be levied and assessed by the common counsel of the realm. See Challenges to the King's power for more detail.
• Clause 15 that the King would not grant anyone the right to take an aid from his free men
• Clause 25 to 26 dealt with debt and taxes
• Clause 27 with intestacy.
• Clause 42 that it be lawful be subjects to leave the kingdom without prejudicing their allegiance except for outlaws and during war
• Clause 45 said that the King should only appoint royal officers suitable for the post. In the United States, the Supreme Court of California interpreted clause 45 in 1974 as establishing a requirement at common law that a defendant faced with the potential of incarceration is entitled to a trial overseen by a legally trained judge.^[36]
• Clause 48 all evil customs connected with forests to be abolished
• Clause 49 all hostages to be returned by the King
• Clause 50 stated that no member of the d'Athée family could be a royal officer.
• Clause 51 called for all foreign knights and mercenaries to leave the realm.
• Clauses 52 restoration of those "disseised" (i.e. those dispossessed of property. See (for example) Assize of novel disseisin )
• Clause 53 similar to 52 but relating to forests
• Clause 55 remittance of unjust fines
• Clauses 57 restoration of disseised Welshmen
• Clauses 58 and 59 provided for the return of hostages, Welsh and Scottish.
• Clauses 61, 62 and 63 provided for the application and observation of the Charter and said that the Charter was binding on the King and his heirs forever. See Challenges to the King's power for more on clause 61. However King John eventually renounced the Charter (with the Pope's support), and these clauses were removed from the later versions of the Charter which his heirs gave their approval to.

Challenges to the King's power

Clauses 12 and 14 of the 1215 charter state that the king will accept the "common counsel of our realm" when levying and assessing an aid or a scutage. Clause 14 goes into detail about how exactly the archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls and greater barons should be consulted. These clauses effectively meant that the monarch had to ask before raising new taxes. The later charters merely said that "Scutage furthermore is to be taken as it used to be", although in practice the convention arose after Magna Carta that Parliament would be consulted by the monarch before raising new taxes.

Clause 61 of the 1215 charter states: "The barons shall choose any twenty-five barons of the realm they wish, who with all their might are to observe, maintain and cause to be observed the peace and liberties which we have granted and confirmed to them by this our present charter". The clause goes on to say that if the king does not keep to the charter, the twenty five barons shall seize "castles, lands and possessions... until, in their judgement, amends have been made". "Anyone in the land" would be permitted by the king to swear an oath to the twenty five to obey them in these matters, and the king was in fact supposed to order people to do so even if they didn't want to take an oath to the twenty five barons.

The barons were trying to stop John going back on his word after agreeing to the charter, but if those who rebelled against him were able to choose a group who would have the power to seize his castles if they thought it necessary, "then the king had in effect been dethroned". No king would have agreed to this except as a manoeuvre to gain time, and the inclusion of this clause destroyed any chance of the original Magna Carta keeping the peace in the long term.^[37]

Clause 61 was removed from all later versions of the charter. Forty years later, after another confrontation between king and barons, the Provisions of Oxford forced on the king a council of twenty four members, 12 selected by the crown, 12 by the barons, which would then elect a king's council of fifteen members; this however was also annulled when Henry III finally won that power struggle.

Clauses in Runnymede Charter and in 1216/1217 Charter but not in 1225/1297 Charter

• Clauses 2 to 7 refer to feudal death duties and the responsibilities of guardians, defining their amounts and the provisions that applied if an heir to a fiefdom was under age or was a widow.
• Clause 8 stated that a widow could not be compelled to marry.
• Clause 9 stated that a debtor should not have his lands seized as long as he had other means to pay the debt.
• Clause 16 was regarding a knight's fee.
• Clauses 17 to 19 allowed for a fixed law court, which became the chancellery, and defined the scope and frequency of county assizes.
• Clause 44 (1216 only) relating to forest law
• Clause 56 (1216 only) relating to disseised Welshmen

Clauses in Runnymede Charter and 1225/1297 Charter but since repealed

Many provisions of the charters have no bearing in the world today, since they deal with feudal liberties. Some clauses remained relevant but were replaced by later legislation which gave similar rights. Using the 1215 clause numbers:

• Clause 20 stated that fines ("amercements", in the language of the day), should be proportionate to the offence, but even for a serious offence the fine should not be so heavy as to deprive a man of his livelihood. No fines should be imposed except by the oath of honest local men.
• Clause 21 stated that earls and barons should only be fined by their peers, i.e. other earls and barons. Until 1948 this meant that members of the House of Lords had the right to a criminal trial in the House of Lords at first instance.
• Clause 22 stated that fines should not be influenced by ecclesiastical property in clergy trials.
• Clause 23 provided that no town or person should be forced to build a bridge across a river.
• Clause 24 stated that crown officials (such as sheriffs) must not try a crime in place of a judge.
• Clauses 28 to 32 stated that no royal officer might take any commodity such as grain, wood or transport without payment or consent or force a knight to pay for something the knight could do himself, and that the king must return any lands confiscated from a felon within a year and a day to the felon's feudal lord ("the lords of the fees concerned").
• Clause 33 required the removal of all fish weirs.
• Clause 34 forbade repossession without a "writ precipe".
• Clause 35 set out a list of standard measures
• Clause 36 stated that writs for loss of life or limb were to be free
• Clause 37 concerns inheritance when a "fee-farm" (fee as in knight's fee) was involved.
• Clause 38 stated that no-one could be put on trial based solely on the unsupported word of an official.
• Clause 40 disallowed the selling of justice, or its denial or delay.
• Clauses 41 and 42 guaranteed the safety and right of entry and exit of foreign merchants.
• Clause 43 gave special provision for tax on reverted estates
• Clause 46 provided for the guardianship of monasteries.
• Clauses 47 and 48 abolished most of Forest Law (these were later taken out of Magna Carta and formed into a separate charter, the Charter of the Forest).^[38]
• Clause 54 said that no man may be imprisoned on the testimony of a woman except on the death of her husband.

