The Magna Carta is seen as one of the most influential legal documents in British history. Indeed Lord Denning (1899 -1999) a distinguished British Judge and second only to the Lord Chief Justice as Master of the Rolls, called the document “the greatest constitutional document of all time – the foundation of the freedom of the individual against the arbitrary authority of the despot". However, its original conception was not nearly as successful.

The Magna Carta, also know as Magna Carta Libertatum (the Great Charter of Freedoms), was so called because the original version was drafted in Latin. It was introduced by some of the most notable barons of the thirteenth century in an act of rebellion against their King, King John I (24 December 1166 – 19 October 1216).
Increased taxes, the Kings’ excommunication by Pope Innocent III in 1209 and his unsuccessful and costly attempts to regain his empire in Northern France had made John hugely unpopular with his subjects. Whilst John was able to repair his relationship with the Pope in 1213, his failed attempt to defeat Phillip II of France in 1214 and his unpopular fiscal strategies led to a baron’s rebellion in 1215.
Whilst an uprising of this type was not unusual, unlike previous rebellions the barons did not have a clear successor in mind to claim the throne. Following the mysterious disappearance of Prince Arthur, Duke of Brittany, John’s nephew and son of his late brother Geoffrey (widely believed to have been murdered by John in an attempt to keep the throne), the only alternative was Prince Louis of France. However, Louis’ nationality (France and England had been warring for thirty years at this point) and his weak link to the throne as husband to John’s niece made him less than ideal.
As a result, the baron’s focused their attack on John’s oppressive rule, arguing that he was not adhering to the Charter of Liberties. This charter was a written proclamation issued by John’s ancestor Henry I when he took the throne in 1100, which sought to bind the King to certain laws regarding the treatment of church officials and nobles and was in many ways a precursor to the Magna Carta.
Negotiations took place throughout the first six months of 1215 but it was not until the baron’s entered the King’s London Court by force on 10 June, supported by Prince Louis and the Scottish King Alexander II, that the King was persuaded to affix his great seal to the ‘Articles of the Barons’, which outlined their grievances and stated their rights and privileges.
This significant moment, the first time a ruling King had been forcibly persuaded to renounce a great deal of his authority, took place at Runnymede, a meadow on the banks of the River Thames near Windsor on 15 June. For their part, the barons renewed their oaths of allegiance to the King on 19 June 1215. The formal document which was drafted by the Royal Chancery as a record of this agreement on 15 July was to become known retrospectively as the first version of the Magna Carta.
Signing of the Magna Carta

Whilst both the King and the baron’s had agreed to the Magna Carta as a means of reconciliation, there was still huge distrust on both sides. The baron’s had really wanted to overthrow John and see a new monarch take the throne. For his part John reneged on the most crucial section of the document, now known as Clause 61, as soon as the baron’s left London.
The clause stated that an established committee of barons had the ability to overthrow the King should he defy the charter at any time. John recognised the threat this posed and had the Pope’s full support in his rejection of the clause, because the Pope believed it called into question the authority of not only the King but the Church as well.
King John I

Sensing the failure of the Magna Carta in curbing John’s unreasonable behaviour the baron’s promptly changed tack and reinitiated their rebellion with a view to replacing the monarch with Prince Louis of France, thrusting Britain head long into the civil war known as the First Baron’s War. So as a means of promoting peace the Magna Carta was a failure, legally binding for only three months. It was not until John’s death from dysentery on 19th October 1216 whilst he was mounting a siege on the East of England that the Magna Carta finally made its mark.
Following fractions between Louis and the English barons, the royalist supporters of John’s son and heir, Henry III, were able to clinch a victory over the barons at the Battles of Lincoln and Dover in 1217. However, keen to avoid a repeat of the rebellion, the failed Magna Carta agreement was reinstated by William Marshal, the young Henry’s protector, as the Charter of Liberties - a concession to the barons. This version of the charter was edited to include 42 rather than 61 clauses, with clause 61 being notably absent.
On reaching adulthood in 1227, Henry III reissued a shorter version of the Magna Carta, which was the first to become part of English Law. Henry decreed that all future charters must be issued under the King’s seal and between the 13th and 15th centuries the Magna Carta is said to have been reconfirmed between 32 and 45 times, having last been confirmed by Henry VI in 1423.
It was during the Tudor period however, that the Magna Carta lost its place as a central part of English politics. This was partly because of the newly established Parliament but also because people began to recognise that the Charter as it stood arose from Henry III’s less dramatic reign and Edward I’s subsequent amendments (Edward’s 1297 version is the version of the Magna Carta recognised by English Law today) and was no more extraordinary than any other statute in its liberties and limitations.
It was not until the English Civil War that the Magna Carter shook off its less than successful origins and began to represent a symbol of liberty for those aspiring to a new life, becoming a major influence on the Constitution of the United States of America and the Bill of Rights, and much later the former British dominions of Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the former Union of South Africa and Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). However, by 1969 all but three of the clauses in the Magna Carta had been removed from the law of England and Wales.

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 39 (clause 39 in the 1215 charter), a right to due process:

"No free man shall be arrested, or imprisoned, or deprived of his property, or outlawed, or exiled, or in any way destroyed, nor shall we go against him or send against him, unless by legal judgement of his peers, or by the law of the land."

And what of the Magna Carta’s relevance today?

Although the Magna Carta is generally thought of as the document that was forced on King John in 1215, the almost immediate annulment of this version of the charter means it bears little resemblance to English Law today and the name Magna Carta actually refers to a number of amended statutes throughout the ages as opposed to any one document. Indeed the original Runnymede Charter was not actually signed by John or the baron’s (the words Data per manum nostrum which appeared on the charter proclaimed that the King was in agreement with the document and, as per common law at the time, the King’s seal was deemed sufficient authenticity) and so would not be legally binding by today’s standards.
Unlike many nations throughout the world the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland has no official written constitution, because the political landscape has evolved over time and is continually amended by Parliamentary acts and decisions made by the Courts of Law. Indeed the Magna Carta’s many revisions and subsequent repeals means that in reality it is more of a symbol of freedom of the (not so) common people in the face of a tyrannical monarch, which has been emulated in Constitutions throughout the world, most famously perhaps in the United States.
In perhaps a telling sign of the opposing views of Briton’s today, in the BBC History’s 2006 Poll to find a date for ‘Britain day’ – a proposed day to celebrate British identity – 15 June (the date the King’s seal was affixed to the first version of the Magna Carta) – received the most votes of all historical dates of significance. However, in an ironic contrast a 2008 survey by YouGov, the internet-based market research firm, found that 45% of British people did not actually know what the Magna Carta was…

http://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/The-Origins-of-the-Magna-Carta/
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MAGNA CARTA- in Canada

When:June 12, 2015 toDecember 29, 2015

http://www.magnacartacanada.ca/exhibition/

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God bless our Commonwealth of Nations formerly The British Empire (b4 that Little France)

Crusades
The Hundred Years War
King Henry VIII
The Interesting Life of Elizabeth I
The Stuarts - James I, Charles I, Charles II, James II
Oliver Cromwell

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God bless our troops, then, now ...always... thank u 4 r freedoms

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The Law of First Nations

The law of First Nations deals with issues such as:

- comprehensive and specific land and property compensation claims;

- treaty claims and interpretation;

- aboriginal self-government;

- claims to renewable and nonrenewable natural resources;

- hunting, fishing and trapping rights;

- government relations;

- economic development;

- taxation; and various public policy issues.

The Early Years

The Royal Proclamation of October 7, 1763 has been called the Magna Carta of Indian rights. In part, this Proclamation was intended to end the abuse which had marked dealings with Indians.
Abuse continued. In order to compel compliance the Quebec Act of 1774 extended Quebec's territory to include the land between the Appalachian height and the Mississippi River and from just south of Lake of the Woods to the Gulf of Mexico. The American Revolution of 1776 took back most of the extended Quebec lands.

