Magna Carta: The Great Charter of the Liberties

807 years ago, on June 15, 1215, English nobles met with King John at Runnymede and forced him to issue Magna Carta Libertatum ("the Great Charter of the Liberties").?

Following the defeat of a campaign to regain Normandy in 1214, Stephen Langton, the archbishop of Canterbury, called on the disgruntled barons to demand a charter of liberties from the king. In 1215, the barons rose up in rebellion against the king’s abuse of feudal law and custom. King John, faced with a superior force, had no choice but to give in to their demands.?He met the rebel leaders at?Runnymede, a?water-meadow?on the south bank of the?River Thames, on 10 June 1215. Runnymede was a traditional place for assemblies, but it was also located on neutral ground and offered both sides the security of a rendezvous where they were unlikely to find themselves at a military disadvantage.?Here the rebels presented John with their draft demands for reform, the 'Articles of the Barons'.

Earlier kings of England had granted concessions to their feudal barons, but these charters were vaguely worded and issued voluntarily. The document drawn up for John in June 1215, however, demanded that the king make specific guarantees of the rights and privileges of his barons and the freedom of the church.?Stephen Langton's efforts at mediation over the next ten days turned these incomplete demands into a charter capturing the proposed peace agreement.?By 15 June, general agreement had been made on a text, and King John placed his royal seal upon it. On 19 June, the rebels renewed their oaths of loyalty to John and copies of the charter were formally issued.

The document, essentially a peace treaty between John and his barons, guaranteed that the king would respect feudal rights and privileges, uphold the freedom of the church, and maintain the nation’s laws. Although more a reactionary than a progressive document in its day, Magna Carta came to be seen as a cornerstone in the development of democratic England by later generations.

The original charter was written on?parchment?sheets using?quill?pens, in heavily abbreviated?Medieval Latin, the convention for legal documents at the time. Although scholars refer to the 63 numbered "clauses" of Magna Carta, this is a modern system of numbering, introduced by Sir?William Blackstone?in 1759; the original charter formed a single, long unbroken text.?

Magna Carta dealt mainly with feudal concerns that had little impact outside 13th century England. However, the document was remarkable in that it implied there were laws the king was bound to observe, thus precluding any future claim to absolutism by the English monarch. Of greatest interest to later generations was clause 39, which stated that “no free man shall be arrested or imprisoned or disseised [dispossessed] or outlawed or exiled or in any way victimized…except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.” This clause has been celebrated as an early guarantee of trial by jury and of habeas corpus and inspired England’s Petition of Right (1628) and the Habeas Corpus Act (1679).

In immediate terms, Magna Carta was a failure. Civil war broke out the same year, and John ignored his obligations under the charter. Upon his death in 1216, however, Magna Carta was reissued with some changes by his son, King Henry III, and then reissued again in 1217. That year, the rebellious barons were defeated by the king’s forces. In 1225, Henry III voluntarily reissued Magna Carta a third time, and it formally entered English statute law.

Magna Carta has been subject to a great deal of historical exaggeration; it did not establish Parliament, as some have claimed, nor more than vaguely allude to the liberal democratic ideals of later centuries. But at?the end of the 16th century there was an upsurge in interest in Magna Carta. Lawyers and historians at the time believed that there was an ancient English constitution, going back to the days of the?Anglo-Saxons, that protected individual English freedoms. They argued that the?Norman invasion of 1066?had overthrown these rights, and that Magna Carta had been a popular attempt to restore them, making the charter an essential foundation for the contemporary powers of Parliament and legal principles such as habeas corpus.

Although this historical account was badly flawed, jurists such as Sir?Edward Coke?used Magna Carta extensively in the early 17th century, arguing against the?divine right of kings?propounded by the?Stuart?monarchs. Both?James I and his son?Charles I?attempted to suppress the discussion of Magna Carta, until the issue was curtailed by the English Civil War of the 1640s and the execution of Charles.

However, as a symbol of the sovereignty of the rule of law, it was of fundamental importance to the constitutional development of England.

The political influence of Magna Carta and its protection of ancient personal liberties persists to this day. It influenced the American colonists in the Thirteen Colonies and the formation of the American Constitution in 1787. Magna Carta still forms an important symbol of liberty today, often cited by politicians and campaigners, and is held in great respect by the British and American legal communities.??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".

Four original copies of Magna Carta of 1215 exist today: one in Lincoln Cathedral, one in Salisbury Cathedral, and two in the British Museum.