Medieval and Tudor period

Magna Carta was the first entry on the statute books, but after 1472 it was not mentioned for a period of nearly 100 years. There was much ignorance about the document. The few who did know about the document spoke of a good king being forced by an unstable pope and rebellious barons "to attaine the shadow of seeming liberties" and that it was a product of a wrongful rebellion against the one true authority, the king. The original Magna Carta was seen as an ancient document with shadowy origins and as having no bearing on the Tudor world. Shakespeare's King John makes no mention of the Charter at all but focuses on the murder of Arthur. The Charter in the statute books was correctly thought to have arisen from the reign of Henry III.

This statute was used widely in the reign of Henry VIII (1509–47) but was seen as no more special than any other statute and could be amended and removed. But later in the reign, the Lord Treasurer stated in the Star Chamber that many had lost their lives in the baronial wars fighting for the liberties which were guaranteed by the Charter, and therefore it should not so easily be overlooked as a simple and regular statute.

The church often attempted to invoke the first clause of the Charter to protect itself from the attacks by Henry, but this claim was given no credence. Francis Bacon was the first to try to use Clause 39 to guarantee due process in a trial.

Although there was a re-awakening of the use of Magna Carta in common law, it was not seen (as it was later) as an entrenched set of liberties guaranteed for the people against the Crown and Government. Rather, it was an ordinary statute, which gave a certain level of liberties, most of which could not be relied on, least of all against the king. Therefore the Charter had little effect on the governance of the early Tudor period. Although lay parliament evolved from the Charter , by this stage the powers of parliament had managed to exceed those humble beginnings. The Charter had no real effect until the Elizabethan era (1558–1603)

In the Elizabethan age, England was becoming a powerful force in Europe. In academia, earnest but futile attempts were made to prove that Parliament had Roman origins. The events at Runnymede in 1215 were "re-discovered", enabling the antiquity of Parliament to be demonstrated, and Magna Carta became synonymous with the idea of an ancient house with origins in Roman government.

The Charter was interpreted as an attempt to return to a pre-Norman state of things. The Tudors saw the Charter as proof that their state of governance had existed from time immemorial and the Normans had been a brief break from this liberty and democracy. This claim is disputed in certain circles but explains how Magna Carta came to be regarded as such an important document.

Magna Carta again occupied legal minds, and it again began to shape how that government was run. Soon the Charter was seen as an immutable entity . In the trial of Arthur Hall for questioning the antiquity of the House, one of his alleged crimes was an attack on Magna Carta .

Edward Coke's opinions

Jurist Edward Coke interpreted Magna Carta to apply not only to the protection of nobles but to all subjects of the crown equally.

One of the first respected jurists to write seriously about the great charter was Edward Coke. He was influential in the way Magna Carta was perceived throughout the Tudor and Stuart periods though his views were challenged during his lifetime by Lord Ellesmere and later in the century by Robert Brady. Coke used the 1225 issue of the Charter.

Coke "reinterpreted or misinterpreted" Magna Carta "misconstruing it clauses anachronistically and uncritically".^[39] He would interpret liberties to be much the same as individual liberty.^[40] The historian J.C. Holt excused Coke on the grounds that the Charter and its history had itself become 'distorted'.^[41]

Coke would be instrumental in framing the Petition of Right, which would be a substantial supplement to Magna Carta's liberties. During the debates on the matter Coke famously sought to deny the King's sovereign rights with the claim that "Magna Carta is such a fellow, that he will have no 'sovereign'"; he believed the statutes not the King were absolute.^[42]

Early Stuarts and Civil War period

Role in the lead-up to the Civil War

By the time of the Stuarts (1603), Magna Carta had attained an almost mythical status for its admirers and was seen as representing a 'golden age' of English liberties extant prior to the Norman invasion. Whether or not this 'golden age' ever truly existed is open to debate; regardless, proponents of its application to English law saw themselves as leading England back to a pre-Norman state of affairs. What is true, however is that this age existed in the hearts and minds of people of the time. Magna Carta was not important because of the liberties it bestowed, but simply as 'proof' of what had come before; many great minds influentially exalted the Charter; by the 17th century, Coke was talking of the Charter as an indispensable method of limiting the powers of the Crown, a popular principle in the Stuart period where the kings were proclaiming their divine right and were looking, in the minds of some of their subjects, towards becoming absolute monarchs.

It was not the content of the Charter which has made it so important in the history of England, but more how it has been perceived in the popular mind. This is something that certainly started in the Stuart period, as the Charter represented many things, which are not to be found in the Charter itself. Firstly it was used to claim liberties against the Government in general rather than just the Crown and the officers of the crown, secondly that it represented that the laws and liberties of England, specifically Parliament, dated back to a time immemorial and thirdly, that it was not only just but right to usurp a king who disobeyed the law.