Canada - Nationhood & Expansion

Canada's formation and expansion to the Pacific and north had a profound impact on the First Nations people.
After the American Revolution two new provinces were created; Ontario and New Brunswick, to accommodate the United Empire Loyalists who were moving out of the United States.
In 1867 four provinces, Quebec, Ontario, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia joined to form Canada. Canada's expansion was swift:

1868 - Rupert's Land was purchased and added to Canada;
1870 - Manitoba was carved out of a portion of Rupert's Land;
1871 - There was union with British Columbia on the promise to expedite the completion of the cross Canada railway;
1873 - Prince Edward Island joined Confederation;
1880 - Manitoba acquired more territory from Northwest Territories;
1886 - Islands and territories adjacent to Rupert's Land were added;
1898 - Yukon Territory formed out of Northwest Territories;
1905 - Alberta and Saskatchewan became provinces;
1912 - Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec acquired territory from Northwest Territories to form their present boundaries;
1949 - Newfoundland, which includes Labrador, joined Confederation;
1999 - Nunavut was formed out of the eastern part of Northwest Territories.

The Indian Treaties

The treaty process was implemented after 1870 to open the route west. These Treaties are known as the numbered Treaties. Treaties One through Eleven.
Title to Indian land was taken in return for the following:

Reserves of approximately one square mile per family of five;
Continued exercise of hunting, fishing and trapping rights;
The promise of schools on the Reservations. (To this day this is taken as a commitment by the government to provide education for the children);
The promise of a medicine chest. (This has been construed by the Courts to be a promise of health services);

Abuses continued. The promise of reserve lands was in a number of instances not fulfilled. Reserve lands were coveted and large areas were carved out from them, sometimes with consent and other times unilaterally and without compensation. Railways expropriated reserve lands freely, sometimes on speculation.
First Nations argue for an interpretation based on the "spirit and intent" of the treaties. The provinces and the federal government say the interpretation should be based on the express wording of the Treaty documents.
After the Constitution Act, 1982 was in place and in particular section 35, the Court came to the conclusion that overly strict interpretation of the treaties would lead to continued injustice. The decisions re: Nowegijick v. The Queen (1983) and re: Simon v. The Queen (1985) resulted in the court adopting the follow rule of construction:

"treaties and statutes dealing with Indians should be given a fair, large and liberal construction and doubtful expressions resolved in favour of the Indians, in the sense in which they would be naturally understood by the Indians."

Subsequent decisions have eroded that rule. In re: Mitchell v. Peguis Indian Band (1990) the majority of the court observed that, in interpretation statutes, the intention of Parliament is the determining factor, not the views of Indians whose rights might be affected. Regarding Treaties the court held that the rule does not apply in circumstances where Indians are educated and urbanized re: Howard v. The Queen (1994).
The Constitution Act - 1982, reinforces aboriginal rights in section 35

PART II
RIGHTS OF THE ABORIGINAL PEOPLES OF CANADA
35. (1) The existing aboriginal and treaty rights of the aboriginal peoples of Canada are hereby recognized and affirmed.
(2) In this Act, "aboriginal peoples of Canada" includes the Indian, Inuit, and Metis peoples of Canada.
(3) For greater certainty, in subsection (1) "treaty rights" includes rights that now exist by way of land claims agreements or may be so acquired.
(4) Notwithstanding any other provision of this Act, the aboriginal and treaty rights referred to in subsection (1) are guaranteed equally to male and female persons.(17)
35.1 The government of Canada and the provincial governments are committed to the principal that, before any amendment is made to Class 24 of section 91 of the "Constitution Act, 1867", to section 25 of this Act or to this Part,
(a) a constitutional conference that includes in its agenda an item relating to the proposed amendment, composed of the Prime Minister of Canada and the first ministers of the provinces, will be convened by the Prime Minister of Canada; and
(b) the Prime Minister of Canada will invite representatives of the aboriginal peoples of Canada to participate in the discussions on that item.(18)

Re: Sparrow v. The Queen (1990)
This case dealt with section 35. (1) of the Constitution Act, 1982 which states:

"The existing aboriginal and treaty rights of the aboriginal peoples of Canada are hereby recognized and affirmed."

At issue was an Aboriginal right to fish salmon with a gill net for food, social and ceremonial purposes. The appellant, Mr. Sparrow, was a member of the Musqueam Band. He was charged with exceeding the net length restriction imposed on the Band's Food Fishing License pursuant to the British Columbia (General) Fishery Regulations enacted pursuant to the federal Fisheries Act.

The Court ruled that Sparrow had been exercising a protected aboriginal right to fish for food in traditional fishing waters of his Nation. That right had been progressively regulated over the years, but regulation alone did not extinguish the right, which continued to "exist" though subject to regulation prior to 1982. The Court ruled that regulation of a right does not extinguish it.

General Laws (Indian Act)

Non Indians cannot live or otherwise use or occupy Indian reserve accept for some special exceptions.
Reserve land are not subject to seizure under legal process.
Employment income earned on the reserve is not subject to income taxes if the employee is an Indian.
Personal property on reserve is exempt from provincial sales tax and GST. e.g. Cars, furniture, take out food.

Links to More Information

The Indian Act

The Constitution Act, 1982

Royal Proclamation of October 7, 1763

http://www.canadianlawsite.ca/aboriginal.htm

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The Great Charter

Why a thirteenth-century piece of parchment endorsed by an English king who was under threat of death has meaning for Canadians today.

King John endorses Magna Carta in 1215. While this illustration shows him signing with a quill pen, he actually affixed a wax seal to the document.

Bridgeman Art Library

A 1225 copy of Magna Carta from Durham Cathedral in England. Numerous copies of the charter were created and distributed throughout england. Note how the seal is attached to the document.

Durham Cathedral

Images of King John's Magna Carta seal, shown from both sides.

Bridgeman Art Library

A 1300 edition of Magna Carta that will tour Canada in 2015.

Bridgeman Art Library

The Royal Proclamation of 1763, which required the Crown to negotiate treaties with First Nations, has been described as the "Indian Magna Carta."

Bridgeman Art Library

Nisga'a leader Frank Calder speaks with reporters February 8, 1973, following a meeting with Prime Minister Trudeau after the Supreme Court of Canada affirmed Aboriginal rights under what one judge called the "Indian Magna Carta" of 1763.

Canadian Press

by Christopher Moore

As it comes to Canada on its eight hundredth birthday, is Magna Carta simply interesting as an ancient thing we Canadians can gaze upon as a relic of history? Or is it still something to be struggled over?
Magna Charta Libertatum Angliae, the Great Charter of English Liberties, was born in strife and turmoil in 1215. With his barons’ swords not far from his throat, many of King John’s promises were very specific — and soon forgotten: “We will remove completely from their offices the kinsmen of Gerard de Athee, and in future they shall hold no offices in England.” But the document also laid down enduring principles of justice that would echo down the centuries: “To no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay right or justice.”
Today, Canadians can find in Magna Carta and its companion, the Charter of the Forest, declarations about the rule of law, guarantees of security of the person, the promise of environmental stewardship, a statement about the accountability of the Crown, and even an affirmation of women’s rights. Over the centuries, Magna Carta has matured into a venerable declaration of rights and a statement of the principles of justice, hardly posing a threat to anyone living under a government bound by law. In Canada, it seems that the liberties the medieval English fought over have long since been secured. It has become easy to celebrate Magna Carta complacently, as an ancient symbol of long-ago victories and as fodder for Monty Python routines: “We are all Britons. I am your king.” “I didn’t know we had a king. I thought we were an autonomous collective.”
Not everyone finds Magna Carta so safely mummified in history. If governments allowed Syrian-born Canadian Maher Arar to be kidnapped and tortured, where was Magna Carta’s promise of security of the person? If they secretly read our email, where is the promise of accountability? If authorities tolerate and encourage environmental degradation, where are the people’s rights to use the land? Throughout history, in fact, critics and change-makers have continued to invoke Magna Carta as a promise not yet kept. “The controversies through the ages about the meaning of Magna Carta are what keep it alive as a living document,” Peter Linebaugh, a prominent historian of Britain, said in an interview recently. This spring, as Magna Carta and the Forest Charter begin an unprecedented tour of Canada, they bring with them a remarkable heritage — and some debates that are very much alive.

