Motley Talk about the Magna Carta
The document that caused one King to lose his head and another his crown.
Dear Friends, I have been walking around Parliament Square, thinking about our British laws and the apparent lack of a constitution. But we are an old country, and we have a document written in the 13th Century that was so powerful that our laws are based on it to this day. It was the inspiration for constitutional documents, and it caused two kings to lose their crowns. The Magna Carta.
Medieval kings ruled by taking executive and sometimes arbitrary decisions, justified on the basis that a king was above the law. To make this work you need to be powerful and successful, or you lose the support of the Barons. The Barons held hereditary titles with their accompanying lands. In exchange the Barons gave their loyalty to the king, supported the monarchy by paying taxes and, with their knights, fought in wars.
But let us go back to 1199, during the reign of the Plantagenets. King Richard1 had just died and left no heir. His 15-year-old nephew Arthur (son of Richard’s older brother) was a contender for the throne, but Arthur was in France, in lands that were part of the Plantagenet empire. John (Richard’s younger brother) was in England; and John quickly got himself crowned at Westminster Abbey.
Then King John went over to France to wage war against Arthur, who had the support of King Philip of (the rest of) France. War is very expensive, and King John lost the support of his French Barons when he kept raising taxes.
Finally, Arthur was captured and sent to prison, after which Arthur disappeared; problem solved2. But King Philip was disturbed by the terminally missing Prince Arthur, and he summoned King John to stand trial in Paris. King John declined the invitation, so King Philip declared that he had forfeited all his considerable lands in France, and the Plantagenet Empire collapsed. King John went back to England, no longer powerful or successful.
‘King John was not a good man -
He had his little ways.’
King John’s Christmas. A poem by AA Milne
The English Barons were also faced with increased taxes (when King John started a campaign to reclaim Normandy) and had other grievances. A group of rebellious Barons raised an army and marched south, taking the cities of Lincoln, Exeter and London, forcing King John to negotiate for peace.
The Barons and King John met at Runnymede, near Windsor Castle. It is a beautiful water meadow and well worth a visit. A peace agreement called the ‘Great Charter’ or ‘Magna Carta’ was signed on 15 June 1215. The charter went beyond simply addressing specific baronial complaints, it proposed political reform. It was also agreed that a council of barons would ensure King John’s future adherence to the charter. The rebel army would stand down and London would surrender to the King.
Neither side kept to the terms. King John complained to the Pope, who wrote back that the charter was “not only shameful and demeaning, but illegal and unjust” and he excommunicated the rebel barons. Unsurprisingly this led to civil war.
1216 was not a good year for King John. Apart from the war, he lost all his luggage in quicksand, including the English Crown Jewels. Finally, he contracted dysentery and died of it in October, aged 49.
King John’s son became King Henry III at just nine years old, and the Civil War slowly ground to a halt.
On 12 November 1216 the Magna Carta was reissued in King Henry’s name. It would be reissued several times in the 13th Century, until it was made part of civil law.
The Magna Carta established for the first time the principle that everyone, including the king, was subject to the law. The two most famous clauses in the Magna Carta are:
‘No free man shall be seized, imprisoned, dispossessed, outlawed, exiled or ruined in any way, nor in any way proceeded against, except by the lawful judgement of his peers and the law of the land.’
‘To no one will we sell, to no one will we deny or delay right or justice.’
These clauses remain part of UK law today, and their influence can be seen in other documents across the world, including the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the US Constitution.
King Charles I had his head chopped off because he refused to share power. Then, after a period with no king, the restoration of the monarchy occurred when his son King Charles II came back to England. Charles II had no children and when he died in 1685 his brother became King James II.
King James did not learn from his father’s example and he tried to rule absolutely. He also wanted to return the country to Roman Catholicism. So, in 1688 Parliament ruled that James had nullified his claim to the throne by breaking the contract of the Magna Carta.
James kept his head but lost his crown and slunk off to France, where he remained until his death. William of Orange (grandson of King Charles I) and his wife Mary (daughter of King James II), who were protestant and law abiding, became King William & Queen Mary.
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This is the King Richard of the Robin Hood stories, who went on crusade leaving bad Prince John (later King) to rule.
King John also imprisoned Arthur’s sister Eleanor, in order to keep her lands. She was a prisoner for 39 years.