For the last of these reasons Magna Carta began to represent a danger to the monarchy; Elizabeth ordered that John Coke stop a bill from going through Parliament which would have reaffirmed the validity of the Charter, and Charles I ordered the suppression of a book which Coke intended to write on Magna Carta. The powers of Parliament were growing, and on Coke's death, parliament ordered his house to be searched; the manuscripts were recovered, and the book was published in 1642 (at the end of Charles I's Personal Rule). Parliament began to see Magna Carta as its best way of claiming supremacy over the crown and began to state that they were the sworn defenders of the liberties — fundamental and immemorial — which were to be found in the Charter.

In the four centuries since the Charter had originally catered for their creation, Parliament's power had increased greatly from their original level where they existed only for the purpose that the king had to seek their permission in order to raise scutage. They had become the only body allowed to raise tax; a right that, although descended from the 1215 Great Charter, was not guaranteed by it, since it was removed from the 1225 edition. Parliament had become so powerful that the Charter was being used both by those wishing to limit Parliament's power (as a new organ of the Crown), and by those who wished Parliament to rival the king's power (as a set of principles Parliament was sworn to defend against the king). When it became obvious that some people wished to limit the power of Parliament by claiming it to be tantamount to the crown, Parliament claimed they had the sole right of interpretation of the Charter.

This was an important step: for the first time Parliament was claiming itself a body as above the law, whereas one of the fundamental principles in English law was that the law, Parliament, the monarch, and the church held all, albeit to different extents. Parliament was claiming exactly what Magna Carta wanted to prevent the king from claiming, a claim of not being subject to any higher form of power. This was not claimed until ten years after the death of Lord Coke, but he would not have agreed with this, because he claimed in the English Constitution the law was supreme and all bodies of government were subservient to the supreme law, which is to say the common law , as embodied in the Great Charter. These early discussions of Parliamentary sovereignty seemed to only involve the Charter as the entrenched law, and the discussions were simply about whether Parliament had enough power to repeal the document.

It was important for Parliament to be able to claim itself more powerful than the King in the forthcoming struggle. Clause 61 of the Charter undermines the authority of the king by allowing people to swear an oath to the council of barons: "Whoever in the country wants to, may take an oath to obey the orders of the twenty-five barons for the execution of all the previously mentioned matters and, with the barons, to distress us to the utmost of his power. We publicly and freely give permission to every one who wishes to take this oath, and we shall never forbid any one from taking it". Moreover, Clause 61 allowed for the seizing of the king's goods if "the peace and liberties" protected by Magna Carta were not respected: "Together with the community of the whole land, they shall then distrain and distress us in every way possible, namely by seizing castles, lands, possessions and in any other they can (saving only our own person and those of the queen and our children), until redress has been obtained in their opinion. And when amends have been made, they shall obey us as before." So there was no need to show any novel level of power in order to claim it was allowed to act against the king if he did not obey the laws of the land; it had already been set out in Magna Carta nearly half a millennium before. Magna Carta was specifically cited in the Petition of Right, as an example of the "ancient rights" which the king should obey. Charles did not want to give his assent to the Petition, and although he eventually did, his later actions (for example, applying the Ship Money tax, when Parliament was supposed to consent to taxation) suggest that he did not consider himself bound by it.^[43]

Trial of Archbishop Laud

Further proof of the significance of Magna Carta is shown in the trial of Archbishop Laud in 1645. Laud was tried with attempting to subvert the laws of England including writing a condemnation of Magna Carta claiming that as the Charter came about due to rebellion it was not valid (a widely held opinion less than a century before, when the 'true' Magna Carta was thought to be the 1225 edition, with the 1215 edition being considered less valid for this very reason). However, Laud was not trying to say that Magna Carta was evil, and he actually used the document in his defence. He claimed his trial was against the right of the freedom of the church (as the Bishops were voted out of Parliament in order to allow for parliamentary condemnation of him) and, that he was not given the benefit of due process contrary to Clauses 1 and 39 of the Charter. By this stage, Magna Carta had passed a great distance beyond the original intentions for the document, and the Great Council had evolved beyond a body merely ensuring the application of the Charter. It had got to the stage where the Great Council or Parliament was inseparable from the ideas of the Crown as described in the Charter and therefore it was potentially not just the King that was bound by the Charter, but Parliament also.

Civil War and interregnum

After the seven years of the English Civil War (1642–49), after the king had surrendered and had been executed, it seemed Magna Carta no longer applied, as there was no King. Oliver Cromwell was accused of destroying Magna Carta, and many thought he should be crowned just so that it would apply. Cromwell had much disdain for Magna Carta, at one point describing it as "Magna Farta" to a defendant who sought to rely on it.^[44]

In this time of foment, there were many revolutionary theorists, and many based their theories at least initially on Magna Carta, in the misguided belief that Magna Carta guaranteed liberty and equality for all.

Levellers

The Levellers believed that all should be equal and free without distinction of class or status. They believed that Magna Carta was the 'political bible', which should be prized above any other law and that it could not be repealed. They prized it so highly that they believed all (such as Archbishop Laud) who "trod Magna Carta ... under their feet" deserved to be attacked at all levels. The original idea was to achieve this through Parliament but there was little support, because at the time the Parliament was seeking to impose itself as above Magna Carta. The Levellers claimed Magna Carta was above any branch of government, and this led to the upper echelons of the Leveller movement denouncing Parliament. They claimed that Parliament's primary purpose was not to rule the people directly but to protect the people from the extremes of the King; they claimed that Magna Carta adequately did this and therefore Parliament should be subservient to it.