Magna Carta on tour

In the early 1200s, Magna Carta went viral in the best way medieval England could provide. In 1215 — and when it was reissued in 1216, 1217, and 1225 — multiple copies of the precious text were made and sealed with the royal seal. And, since the seal made each one a legal declaration, they were technically not “copies” but each equally valid. These were dispersed across Britain, to the castles of barons, to county seats, to the great cathedrals. Over the centuries, most would gradually succumb to war and flood and vermin. Ireland’s copy, the Magna Carta Hibernae, was destroyed as recently as 1922, in the Irish Civil War. But a few of the originals survive: Just four of the 1215 documents are known to exist, plus another nine from the following decade.
Fittingly, Magna Carta, a statement of the rights of citizens, will tour Canada this year through the agency of two ordinary Canadian citizens, Len and Suzy Rodness, a lawyer and a real estate manager in Toronto. “We knew nothing,” exclaimed Suzy Rodness of the beginning of their quest to bring Magna Carta to Canada. But they knew a friend who had a relative in Durham, England, who in retirement had joined the Friends of Durham Cathedral. With a thousand-year-old cathedral to maintain, the organization was alert to fundraising opportunities, and Durham Cathedral holds three copies of Magna Carta. They were issued in 1216, 1225, and 1300. It also also holds three Charters of the Forest from 1217, 1225, and 1300.
The Rodnesses visited Durham in 2011, met the Friends of Durham Cathedral, and committed themselves to bringing the cathedral’s precious documents to Canada in 2015 for an eight-hundredth-anniversary tour. Originally, the cathedral’s 1225 Magna Carta was to be displayed but it was deemed to fragile to travel; the 1300 version will come to Canada instead.
“It takes time to organize everything, from the government approvals, to the arrangements with Durham, to the Canadian requirements,” said Suzy Rodness. To shoulder those burdens, the couple formed a non-profit organization, Magna Carta Canada, recruited a blue-ribbon board of volunteers and patrons, and set themselves to raise $2 million from sponsors and donors. With the help of Lord Cultural Resources, the Toronto-based world leader in designing museum exhibits, Magna Carta Canada began preparing a fitting presentation of the documents and building a lively multimedia show about the history and significance of Magna Carta for Canada and for human rights and democracy worldwide. Magna Carta and the Forest Charter will go on public display in four Canadian cities during 2015: at the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau, Quebec, the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg, the Fort York Visitor Centre in Toronto, and the Alberta legislature in Edmonton.
Magna Carta has been in Canada once before. In 2010, a 1217 version from the Bodleian Library at Oxford University came to New York for the North American reunion of Oxford University alumni. At around the same time, the eruption of Iceland’s Mount Eyjafjallajökull disrupted flights to the United Kingdom, delaying its return to Britain. The Manitoba legislature seized the opportunity to negotiate a loan of Magna Carta for a three-month exhibition.
As it happened, the Queen was in Winnipeg at this time to unveil a stone from Runnymede, where Magna Carta had been endorsed. Appropriately enough, that stone became the cornerstone of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights.
Why should Canadians see Magna Carta? To see the thing itself, for one thing: Four thousand words of medieval Latin, written on a single crammed sheet of animal-skin parchment with an ink made of dust, water, and powdered oak-apple (tannic acid extracted from galls that grow on oak trees). For another, because Magna Carta is, in the words of British historian Linda Colley, “one of the most iconic texts not just in British history but in global history.” For Suzy Rodness, the appeal is simple and powerful: “Doing this, we are learning about our country, learning what made Canada Canada — human rights, parliament, the rule of law. Our sons, now in their twenties, perhaps they never knew how fortunate they are to live in this country in this time. Now they get it, I think. Magna Carta influences all the things we take for granted.”

John soon reneged on his charter commitments, but in just over a year he was dead.

Magna Carta becomes iconic

“King John had a knack for bringing people together in animosity to him,” said Carolyn Harris of Toronto, a recent graduate in British royal history and the author of Magna Carta and its Gifts to Canada, a companion volume for the charter’s Canadian tour. King John, desperate for funds, had been plundering England, lunging after any source of money that might prop up his lands and his throne. The barons who were among his targets — their wives and children held hostage, their castles seized, their wealth extorted — considered killing John and putting a more pliable relative on the throne. Instead, they put forth a set of rules to bind the king. At Runnymede in the Thames Valley, not far from Windsor Castle (and today’s Heathrow Airport), King John acceded to the barons’ demands. On June 15, 1215, they agreed on a guarantee of due process of law, limits on royal exactions, the people’s right to use the common lands, and a council of the barons to ensure that the king fulfilled his promises.
John soon reneged on his charter commitments, but in just over a year he was dead. His young son, Henry III, would go on to a remarkable fifty-six years on the throne and (for a king) a placid family life — “so of course he is forgotten!” laughs Harris. But Magna Carta was reissued with Henry III’s seal, and Henry later agreed to annual sittings of parliament, with more than just the barons represented. The Magna Carta concept — that an English monarch was bound by a contract with his people — endured.
The fame and reputation of Magna Carta itself waxed and waned, Harris says. “It has been reborn and reinterpreted so many times!” After the Wars of the Roses, England looked to strong kings, and monarchs like the Tudors Henry VIII and Elizabeth I were happy to let the old charter of liberty become forgotten.
When Shakespeare wrote his play King John in the 1590s, Magna Carta did not rate a mention. When English parliaments of the 1600s began to battle the Stuart monarchs and their exalted notion of the rights of kings, however, the great jurist Edward Coke excavated Magna Carta from the obscurity of ancient legal tomes. It became again a symbol of liberty. Coke helped to draft charters for the first American colonies of England, too, and Magna Carta became part of the constitutional underpinning of British colonies and settlements.
Representative government and the rule of law became entrenched in the Anglo-American world after England’s Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the American Revolution a century later. Magna Carta began to seem safe, and tamed. Any orator could roll out praise of Magna Carta as the first statement of liberty. Muralists painted Runnymede scenes in courthouses and civic halls from London to Cleveland, and in Canada, too. Just what it stood for seemed less important, when it seemed mostly to affirm the status quo. For Britons and Canadians, Magna Carta meant constitutional monarchy, though for Americans it meant no monarchy at all. American courts repeatedly affirmed that property rights were the key point of Magna Carta, and before the Civil War property included slaves, who had no liberties and no due process. In an era of national and racial stereotypes, Magna Carta was often claimed as the unique heritage of English-speaking peoples, something peoples of other colours and continents could not achieve.

Still dangerous? Magna Carta's protest heritage

Peter Linebaugh, the veteran historian of eighteenth-century Britain, found himself reading the Charter of the Forest, the 1217 document that expands on the land-use guarantees of Magna Carta. King John’s Norman forebears had asserted that they owned the forests and unoccupied lands of England. John sought to deny his subjects access to them or, better still, to charge them fees. For the barons and the commoners alike, however, the forests were precious: hunting grounds for the barons, and for ordinary people a vital source of firewood, plants, honey, pasturage, and game for the food pot. When he agreed to Magna Carta, John agreed that the vast royal forests would be “disafforested” — they would become common ground again, once more open for the use of all who needed them. After reading the Forest Charter, Linebaugh began to reconsider “his” eighteenth-century Britain, when respect for the commons was repudiated by the Enclosure Acts that transferred lands from common use to private ownership. He considered the great famines of nineteenth-century India, after common land was converted to commercial cotton plantations; the manifesto of the Chiapas rebels of southern Mexico of the 1990s, which defended the village commons against industrial agriculture; and even the protests of Nigerian women in recent decades who have seen the oil industry destroy their only sources of firewood and clean water. The protection of Magna Carta can be invoked in protest wherever justice is subverted, government becomes tyrannical, and liberties are trampled. “It became a pillar of Anglo-Saxon racism in the nineteenth century, yet it was also cited by national liberation movements — by Nelson Mandela at his trial,” said Linebaugh.
In his book The Magna Carta Manifesto: Liberties and Commons for All, Linebaugh aligns the Forest Charter with a deeper radicalism: that of indigenous peoples all over the world, striving to protect their livelihoods and their lifeways when the very lands on which they depend become state property and then private property from which they are fenced off. Magna Carta has indeed become iconic around the world — surprisingly often in ways that can still make crowned heads uneasy. For, as Linebaugh notes, the barons wrote a right of resistance into Magna Carta.

Magna Carta in Canada

Canada inherited from Britain the Magna Carta principles along with constitutional monarchy, the rule of law, and other foundations of government. Are there other Canadian aspects to these documents that were drafted centuries before Europeans colonized the Americas?
John Borrows is Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Law at the University of Victoria law school. He is one of the scholars advising Magna Carta Canada about the meaning of the great charter for Canadians. And he is a member of the Ojibwa nation. He talked recently about the 1973 Supreme Court of Canada case called Calder, a key precedent in Canadian treaty law, in which a judge described the Royal Proclamation of 1763 as “the Indian Magna Carta.”
The Royal Proclamation required the Crown in Canada to negotiate treaties with Aboriginal nations, a duty that cannot arbitrarily be shirked. The history of treaties suggests that the First Nations understood those treaties as sharing agreements, a plan to hold the land in common for the benefit of all, somewhat as the Forest Charter provided for England.
“Magna Carta is imperfect and it is early,” said Borrows, “but it does restrict the Crown vis-a-vis the citizens. Now we have Article 35 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which affirms Aboriginal rights.
“Again, the state cannot just do what it wants. Magna Carta carries the understanding that concentration of power can be corrupting,” Borrows continued. “We are imperfect humans, and we are never going to get there, but Magna Carta can be seen as a statement of goals — because goals are never realized. They point us toward our better selves. And they suggest why we need law — to set our better natures against our worst.”
Go see Magna Carta, just to gaze on something so ancient and so enduring. You may find yourself also engaging with ideas that still drive people engaged in fundamental struggles for justice and for rights around the world — and also here in Canada.

MAGNA CARTA BY THE NUMBERS

On June 15, 1215, King John became the first English monarch to accept a charter of limits on his power as imposed by his subjects. Neither the king nor his rebel barons expected the agreement to last for very long, but Magna Carta inspired future generations and provided the foundation for English common law, which spread throughout the Englishspeaking world, including Canada. In 2015, a surviving copy of Magna Carta and a companion document, the Charter of the Forest, will tour Canada.
— by Carolyn Harris

Years of King John's reign when he affixed his seal to Magna Carta.

Number of barons who stood surety for the enforcement of Magna Carta.

Number of clauses scholars find in the 1215 version.

Number of the clause that sets a precedent for trial by jury, stating, “No free man shall be seized or imprisoned ... except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land.”

Months that passed between John accepting and then repudiating Magna Carta.

Number of surviving copies of Magna Carta that date between 1215 and 1300.

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http://www.canadashistory.ca/Magazine/Online-Extension/Articles/The-Great-Charter

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The incomparable Magna Carta - one of the worlds great documents. See the 800 year old document at the Canadian Museum of History, in Gatineau.

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The clauses of Magna Carta and American Legacy

Article by: Nicholas Vincent
Theme: Clauses and content

Magna Carta and Its American Legacy

Before penning the Declaration of Independence--the first of the American Charters of Freedom--in 1776, the Founding Fathers searched for a historical precedent for asserting their rightful liberties from King George III and the English Parliament. They found it in a gathering that took place 561 years earlier on the plains of Runnymede, not far from where Windsor Castle stands today. There, on June 15, 1215, an assembly of barons confronted a despotic and cash-strapped King John and demanded that traditional rights be recognized, written down, confirmed with the royal seal, and sent to each of the counties to be read to all freemen. The result was Magna Carta--a momentous achievement for the English barons and, nearly six centuries later, an inspiration for angry American colonists.

Magna Carta was the result of the Angevin king's disastrous foreign policy and overzealous financial administration. John had suffered a staggering blow the previous year, having lost an important battle to King Philip II at Bouvines and with it all hope of regaining the French lands he had inherited. When the defeated John returned from the Continent, he attempted to rebuild his coffers by demanding scutage (a fee paid in lieu of military service) from the barons who had not joined his war with Philip. The barons in question, predominantly lords of northern estates, protested, condemning John's policies and insisting on a reconfirmation of Henry I's Coronation Oath (1100), which would, in theory, limit the king's ability to obtain funds. (As even Henry ignored the provisions of this charter, however, a reconfirmation would not necessarily guarantee fewer taxes.) But John refused to withdraw his demands, and by spring most baronial families began to take sides. The rebelling barons soon faltered before John's superior resources, but with the unexpected capture of London, they earned a substantial bargaining chip. John agreed to grant a charter.
The document conceded by John and set with his seal in 1215, however, was not what we know today as Magna Carta but rather a set of baronial stipulations, now lost, known as the "Articles of the barons." After John and his barons agreed on the final provisions and additional wording changes, they issued a formal version on June 19, and it is this document that came to be known as Magna Carta. Of great significance to future generations was a minor wording change, the replacement of the term "any baron" with "any freeman" in stipulating to whom the provisions applied. Over time, it would help justify the application of the Charter's provisions to a greater part of the population. While freemen were a minority in 13th-century England, the term would eventually include all English, just as "We the People" would come to apply to all Americans in this century.
While Magna Carta would one day become a basic document of the British Constitution, democracy and universal protection of ancient liberties were not among the barons' goals. The Charter was a feudal document and meant to protect the rights and property of the few powerful families that topped the rigidly structured feudal system. In fact, the majority of the population, the thousands of unfree laborers, are only mentioned once, in a clause concerning the use of court-set fines to punish minor offenses. Magna Carta's primary purpose was restorative: to force King John to recognize the supremacy of ancient liberties, to limit his ability to raise funds, and to reassert the principle of "due process." Only a final clause, which created an enforcement council of tenants-in-chief and clergymen, would have severely limited the king's power and introduced something new to English law: the principle of "majority rule." But majority rule was an idea whose time had not yet come; in September, at John's urging, Pope Innocent II annulled the "shameful and demeaning agreement, forced upon the king by violence and fear." The civil war that followed ended only with John's death in October 1216.

A 1297 version of Magna Carta, presented courtesy of David M. Rubenstein, is on display in the new David M. Rubenstein Gallery at the National Archives.
To gain support for the new monarch--John's 9-year-old son, Henry III--the young king's regents reissued the charter in 1217. Neither this version nor that issued by Henry when he assumed personal control of the throne in 1225 were exact duplicates of John's charter; both lacked some provisions, including that providing for the enforcement council, found in the original. With the 1225 issuance, however, the evolution of the document ended. While English monarchs, including Henry, confirmed Magna Carta several times after this, each subsequent issue followed the form of this "final" version. With each confirmation, copies of the document were made and sent to the counties so that everyone would know their rights and obligations. Of these original issues of Magna Carta, 17 survive: 4 from the reign of John; 8 from that of Henry III; and 5 from Edward I, including the version now on display at the National Archives.
Although tradition and interpretation would one day make Magna Carta a document of great importance to both England and the American colonies, it originally granted concessions to few but the powerful baronial families. It did include concessions to the Church, merchants, townsmen, and the lower aristocracy for their aid in the rebellion, but the majority of the English population would remain without an active voice in government for another 700 years.
Despite its historical significance, however, Magna Carta may have remained legally inconsequential had it not been resurrected and reinterpreted by Sir Edward Coke in the early 17th century. Coke, Attorney General for Elizabeth, Chief Justice during the reign of James, and a leader in Parliament in opposition to Charles I, used Magna Carta as a weapon against the oppressive tactics of the Stuart kings. Coke argued that even kings must comply to common law. As he proclaimed to Parliament in 1628, "Magna Carta . . . will have no sovereign."