After the Civil War, Cromwell refused to support the Levellers and was denounced as a traitor to Magna Carta. The importance of Magna Carta was greatly magnified in the eyes of the Levellers. John Lilburne, one of the leaders of the movement, was known for his great advocacy of the Charter and was often known to explain its purpose to lay people and to expose the misspeaking against it in the popular press of the time. He was quoted as saying the ground and foundation of my freedome I build upon the grand charter of England. However, as it became apparent that Magna Carta did not grant the level of liberty demanded by the Levellers, the movement reduced its advocacy of it. William Walwyn, another leader of the movement, advocated natural law and other doctrines as the primary principles of the movement. This was mainly because the obvious intention of Magna Carta was to grant rights only to the barons and the episcopacy, and not the general and egalitarian rights the Levellers were claiming. Also influential, however, was Spelman's rediscovery of the existence of the feudal system at the time of Magna Carta, which seemed to have less and less effect on the world of the time. The only right, which the Levellers could trace back to 1215, possibly prized over all others, was the right to due process granted by Clause 39. One thing the Levellers did agree on with the popular beliefs of the time was that Magna Carta was an attempt to return to the fabled pre-Norman 'golden age'.

Diggers

However, not all such groups advocated Magna Carta. The Diggers were a very early socialistic group who called for all land to be available to all for farming and the like. Gerrard Winstanley, a leader of the group, despised Magna Carta as a show of the hypocrisy of the post-Norman law, since Parliament and the courts advocated Magna Carta and yet did not even follow it themselves. The Diggers did, however, believe in the pre-Norman golden age and wished to return to it, and they called for the abolition of all Norman and post-Norman law.

Later Stuarts

Charles II

The Commonwealth was relatively short-lived, and when Charles II took the throne in 1660, he vowed to respect both the common law and the Charter. Parliament was established as the everyday government of Britain , independent of the King but not more powerful. However, the struggles based on the Charter were far from over and took the form of a struggle for supremacy between the two Houses of Parliament.

Within Parliament

In 1664, the British navy seized Dutch lands in both Africa and America leading to full-scale war with the Netherlands in 1665. The Lord Chancellor Edward Lord Clarendon, resisted an alliance with the Spanish and Swedes in favour of maintaining a relationship with the French, who were the allies of the Dutch. This lack of a coherent policy led to the Second Anglo-Dutch War (1665–67), with the Dutch burning ships in the docks at Chatham, and the blame was placed on Clarendon. The Commons demanded that Clarendon be indicted before the Lords, but the Lords refused, citing the due process requirements of the Charter, giving Clarendon the time to escape to Europe.

A very similar set of events followed in 1678 when the Commons asked the Lords to indict Thomas Lord Danby on a charge of fraternising with the French. As with Clarendon the Lords refused, again citing Magna Carta and their own supremacy as the upper house. Before the quarrel could be resolved, Charles dissolved the Parliament. When Parliament was re-seated in 1681, again the Commons attempted to force an indictment in the Lords. This time Edward Fitzharris who was accused of writing libellously that the King was involved in a papist plot with the French (including the overthrowing of Magna Carta). However, the Lords doubted the veracity of the claim and refused to try Fitzharris saying Magna Carta stated that everyone must be subject to due process and therefore he must be tried in a lower court first. This time the Commons retorted that it was the Lords who were denying justice under Clause 39 and that the Commons were right to cite the Charter as their precedent. Again, before any true conclusions could be drawn Charles dissolved the Parliament, although more to serve his own ends and to rid himself of a predominantly Whig Parliament, and Fitzharris was tried in a regular court (the King's Bench) and executed for treason. Here the Charter, once again, was used far beyond the content of its provisions, and simply being used as a representation of justice. Each house was claiming the Charter under Clause 39 supported its supremacy, but the power of the King was still too great for either house to come out fully as the more powerful.

Outside Parliament

The squabble also continued outside the Palace of Westminster. In 1667 the Lord Chief Justice and important member of the House of Lords, Lord Keeling, forced a grand jury of Somersetshire to return a verdict of murder when they wanted to return one of manslaughter.^[45] However, his biggest crime in the eyes of the Commons was that, when the jury objected on the grounds of Magna Carta, he scoffed and exclaimed "Magna Farta, [sic] what ado with this have we?"^[46] The Commons were incensed at this abuse of the Charter and accused him of endangering the liberties of the people.^[45] However, the Lords claimed he was just referring to the inappropriateness of the Charter in this context, but Keeling apologised anyway. In 1681 the next Lord Chief Justice, Lord Scroggs, was condemned by the Commons first for being too severe in the so-called 'papist plot trials' and second for dismissing another Middlesex grand jury in order to secure against the indictment of the Duke of York, the Catholic younger brother of the King later to become James II. Charles again dissolved Parliament before the Commons could impeach Scroggs, and removed him from office on a good pension. Just as it seemed that the Commons might be able to impose their supremacy over the Lords, the King intervened and proved he was still the most powerful force in the government. However, it was certainly beginning to become established that the Commons were the primary branch of Government, and they used the Charter as much as they could in order to achieve this end.

Supremacy of the Commons

This was not the end of the struggle however, and in 1679 the Commons passed the Habeas Corpus Act of 1679, which greatly reduced the powers of the Crown. The act passed through the Lords by a small majority, arguably establishing the Commons as the more powerful House. This was the first time since the importance of the Charter had been so magnified that the Government had admitted that the liberties granted by the Charter were inadequate. However, this did not completely oust the position of the Charter as a symbol of the law of the 'golden age' and the basis of common law.

It did not take long before the questioning of the Charter really took off and Sir Matthew Hale soon afterwards introduced a new doctrine of common law based on the principle that the Crown (including the government cabinet in that definition) made all law and could only be bound by the law of God, and showed that the 1215 charter was effectively overruled by the 1225 charter, further undermining the idea that the charter was unassailable, adding credence to the idea that the Commons were a supreme branch of Government. Some completely denied the relevance of the 1215 Charter as it was forced upon the King by rebellion (although the fact that the 1225 charter was forced on a boy by his guardians was overlooked). It was similarly argued against the Charter that it was nothing more than a relaxation of the rigid feudal laws and therefore had no meaning outside of that application.

Glorious Revolution and later history

Glorious Revolution

The Bill of Rights was passed by Parliament in December 1689 and was a restatement in statutory form of the Declaration of Rights. It went far beyond what Magna Carta had ever set out to achieve. It stated that the Crown could not make law without Parliament. Although the raising of taxes was specifically mentioned, the Bill of Rights also covered other matters, unlike Magna Carta. But the authors of the Bill did not seem to think that the Bill included any new provisions of law; all the powers it 'removes' from the crown it refers to as 'pretended' powers, insinuating that the rights of Parliament listed in the Bill already existed under a different authority, presumably Magna Carta. So the importance of Magna Carta was not completely extinguished at this point, although it was somewhat diminished.

Eighteenth century

The power of the Magna Carta myth still existed in the 18th century; in 1700 Samuel Johnson talked of Magna Carta being "born with a grey beard" referring to the belief that the liberties set out in the Charter harked back to the Golden Age and time immemorial. However, ideas about the nature of law in general were beginning to change. In 1716 the Septennial Act was passed, which had a number of consequences. Firstly, it showed that Parliament no longer considered its previous statutes unassailable, as this act provided that the parliamentary term was to be seven years, whereas fewer than twenty-five years had passed since the Triennial Act (1694), which provided that a parliamentary term was to be three years. It also greatly extended the powers of Parliament. Previously, all legislation that passed in a parliamentary session had to be listed in the election manifesto, so in effect the electorate was consulted on all issues that were to be brought before Parliament. However, with a seven-year term, it was unlikely, if not impossible, that all the legislation passed would be discussed at the election. This gave Parliament the freedom to legislate as it liked during its term. This was not Parliamentary sovereignty as understood today however, as although Parliament could overrule its own statutes, it was still considered itself bound by the higher law, such as Magna Carta. Arguments for Parliamentary sovereignty were not new; however, even its proponents would not have expected Parliament to be as powerful as it is today. For example, in the previous century, Coke had discussed how Parliament might well have the power to repeal the common law and Magna Carta, but they were, in practice, prohibited from doing so, as the common law and Magna Carta were so important in the constitution that it would be dangerous to the continuing existence of the constitution to ever repeal them.

Extent of the Commons' powers

In 1722 the Bishop of Rochester (Francis Atterbury (a Stuart Jacobite)), a member of the House of Lords, was accused of treason. The Commons locked him in the Tower of London, and introduced a bill intending to remove him from his post and send him into exile. This, once again, brought up the subject of which was the more powerful house, and exactly how far that power went. Atterbury claimed, and many agreed, that the Commons had no dominion over the Lords. Other influential people disagreed however; for example, the Bishop of Salisbury (also a Lord) was of the strong opinion that the powers of Parliament, mainly vested in the Commons, were sovereign and unlimited and therefore there could be no limit on those powers at all, implying the dominion of the lower house over the upper house. Many intellectuals agreed; Jonathan Swift went so far as to say that Parliament's powers extended to altering or repealing Magna Carta. This claim was still controversial, and the argument incensed the Tories. Bolingbroke spoke of the day when "liberty is restored and the radiant volume of Magna Carta is returned to its former position of Glory". This belief was anchored in the relatively new theory that when William the Conqueror invaded England he only conquered the throne, not the land, and he therefore assumed the same position in law as the Saxon rulers before him. The Charter was therefore a recapitulation or codification of these laws rather than (as previously believed) an attempt to reinstate these laws after the tyrannical Norman Kings. This implied that these rights had existed constantly from the 'golden age immemorial' and could never be removed by any government. The Whigs on the other hand claimed that the Charter only benefited the nobility and the church and granted nowhere near the liberty they had come to expect. However although the Whigs attacked the content of the Charter, they did not actually attack the myth of the 'golden age' or attempt to say that the Charter could be repealed, and the myth remained as immutable as ever.

America

The Stamp Act 1765 extended the stamp duty, which had been in force on home territory since 1694 to cover the American colonies as well. However, colonists of the Thirteen Colonies despised this since they were not represented in Parliament and refused to accept that an external body, which did not represent them, could tax them in what they saw was a denial of their rights as Englishmen. The cry "no taxation without representation" rang throughout the colonies.

The influence of Magna Carta can be clearly seen in the United States Bill of Rights, which enumerates various rights of the people and restrictions on government power, such as:

No person shall be ... deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.

Article 21 from the Declaration of Rights in the Maryland Constitution of 1776 reads:

That no freeman ought to be taken, or imprisoned, or disseized of his freehold, liberties, or privileges, or outlawed, or exiled, or in any manner destroyed, or deprived of his life, liberty, or property, but by the judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land.

The Ninth Amendment to the United States Constitution states that, "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." The framers of the United States Constitution wished to ensure that rights they already held, such as those provided by the Magna Carta, were not lost unless explicitly curtailed in the new United States Constitution.^[47][48]

Parliamentary Sovereignty

The debate over whether of not Parliament could limit or overrule the supposed rights granted by Magna Carta was to prove to be the basis for a discussion over parliamentary sovereignty; however William Blackstone preached that Parliament should respect Magna Carta as a show of law from time immemorial, and the other great legal mind of the time, Jeremy Bentham used The Charter to attack the legal abuses of his time.