Lord Coke's view of the law was particularly relevant to the American experience for it was during this period that the charters for the colonies were written. Each included the guarantee that those sailing for the New World and their heirs would have "all the rights and immunities of free and natural subjects." As our forefathers developed legal codes for the colonies, many incorporated liberties guaranteed by Magna Carta and the 1689 English Bill of Rights directly into their own statutes. Although few colonists could afford legal training in England, they remained remarkably familiar with English common law. During one parliamentary debate in the late 18th century, Edmund Burke observed, "In no country, perhaps in the world, is law so general a study." Through Coke, whose four-volume Institutes of the Laws of England was widely read by American law students, young colonists such as John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison learned of the spirit of the charter and the common law--or at least Coke's interpretation of them. Later, Jefferson would write to Madison of Coke: "a sounder whig never wrote, nor of profounder learning in the orthodox doctrines of the British constitution, or in what were called English liberties." It is no wonder then that as the colonists prepared for war they would look to Coke and Magna Carta for justification.
By the 1760s the colonists had come to believe that in America they were creating a place that adopted the best of the English system but adapted it to new circumstances; a place where a person could rise by merit, not birth; a place where men could voice their opinions and actively share in self-government. But these beliefs were soon tested. Following the costly Seven Years' War, Great Britain was burdened with substantial debts and the continuing expense of keeping troops on American soil. Parliament thought the colonies should finance much of their own defense and levied the first direct tax, the Stamp Act, in 1765. As a result, virtually every document--newspapers, licenses, insurance policies, legal writs, even playing cards--would have to carry a stamp showing that required taxes had been paid. The colonists rebelled against such control over their daily affairs. Their own elected legislative bodies had not been asked to consent to the Stamp Act. The colonists argued that without either this local consent or direct representation in Parliament, the act was "taxation without representation." They also objected to the law's provision that those who disobeyed could be tried in admiralty courts without a jury of their peers. Coke's influence on Americans showed clearly when the Massachusetts Assembly reacted by declaring the Stamp Act "against the Magna Carta and the natural rights of Englishmen, and therefore, according to Lord Coke, null and void."

But regardless of whether the charter forbade taxation without representation or if this was merely implied by the "spirit," the colonists used this "misinterpretation" to condemn the Stamp Act. To defend their objections, they turned to a 1609 or 1610 defense argument used by Coke: superiority of the common law over acts of Parliament. Coke claimed "When an act of parliament is against common right or reason, or repugnant, or impossible to be performed, the common law will control it and adjudge such an act void. Because the Stamp Act seemed to tread on the concept of consensual taxation, the colonists believed it, "according to Lord Coke," invalid.
The colonists were enraged. Benjamin Franklin and others in England eloquently argued the American case, and Parliament quickly rescinded the bill. But the damage was done; the political climate was changing. As John Adams later wrote to Thomas Jefferson, "The Revolution was in the minds of the people, and this was effected, from 1760 to 1775, in the course of 15 years before a drop of blood was shed at Lexington."
Relations between Great Britain and the colonies continued to deteriorate. The more Parliament tried to raise revenue and suppress the growing unrest, the more the colonists demanded the charter rights they had brought with them a century and a half earlier. At the height of the Stamp Act crisis, William Pitt proclaimed in Parliament, "The Americans are the sons not the bastards of England." Parliament and the Crown, however, appeared to believe otherwise. But the Americans would have their rights, and they would fight for them. The seal adopted by Massachusetts on the eve of the Revolution summed up the mood--a militiaman with sword in one hand and Magna Carta in the other.
Armed resistance broke out in April 1775. Fifteen months later, the final break was made with the immortal words of the Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness." Although the colonies had finally and irrevocably articulated their goal, Independence did not come swiftly. Not until the surrender of British forces at Yorktown in 1781 was the military struggle won. The constitutional battle, however, was just beginning.
In the war's aftermath, many Americans recognized that the rather loose confederation of states would have to be strengthened if the new nation were to survive. James Madison expressed these concerns in a call for a convention at Philadelphia in 1787 to revise the Articles of Confederation: "The good people of America are to decide the solemn question, whether they will by wise and magnanimous efforts reap the just fruits of that Independence which they so gloriously acquired . . . or whether by giving way to unmanly jealousies and prejudices, or to partial and transitory interests, they will renounce the auspicious blessings prepared for them by the Revolution." The representatives of the states listened to Madison and drew heavily from his ideas. Instead of revising the Articles, they created a new form of government, embodied in the Constitution of the United States. Authority emanated directly from the people, not from any governmental body. And the Constitution would be "the supreme Law of the Land"--just as Magna Carta had been deemed superior to other statutes.
In 1215, when King John confirmed Magna Carta with his seal, he was acknowledging the now firmly embedded concept that no man--not even the king--is above the law. That was a milestone in constitutional thought for the 13th century and for centuries to come. In 1779 John Adams expressed it this way: "A government of laws, and not of men." Further, the charter established important individual rights that have a direct legacy in the American Bill of Rights. And during the United States' history, these rights have been expanded. The U.S. Constitution is not a static document. Like Magna Carta, it has been interpreted and reinterpreted throughout the years. This has allowed the Constitution to become the longest-lasting constitution in the world and a model for those penned by other nations. Through judicial review and amendment, it has evolved so that today Americans--regardless of gender, race, or creed--can enjoy the liberties and protection it guarantees. Just as Magna Carta stood as a bulwark against tyranny in England, the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights today serve similar roles, protecting the individual freedoms of all Americans against arbitrary and capricious rule.

Featured Document: The Magna Carta Main Page

Image Top Right:
A 1297 version of Magna Carta, presented courtesy of David M. Rubenstein, is on display in the West Rotunda Gallery at the National Archives.
Image Middle Left:
Sir Edward Coke's reinterpretation of Magna Carta provided an argument for universal liberty in England and gave American colonists a basis for their condemnation of British colonial policies. (Library of Congress)
Image Bottom Right:
Members of the British government and church mourn the demise of the Stamp Act. (Library of Congress)

http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured_documents/magna_carta/legacy.html

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THE LAW

Magna Carta

Contents

· Magna Carta

· Abstract

· Introduction

· Background

· Form

Magna Carta

Abstract

The Magna Carta (literally, the “Great Paper” or “Great Charter”) was acceded to by the King of England John in 1215 at Runnymede (in the county of Surrey, England), following an armed rebellion by his barons. This Charter arguably laid a number of the foundations for modern constitutional government.

It guaranteed the freedom of the Church, restricted the Crown of England´s powers to raise taxes, and guaranteed certain minimum rights of due process. The Magna Carta was frequently confirmed and renewed by successive English monarchs during the Middle Ages, but tended to be regarded no differently from an ordinary Statute of the time. It was in fact of little real effect in constraining the powers of the Kings of England.

By the 16th century, for various political reasons, the Charter came to be represented as a more significant source of constitutional legitimacy for both Crown and citizens. The Magna Carta later, then, played a role in the political and legal power plays that marked the run-up to the English Civil War.

Parts of the Magna Carta continued to be renewed into the 18th century; however, with the rise of modern parliamentary democracy, the Great Charter became less relevant, and by the late 19th century most clauses had been repealed, so that the document today is primarily of cultural and historical relevance.

It was in force for only a few months, when it was violated by the king. Just over a year later, with no resolution to the war, the king died, being succeeded by his 9-year old son, Henry III. The Charter (Carta) was reissued again, with some revisions, in 1216, 1217 and 1225.

Introduction

Emerging as a thirteenth-century agreement between crown and aristocracy, the charter came to be seen as representing wider legal and political principles, especially those of lawful and limited government.