In 1763 an MP, John Wilkes was arrested for writing an inflammatory pamphlet, No. 45, 23 April 1763; however he cited Magna Carta incessantly, and the weight that Magna Carta held at the time meant Parliament was reluctant to continue the charge, and he was released and awarded damages for the wrongful seizing of his papers as the general warrant under which he was arrested was deemed illegal. However, he was still expelled from Parliament after spending a week in the Tower of London. After 1768 he tried several times to be elected but five times the Commons ruled that he was ineligible to sit. The treatment of Wilkes caused a furore in Parliament, with Lord Camden denouncing the action as a contravention of Magna Carta. Wilkes made the issue a national one and the issue was taken up by the populace, and there were very popular prints of him being arrested while teaching his son about Magna Carta all over the country. He had the support of the Corporation of London, long seeking to establish its supremacy over Parliament based on The Charter itself. The fight for the charter was misplaced and it was merely the idea of the liberties which were supposedly enshrined in The Charter that people were fighting for. It is no coincidence that those who supported Wilkes would have little or no knowledge of the actual content of The Charter, or, if they did, were looking to protect their own position based on The Charter. Wilkes re-entered the house in 1774. He had talked of Magna Carta as he knew it would capture public support to achieve his aims, but he had started the ball rolling for a reform movement to 'restore the constitution' through a more representative, less powerful, and shorter-termed Parliament.

One of the principal reformists was a man called Granville Sharp who was called for the reformation of Parliament based on Magna Carta, and devised a doctrine to back this up, the doctrine of accumulative authority. This theory stated that almost innumerable parliaments had approved of Magna Carta, and therefore it would take the same amount of Parliaments to repeal The Charter. As with many, he accepted the supremacy of Parliament as an institution, but he did not believe that this power was without restraint, namely that they could not repeal Magna Carta. Many reformists agreed that The Charter was a statement of the liberties of the mythical and immemorial golden age, but there was a popular movement to have a holiday to commemorate the signing of The Charter in a similar way to the American 4 July holiday; however, very few went as far as Sharp.

Although there was a popular movement to resist the sovereignty of Parliament based on The Charter, there were still a great number of people who thought that The Charter was over-rated. John Cartwright pointed out in 1774 that Magna Carta could not possibly have existed unless there was a firm constitution beforehand to facilitate its use. He went even further, later, and claimed that The Charter was not even part of the constitution but merely a codification of what the constitution was at the time. Cartwright suggested that there should be a new Magna Carta based on equality and rights for all, not just for landed persons.

The work of people like Cartwright was fast showing that the rights granted by The Charter were out of pace with the developments which followed in the next six centuries. However there were certain provisions, such as Clauses 23 and 39, which were not only still valid then but which still formed the basis of important rights in the present English law. Undeniably, though, Magna Carta was diminishing in importance, and the arguments for having a fully sovereign Parliament were becoming more and more accepted. Many in the house still supported The Charter, however, such as Sir Francis Burdett who called for a return to the constitution of Magna Carta in 1809 and denounced the house for taking proceedings against the radical John Gale Jones, for denouncing the house as acting in contravention of Magna Carta. Burdett was largely ignored, as by this stage Magna Carta had largely lost its appeal, but he continued, claiming that the Long Parliament had usurped all the power then enjoyed by the Parliament of the time; he stated that Parliament was constantly acting against Magna Carta (although he was referring to their judicial rather than their legislative practice) which they did not have the right to do; he achieved popular support and there were riots across London when he was arrested for these claims, and again a popular print circulated of him being arrested whilst teaching his son about Magna Carta

With the popular movements being in favour of the liberties of The Charter, and Parliament trying to establish their own sovereignty there needed to be some sort of action in order to swing the balance in favour of one or the other. However, all that occurred was the Reform Act 1832 which was such a compromise that it ended up pleasing no one. Due to their disappointment in the Reform Act a group was founded calling itself the Chartists.

Chartists

The Reform Act 1832 fixed some of the most glaring problems in the political system, but did not go nearly far enough for a group that called itself the Chartists, who called for a return to the constitution of Magna Carta, and eventually created a codification of what they saw as the existing rights of the People, the People's Charter. At a rally for the Chartists in 1838 the Reverend Raynor demanded a return to the constitution of the Charter; freedom of speech, worship and congress. This is a perfect example of how the idea of the Charter went so far beyond its actual content: it depicted for many people the idea of total liberty. It was this exaggeration of the Charter that eventually led to its downfall. The more people expected to get from the Charter, the less Parliament was willing to attempt to cater to this expectation, and eventually writers such as Tom Paine refuted the claims about the Charter made by those such as the Chartists. This meant that the educated no longer supported these claims, and the power of Magna Carta as a symbol of freedom gradually faded into obscurity.

Influences on later constitutions

Many later attempts to draft constitutional forms of government, including the United States Constitution, trace their lineage back to this source document. The United States Supreme Court has explicitly referenced Lord Coke's analysis of Magna Carta as an antecedent of the Sixth Amendment's right to a speedy trial.^[49]

Magna Carta has influenced international law as well: Eleanor Roosevelt referred to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as "a Magna Carta for all mankind". Magna Carta is thought to be the crucial turning point in the struggle to establish freedom and a key element in the transformation of constitutional thinking throughout the world. When Englishmen left their homeland to establish colonies in the new world, they brought with them charters that guaranteed they and their heirs would "have and enjoy all liberties and immunities of free and natural subjects." (quoted from wall of The National Archives). In 1606, Sir Edward Coke, who drafted the Virginia Charter, had highly praised Magna Carta, which reflected many of its values and themes into the Virginia Charter (Howard 28). Colonists were also aware of their rights that came from Magna Carta. When American colonists raised arms against England, they were fighting not so much for new freedom, but to preserve liberties, many of which dated back to the 13th century Magna Carta. In 1787 when the representatives of America gathered to draft a constitution, they built upon the legal system they knew and admired: English common law that had evolved from Magna Carta (National Archives).

The ideas addressed in the great charter that are found today are particularly obvious. The American Constitution is the "supreme law of the land", recalling the manner in which Magna Carta had come to be regarded as fundamental law. This heritage is quite apparent. In comparing Magna Carta with the Bill of Rights: the Fifth Amendment guarantees: "No person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law." In addition, the United States Constitution included a similar writ in the Suspension Clause, article 1, section 9: "The privilege of the writ habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may require it." Written 575 years earlier, Magna Carta states, "No free man shall be taken, imprisoned, disseised, outlawed, banished, or in any way destroyed, not will we proceed against or prosecute him, except by the lawful judgment of his peers and by the law of the land." (qtd. in Howard pg VI: Foreword). Each of these proclaim no man may be imprisoned or detained without proof that they did wrong.

Copies

1297 copy of the Magna Carta, owned by the Australian Government and on display in the Members' Hall of Parliament House, Canberra.

Numerous copies were made each time it was issued, so all of the participants would each have one — in the case of the 1215 copy, one for the royal archives, one for the Cinque Ports, and one for each of the 40 counties of the time. Several of those copies still exist and some are on permanent display. If there ever was one single 'master copy' of Magna Carta sealed by King John in 1215, it has not survived. Four contemporaneous copies (known as "exemplifications") remain, all of which are located in England:

• The 'burnt copy', which was found in the records of Dover Castle in the 17th century and so is assumed to be the copy that was sent to the Cinque Ports. It was subsequently involved at a house fire at its owner's property, making it all but illegible. It is the only one of the four to have its seal surviving, although this too was melted out of shape in the fire. It is currently held by the British Library.
• Another supposedly original, but possibly amended version of Magna Carta is on show just outside of the chamber of the House of Lords situated in the Palace of Westminster.
• One owned by Lincoln Cathedral, normally on display at Lincoln Castle. It has an unbroken attested history at Lincoln since 1216. We hear of it in 1800 when the Chapter Clerk of the Cathedral reported that he held it in the Common Chamber, and then nothing until 1846 when the Chapter Clerk of that time moved it from within the Cathedral to a property just outside. In 1848, Magna Carta was shown to a visiting group who reported it as "hanging on the wall in an oak frame in beautiful preservation". It went to the New York World Fair in 1939. In 1941, after war broke out with Japan, Magna Carta was sent to Fort Knox, along with the U.S. Declaration of Independence and Constitution, until 1944, when it was deemed safe to return them.^[50] Having returned to Lincoln, it has been back to America on various occasions since then.^[51] It was taken out of display for a time to undergo conservation in preparation for its visit to America, where it was exhibited at the Contemporary Art Center of Virginia from 30 March to 18 June 2007 in recognition of the Jamestown quadricentennial.^[52][53] From 4 July to 25 July 2007, the document was displayed at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia,^[54] returning to Lincoln Castle afterwards. The document returned to New York to be displayed at the Fraunces Tavern Museum from 15 September to 15 December 2009.^[55][56]
• One owned by and displayed at Salisbury Cathedral. It is the best preserved of the four.^[57]

Other early versions of Magna Carta survive. Durham Cathedral possesses 1216, 1217, and 1225 copies.^[58]

A near-perfect 1217 copy is held by Hereford Cathedral and is occasionally displayed alongside the Mappa Mundi in the cathedral's chained library. Remarkably, the Hereford Magna Carta is the only one known to survive along with an early version of a Magna Carta 'users manual', a small document that was sent along with Magna Carta telling the Sheriff of the county to observe the conditions outlined in the document.^[59]

Four copies are held by the Bodleian Library in Oxford. Three of these are 1217 issues and one a 1225 issue. On 10 December 2007, these were put on public display for the first time.^[60]

Magna Carta Place, within Canberra, Australia's Parliamentary Triangle opened on 24 May 2003.

In 1952 the Australian Government purchased a 1297 copy of Magna Carta for £12,500 from King's School, Bruton, England.^[61] This copy is now on display in the Members' Hall of Parliament House, Canberra. In January 2006, it was announced by the Department of Parliamentary Services that the document had been revalued down from A$40m to A$15m.

Only one copy (a 1297 copy with the royal seal of Edward I) is in private hands; it was held by the Brudenell family, earls of Cardigan, who had owned it for five centuries, before being sold to the Perot Foundation in 1984. This copy, having been on long-term loan to the US National Archives, was auctioned at Sotheby's New York on 18 December 2007; The Perot Foundation sold it in order to "have funds available for medical research, for improving public education and for assisting wounded soldiers and their families."^[62] It fetched US$21.3 million,^[63] It was bought by David Rubenstein of The Carlyle Group,^[64] who after the auction said, "I thought it was very important that the Magna Carta stay in the United States and I was concerned that the only copy in the United States might escape as a result of this auction." Rubenstein's copy is on permanent loan to the National Archives in Washington, D.C..^[65]

Usage of the definite article, spelling "Magna Charta"

Since there is no direct, consistent correlate of the English definite article in Latin, the usual academic convention is to refer to the document in English without the article as "Magna Carta" rather than "the Magna Carta". According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first written appearance of the term was in 1218: "Concesserimus libertates quasdam scriptas in magna carta nostra de libertatibus" (Latin: "We concede the certain liberties here written in our great charter concerning liberties"). However, "the Magna Carta" is frequently used in both academic and non-academic speech.