Background

The charter was drafted against a backdrop of complex political and military disputes. At the center of each was King John (c. 1167–1216), the Plantagenet ruler of England, Wales, Ireland, and much of northern France. A descendant of the Normans who had conquered England a century earlier, John would become the first to reside permanently in England. He was crowned king in 1199 and immediately faced competing claims on his French territories, not least those of King Philip II (1165–1223) of France. In a series of wars with Philip and his allies, John lost much of his continental holdings by 1204. The following years saw him invade successfully Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. To exacerbate these military demands, John fell foul of Pope Innocent II (d. 1143). In 1207 the king contested the pope’s nominee for archbishop of Canterbury, Stephen Langton (c. 1150–1228). As a result, the pope placed England under an interdict on religious worship, excommunicated the king, and sided with Philip.

In attempting to pay for his military activities, John imposed increasing financial demands on the Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Combined with complaints about royal interference with the administration of justice, the result was a rebellion against the king. In 1212 John acquiesced to the pope, agreeing to surrender his kingdoms to the papacy as feudal overlord and repurchasing them from him. An invasion of England was narrowly avoided the following year when the French fleet was destroyed. John then invaded France in 1214 in the hope of reclaiming his territories there. He suffered a major defeat at Bouvines, resulting in the loss of most of his remaining continental possessions.

John soon faced additional problems within England. Encouraged by Archbishop Langton, the Anglo-Norman barons there remonstrated against the king’s financial demands and judicial interference. In May 1215 they took London by military force. A truce was sought and representatives met at Runnymede (Surrey), a meadow west of London on the river Thames, in June 1215. After much discussion, they agreed to a document of compromises called the Articles of the Barons. This was superseded by the charter subsequently known as Magna Carta.

Form

Formally, Magna Carta was a royal letter written in Latin dealing with a wide variety of issues: the freedom of the church, feudal customs, taxation, trade, and the law. This was not the first attempt to limit political power by a written charter. In England, for example, the Charter of Liberties issued by Henry I (c. 1068–1135) predated Magna Carta by over a century. Magna Carta was also similar to contemporaneous continental charters and legislation. Many of its rules came from a common pool of European political and legal thought, not least the canon law of the church. In the short term, the most potentially radical element of Magna Carta was probably the provision for a commission of barons to ensure royal compliance. But this came to nothing. Contrary to subsequent interpretation, it had little to do with the lesser landholders or the vast peasantry of England.

John renounced Magna Carta almost immediately. The pope, too, issued a papal bull against the agreement because it had been imposed by force. Civil war returned. Numerous barons now aligned themselves with Louis (1187–1226), Philip’s son and later Louis VIII of France, who invaded England in May 1216 with a significant army. Louis subsequently occupied London, where he was received enthusiastically by the barons and was proclaimed king of England. John made some military gains, but died of dysentery in October 1216. With his death, the barons’ complaints were less pressing. John’s nine-year-old son, Henry III (1207–1272), was seen as more politically malleable and was crowned English king. His regent, William Marshall (c. 1146–1219), one of the signatories of Magna Carta, revised and reissued the document in November 1216. Marshall was also able to convince most of the rebellious barons to renew their loyalty to the crown, ending the war. In 1217 a treaty was signed, and Louis left England. Another revision of Magna Carta that year separated the document into two sections: a brief Charter of the Forest concerning the royal forests, and the remaining text, the larger Magna Carta. Henry III reissued a still shorter version of Magna Carta in 1225. This version was confirmed by Edward I (1239–1307) in 1297.

The vague wording of Magna Carta, combined with changing social structures, meant that its text was continually reinterpreted. This is already evident in the fourteenth century. In general, the charter was largely ignored for centuries. By the seventeenth century, however, it took on greater significance in conflicts between king and Parliament. Lord Chief Justice Edward Coke (1552–1634) was especially important in popularizing the belief in Magna Carta’s wider constitutional principles. With parliamentary ascendancy in the late seventeenth century, it continued to play an important role in debates both in and out of Parliament. In the eighteenth century, Magna Carta served as a touchstone for American independence and constitutional government. In England, the nineteenth century brought a more balanced assessment of its historical meaning and the removal of most of its antiquated provisions from English law.

The document retains a deeply symbolic importance throughout the English-speaking world. The American Bar Association erected a monument at Runnymede in 1957. In May 2003 the Australian Parliament opened Magna Carta Place in Canberra. In the early twenty-first century, four copies of the original charter remain: two in the British Library and one each in the cathedral archives at Lincoln and Salisbury.

SEE ALSO Democracy; Feudalism; Monarchy; Monarchy, Constitutional; Sovereignty
BIBLIOGRAPHY

Breay, Claire. 2002. Magna Carta: Manuscripts and Myths. London: British Library.

Hindley, Geoffrey. 1990. The Book of Magna Carta. London: Bury St. Edwards.

Holt, J. C. 1985. Magna Carta and Medieval Government. London: Hambleton.

Holt, J. C. 1992. Magna Carta. 2nd ed. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press.

“Magna Carta.”International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. 2008. Seán Patrick Donlan

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Magnacharta

The document that has come to be known as Magna Charta (spelled variously as “charta”or “carta”), or Great Charter, is recognized as a fundamental part of the English constitutional tradition. Although it is not a constitution, it contains provisions on criminal law that were incorporated into the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution.

In 1215 King John of England (1199–1216) fought more than forty English barons and their followers in a civil war. The king had angered the barons by extracting revenues based on their feudal obligations in order to fight a war in France. After John lost the war, the barons rebelled against the king.

The rebels first demanded that the king confirm the Charter of Henry I, a coronation charter from 1100 in which King Henry I had promised to abolish all evil customs that oppressed the realm. Additional grievances were added to the charter, which King John was forced to accept at Runnymede in June 1215, after the rebels occupied London.

Magna Charta contains sixty-three chapters. Many of the chapters defined the king’s feudal rights over his vassals, preventing the king from arbitrarily collecting revenue from the barons. Chapter 39 established the right to due process of law, and in chapter 40 the king promised that he would not sell, deny, or delay justice to anyone.

Magna Charta did not resolve the dispute between the barons and King John. Within months they were fighting again. In August 1215 the charter was annulled by Pope Innocent III, John’s feudal overlord, on the grounds that it had been executed under duress. In 1216, however, after John’s death the charter was reissued with some modifications. At the conclusion of the civil war in 1217, it was reissued again with minor revisions. This version of Magna Charta became part of the English constitutional tradition; confirmed by later kings and interpreted by Parliament, it is still revered as a symbol of English liberties.

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MAGNA CHARTA

On June 15, 1215, King John (1199–1216) was surrounded on the battlefield at Runnymede by a cordon of England’s most powerful barons, who demanded royal recognition for certain liberties and legal procedures they enumerated in a written document known today as the Magna Charta. Contained in the Magna Charta’s 63 chapters are the seeds of trial by jury, due process, habeas corpus, and equality under the law. The Magna Charta was reissued three times during the reign of Henry III (1216–72) with some minor alteration, and confirmed by the Crown more than 30 times thereafter.

Sometimes called the Great Charter, the Magna Charta is widely considered to be the foundation of the English and U.S. constitutional systems, representing the first time the often tyrannical power of the monarchy was restrained by law and popular resistance. The Magna Charta was cited by sir edward coke, esteemed English jurist and member of the House of Commons, in opposition to the monarchy’s assertion of absolute power in the seventeenth century. During the American Revolution, colonists relied on the Magna Charta when they convened the First continental congress to restore the rights lost under the coercive legislation of Parliament.

Almost from its inception, the Great Charter has been imbued with two separate meanings, one literal and the other symbolic. The literal meaning is reflected by the original understanding of the Magna Charta in the thirteenth century; the symbolic meaning was developed by subsequent generations, which interpreted its provisions in light of a changing political landscape. The literal meaning was associated with the concrete rights enforced by the barons against the monarchy; the symbolic meaning became associated with the rule of law, an impartial system of justice, and government by the consent of the people and their representatives. To understand the symbolic importance attached to the Magna Charta, one must view the literal meaning in its original context.