Especially in the past, the document has also been referred to as "Magna Charta", but the pronunciation was the same. "Magna Charta" is still an acceptable variant spelling recorded in many dictionaries due to continued use in some reputable sources. From the 13th to the 17th centuries, only the spelling "Magna Carta" was used. The spelling "Magna Charta" began to be used in the 18th century but never became more common despite also being used by some reputable writers.^[66][67]

Popular perceptions

In 1957 the American Bar Association acknowledged the debt American law and constitutionalism had to Magna Carta by erecting a monument at Runnymede.

Symbol and practice

Magna Carta is often a symbol for the first time the citizens of England were granted rights against an absolute king. However, in practice the Commons could not enforce Magna Carta in the few situations where it applied to them, so its reach was limited. Also, a large part of Magna Carta was copied, nearly word for word, from the Charter of Liberties of Henry I, issued when Henry I rose to the throne in 1100, which bound the king to laws which effectively granted certain civil liberties to the church and the English nobility.

Many documents form Magna Carta

Although Magna Carta is popularly thought of as the document which was forced upon King John in 1215, this version of the charter was almost immediately annulled. Later monarchs reissued the document, but without the most direct challenges to their power, and without the provisions which were intended to right immediate wrongs rather than make long-term constitutional changes. The version which forms part of English law is actually that of 1297. Magna Carta can therefore be used to refer to any one of several related (but not identical) 13th century documents, or indeed to the various charters as a whole.

The document was unsigned

Popular perception is that King John and the barons signed Magna Carta. There were no signatures on the original document, however, only a single seal placed by the king. The words of the charter — Data per manum nostram — signify that the document was personally given by the king's hand. By placing his seal on the document, the King and the barons followed common law that a seal was sufficient to authenticate a deed, though it had to be done in front of witnesses. John's seal was the only one, and he did not sign it. The barons neither signed nor attached their seals to it.^[68]

Perception in America

The document is also honoured in America, where it is an antecedent of the United States Constitution and Bill of Rights. In 1957, the American Bar Association erected the Runnymede Memorial.^[69] In 1976, the UK lent an original 1215 Magna Carta to the U.S. for its bicentennial celebrations, and also donated an ornate case to display it, which included a gold replica of Magna Carta. The case and gold replica are still on display in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda in Washington, D.C.^[70]

21st-century Britain

In 2006, BBC History held a poll to recommend a date for a proposed "Britain Day". 15 June, as the date of the original 1215 Magna Carta, received most votes, above other suggestions such as D-Day, VE Day, and Remembrance Day. The outcome was not binding, although the then Chancellor Gordon Brown had previously given his support to the idea of a new national day to celebrate British identity.^[71] It was used as the name for an anti-surveillance movement in the 2008 BBC series The Last Enemy. According to a poll carried out by YouGov in 2008, 45% of the British public do not know what Magna Carta is.^[72] However, its perceived guarantee of trial by jury and other civil liberties led to Tony Benn to refer to the debate over whether to increase the maximum time terrorist suspects could be held without charge from 28 to 42 days as "the day Magna Carta was repealed".^[73]

See also

• The Baronial Order of Magna Charta
• Divine Right of Kings
• Fundamental Laws of England
• History of democracy
• Magna Carta Place
• New Brabantian Constitution
• Quia Emptores
• subpoena ad testificandum
• Henry de Bracton
• Cestui que
• Statutes of Mortmain
• Charter of Liberties
• Concordat of Worms
• Charter of the forest

References

External links

• Official text of Magna Carta 1297 (c. 9) as amended and in force today within the United Kingdom, from the UK Statute Law Database
• "Treasures in Full: Magna Carta", two copies from 1215 from the British Library in multi-media format.
• Annotated English translation of 1215 version
• "Magna Carta" Document contains side-by-side translations in
  • Latin (original),
  • English,
  • English (again),
  • Spanish, and
  • French
• The Magna Carta in Medieval History of Navarre
• "Magna Carta" Latin Text
• "Magna Carta Libertatum" Latin and English text
• Baronial Order of Magna Charta
• The Magna Carta Manifesto: Liberties and Commons for All by Peter Linebaugh U of C Press 2008
• "Magna Carta and Its American Legacy" The influence of Magna Carta on the United States Constitution and Bill of Rights
• Parliament House, Canberra, Australia and Bad King John and the Australian Constitution Lecture commemorating the 700th anniversary of the 1297 issue of Magna Carta.
• The Magna Carta English translations. Project Gutenberg celebratory etext 10000
• Text of Magna Carta English translation, with introductory historical note. From the Internet Medieval Sourcebook.
• Notes prepared by Nancy Troutman
• Magna Carta glossary
• Magna Carta copy to be auctioned from BBC News
• Scholarly essay on Magna Carta at Sotheby's website
• Magna Carta – a Guide from Unlock Democracy.
• New York Daily News article on Magna Carta coming to Manhattan, 4 July 2008
• Interactive, high-resolution view of a copy from 1297, previously owned by Ross Perot and given to the US National Archives
• The coats of arms of the barons together with the will of King John

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