The Magna Charta is the product of three competing legal jurisdictions: royal, ecclesiastical, and baronial. The royal system of justice maintained jurisdiction over all matters that

affected the monarch’s peace, directly or indirectly. Royal courts heard disputes at a central location in Westminster, and royal itinerant judges traveled locally to dispense the monarch’s justice to communities across England.

The Catholic church, with the pope presiding as the spiritual head in Rome, ran the ecclesiastical courts. These courts maintained jurisdiction over the discipline of the church’s clergy, religious offenses such as heresy, and most moral, marital, and testamentary matters

Baronial courts were governed by barons, powerful men who were given titles of dignity by the Crown and who held large parcels of land, known as manors, from the monarch. Each baron, as lord of his manor, was invested with the authority to hear disputes involving his tenants, men and women who agreed to work the land in exchange for shelter and security.

John alienated both the ecclesiastical and baronial jurisdictions during his reign as king, converting them into adversaries. The first ten years of John’s reign were consumed by controversy with the church. John considered the pope to be subordinate to the Crown and treated the archbishop as a mere civil servant. The church, on the other hand, considered itself to be a separate and independent sovereign that had shared power with the Crown since the time of Henry I (1100–1135). Henry I and the church had agreed that the nomination of bishops in England would tacitly remain with the king. But the pope retained power to confirm bishops by conferring upon them the honorary symbols of their title, the spiritual staff and ring.

The agreement between Henry I and the church provided no resolution for the controversy between King John and Pope Innocent III at the outset of the thirteenth century. The controversy began when Innocent III rejected John’s candidate for archbishop of Canterbury and substituted his own choice, Stephen Langton, a man of superior “moral and intellectual greatness”(Trevelyan 1982, 146). John responded by confiscating the church’s property in England. The papacy, whose power had grown as a result of its compromise with Henry I, subsequently undertook a series of steps to damage the Crown’s prestige and credibility.

The pope excommunicated King John, suspended religious sacraments in England, and declared the English empire a forfeit from God. Facing growing pressure from the church and increasing unpopularity among Catholics within his own country, John surrendered England to the papacy, receiving it back as a fief, which meant the Crown was now subordinate to Rome and was required to pay homage to the pope. These royal concessions satisfied the pope and made him a cautious ally of the Crown. Archbishop Langton was determined to achieve similar concessions for the barons.

The grievances voiced by the barons were quite different from those voiced by the church. The barons’ dissatisfaction stemmed from the manner in which the royal system of justice had been abused by King John. Prior to the reign of henry ii (1154–89), english law had comprised a loose collection of customs and traditions followed by a variety of ethnic groups scattered across the realm. Henry II created a centralized system of justice that emanated from London, which the monarch’s officials administered in a uniform manner to all English people in common. Although this “common law”established a body of rights and procedures by which all litigants appearing before the ruler’s courts would theoretically be treated the same, it also vested an enormous amount of power in the Crown. The tension separating arbitrary royal power from the principle of equality under the law erupted during the struggle between King John and his baronial magnates.

King John regularly sold legal rights and privileges to the highest bidder, rewarded favorites, punished enemies, and otherwise administered justice in an erratic and unfair fashion. For a dispute to be heard by the royal courts, parties were required to pay the monarch fees, which varied from case to case depending on the circumstances. If the Crown was in need of emergency revenue—and it seemingly always was during the reign of King John—these litigation fees were increased commensurate with the urgency of a particular financial crisis. Litigants in good graces with the monarch typically paid lower court fees than litigants in disfavor. A defendant who requested the postponement or suspension of a legal matter was required to pay a greater fee than the plaintiff was charged.

Such litigation fees, which were paid in all legal matters—civil, criminal, matrimonial, and probate—simply enabled parties to assert their claims and defenses before the royal court. They did not guarantee a particular outcome, although the amount paid may have influenced the outcome, and they bore no relationship to the penalty or fine imposed on the losing party. Consequently, defendants who paid an exorbitant fee just to present an unsuccessful defense often faced fines of an equally outrageous amount. Defendants who suffered incarceration for a wrongdoing were usually forced to purchase their freedom from the monarch.

The manner in which the ruler enforced and collected royal debts was no less capricious. Litigants who could not afford to pay the legal fees set by the Crown frequently borrowed money from the ruler in order to pursue a particular right or remedy. The terms of such loan agreements were typically draconian. As collateral for these loans, John required the debtors to pledge their estates, personal property, and sometimes family members. In one case, a debtor was forced to pledge his castle and four sons as collateral. On other occasions, friends and family members of the debtor were held hostage by the king until the loan was repaid in full.

In some instances, the king simply forgave a loan because the debtor was a personal friend, had promised political favors, or had provided an invaluable service. In most instances, the invaluable service was military duty. During the thirteenth century, each baron was required to serve as a soldier in the monarch’s army, and provide the Crown with a certain number of knights for military service. A fine could be paid in lieu of the baron’s military service, and a tax, known as scutage, was then paid in lieu of the knights’ service. When King John launched a military campaign, he dramatically increased the fines and taxes for nonservice, and used these monies to pay mercenaries to fight his battles.

Although King John dreamed of building an English empire through military conquest on the European continent, he was an utter failure on the battlefield. With each military loss, the miscellaneous economic demands made by the Crown seemed less justified and more absurd. It is not surprising, then, that the barons renounced loyalty to the king, plotted his assassination, and ultimately compelled his capitulation to the Magna Charta.

The grievances King John promised to redress in the Magna Charta represent both the substance of the Great Charter’s original meaning and its later symbolic import. The document’s immediate purpose was to appease the baronial leadership. In this vein, it provided that justice would not be sold, denied, or delayed (ch. 40), and ensured that certain rights and procedures would be “granted freely” without risk of “life or limb”(ch. 36). It guaranteed the safe return of hostages, lands, castles, and family members that had been held as security by the Crown for military service and loan agreements. The Magna Charta mandated the investigation and abolition of any “ill customs”established by King John (ch. 48), and required that no “justices, constables, sheriffs, or bailiffs”be appointed unless they “know the law of the land, and are willing to keep it”(ch. 45).

The phrase “law of the land”is interspersed throughout the Magna Charta, and is emblematic of other abstract legal concepts contained in the Great Charter that outlasted the exigencies of 1215. Nowhere in the Great Charter is “law of the land”defined, but a number of sections offer an early glimpse of certain constitutional liberties in embryonic form.

For example, the American colonies equated “law of the land”with “due process of law,”a legal principle that has been the cornerstone of procedural fairness in U.S. civil and criminal trials since the late 1700s. The due process clause of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments has been relied on by the U.S. Supreme Court as a source for substantive rights as well, including the right to privacy.

Chapter 39 of the Magna Charta linked the law-of-the-land principle with another important protection. It provided, “No free man shall be seized, or imprisoned, or disseised, or outlawed, or exiled or injured in any way, nor will we enter on him or send against him except by the lawful judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land.”In 1215, a person obtained “lawful judgment of his peers”through a communal inquest in which 12 knights or landowners familiar with the subject matter of the dispute took an oath, and swore to testify truthfully based on their own knowledge or on knowledge gained from an eyewitness or other credible source.

This primitive form of fact-finding replaced even cruder methods—such as trial by battle, where the disputants fought savagely until one party begged for mercy or died, and the victorious party was presumed to have God and Right on his side. The process of one’s peers in the community rendering judgment also presaged the modern trial by jury recognized by the seventh amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which similarly entitles a defendant to be tried by a body of jurors that is a “truly representative”cross section of the community (Glasser v. United States, 315 U.S. 60, 62 S. Ct. 457, 86 L. Ed. 680 [1942]).

The U.S. Supreme Court has also traced the origins of modern habeas corpus law to chapter 39 of the Magna Charta (Murray v. Carrier, 477 U.S. 478, 106 S. Ct. 2639, 91 L. Ed. 2d 397 [1986]). Habeas corpus is a procedure that authorizes a court to determine the legality under which a person is jailed, imprisoned, or otherwise detained by the government. If the court finds that the person was deprived of liberty through “due process of law,”continued detention is permissible until trial, where guilt and innocence are placed in issue. Similarly, the Magna Charta validated the continued imprisonment of persons who had been originally incarcerated by the “law of the land.”

In Harmelin v. Michigan, 501 U.S. 957, 111 S. Ct. 2680, 115 L. Ed. 2d 836 (1991), the Supreme Court also pointed to the Magna Charta as an early source of its eighth amendment proportionality analysis. Chapter 20 of the Great Charter prohibited the monarch from imposing a fine “unless according to the measure of the offense.”It further provided that “for a great offense [a free man] shall be [punished] according to the greatness of the offense.”Under the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution, the Supreme Court has echoed this principle by prohibiting state and federal governments from imposing fines and other forms of punishment that are disproportionate to the seriousness of the offense for which the defendant was convicted.

The contemporary significance of the Magna Charta is not confined to the areas of civil and criminal procedure. The Great Charter prohibited the government from assessing any military tax such as scutage “except by the common counsel of [the] realm”(ch. 12). The common counsel comprised persons from various classes of English society, including bishops, abbots, earls, and barons. The common counsel was a forerunner to Parliament and Congress as a representative body limiting the power of the government to pass legislation, particularly tax legislation, without popular consent.

The common counsel also proclaimed what would become a battle cry of the American colonists: No Taxation without Representation. Indeed, some colonists decried the stamp act, a statute passed by Parliament that taxed everything from newspapers to playing cards, as an illegal attempt to raise revenue in violation of the Magna Charta. Other colonists cited “the assembly of barons at Runnymede, when Magna Carta was signed”as precedent for the Continental Congress (Bailyn 1992, 173 n. 13).

The achievement of the Magna Charta, then, is found not only in the original meaning understood by Englanders of the thirteenth century, but also in the subsequent application of the document’s principles. The Magna Charta began as a peace treaty between the baronial class and the king, but later symbolized a written contract between the governed and the government, a contract that included the right of rebellion when the government grew despotic or ruled without popular consent.

The Magna Charta also came to represent the notion of government bound by the law, sometimes referred to as the rule of law. The distinction between government according to law and government according to the will of the sovereign has been drawn by legal and political philosophers for thousands of years. This distinction was also made during the reign of King John. For example, Peter Fitz Herbert, an important landowner, complained that his father had been “disseised”of land “by the will of the king”despite evidence that the land belonged to his family as a matter of “right.”

In another case, jurors returned a verdict against the Crown because the king had acted “by his will and without judgment”(Holt 1965, 91). For subsequent generations, in both England and the United States, the Magna Charta signified the contrast between tyrannical government unfettered by anything but the personal whims of its political leadership, and representative government limited by the letter and spirit of the law. The Magna Charta implied that no government official, not even an autocratic monarch asserting absolute power, is above the law.

Finally, the Magna Charta has come to symbolize equality under the law. Although the baronial leadership of 1215 represented a privileged class of male landowners, many provisions of the Magna Charta safeguarded the interests of women as well. For example, the Magna Charta granted women the right to refuse marriage and the option to remarry. It also protected a widow’s dower interest in one-third of her husband’s property.

Some provisions of the Magna Charta applied more broadly to all “free”individuals (ch. 39), whereas other provisions seemingly applied to every person in the realm, free or not. Chapter 16, for example, stated that “no one”shall be compelled to perform service for a knight’s fee, and chapter 42 guaranteed a safe return to “anyone”who left the realm.

The most telling provision in this regard was chapter 40, which provided that “justice”will be sold to “no one.”This provision embodies more than the idea that justice is cheapened when bought and sold. It also underscores the principle that all persons, rich and poor, must be treated the same under the law. An extension of this principle was captured by the equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which, as interpreted by the Supreme Court, invalidates laws that discriminate on the basis of, among other things, race, gender, national origin, and illegitimacy.

“Magna Charta.”West’s Encyclopedia of American Law. 2005

further readings

Bailyn, Bernard. 1992. The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. Enl. ed. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press.

Caher, John. 2002. “Rosenblatt Reflects on Impact of Magna Carta.”New York Law Journal 228 (July 11): 1.

Holt, J.C. 1965. Reprint 1992. Magna Carta. Cambridge: University of Cambridge.

Irvine, Alexander Andrew Mackay. 2003. “The Spirit of Magna Carta Continues to Resonate in Modern Law.”Law Quarterly Review 119 (April): 227–45.

McKechnie, William Sharp. 2000. Magna Carta: A Commentary on the Great Charter of King John: With an Historical Introduction. Union, N.J.: Lawbook Exchange.

Plucknett, Theodore. 1956. A Concise History of the Common Law. Boston: Little, Brown.

Siegan, Bernard H. 2001. Property Rights: From Magna Carta to the Fourteenth Amendment. New Brunswick, N.J.: Social Philosophy and Policy Foundation.

Trevelyan, G.M. 1982. A Shortened History of England. Middlesex, England: Penguin.

Wells, J.C. 2002. Magna Charta, or, The Rise and Progress of Constitutional Civil Liberty in England and America: Embracing the Period from the Norman Conquest to the Centennial Year of American Independence. Buffalo, N.Y.: W.S. Hein.

Wormald, Patrick. 1999. The Making of English Law. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell.

Magna Carta or Magna Charta [Lat.,?=?great charter], the most famous document of British constitutional history, issued by King John at Runnymede under compulsion from the barons and the church in June, 1215.

The Reasons for Its Granting

Charters of liberties had previously been granted by Henry I, Stephen, and Henry II, in attempts to placate opposition to a broad use of the king’s power as feudal lord. John had incurred general hostility. His expensive wars abroad were unsuccessful, and to finance them he had charged excessively for royal justice, sold church offices, levied heavy aids, and abused the feudal incidents of wardship, marriage, and escheat. He had also appointed advisers from outside the baronial ranks. Finally in 1215 the barons rose in rebellion. Faced by superior force, the king entered into parleys with the barons at Runnymede. On June 15, after some attempts at evasion, John set his seal to the preliminary draft of demands presented by the barons, and after several days of debate a compromise was reached (June 19). The resulting document was put forth in the form of a charter freely granted by the king—although in actuality its guarantees were extorted by the barons from John. There are four extant copies of the original charter.

The Original Charter

The original charter, in Latin, is a relatively brief and somewhat vague document of some 63 clauses, many of which were of only transient significance. The charter was in most respects a reactionary document; its purpose was to insure feudal rights and dues and to guarantee that the king would not encroach upon baronial privileges. There were provisions guaranteeing the freedom of the church and the customs of the towns, special privileges being conferred upon London.

The charter definitely implies that there are laws protecting the rights of subjects and communities that the king is bound to observe or, if he fails to do so, will be compelled to observe. Historically most important were the vaguely worded statements against oppression of all subjects, which later generations interpreted as guarantees of trial by jury and of habeas corpus. Such interpretations, however, were the work of later scholars and are not explicit in the charter itself. The fact that many of the early interpretations of its provisions were based upon bad historical scholarship or false reasoning, however, does not vitiate the importance of the Magna Carta in the development of the British constitution.

Revisions and Reinterpretations

As an actual instrument of government the charter was, at first, a failure. The clumsy machinery set up to prevent the king’s violation of the charter never had an opportunity to function, and civil war broke out the same year. On John’s death in 1216, the charter was reissued in the name of young King Henry III, but with a number of significant omissions relative to safeguards of national liberties and restrictions on taxation. It was reissued with further changes in 1217 and again in 1225, the latter reissue being the one that was incorporated into British statute law.

In later centuries it became a symbol of the supremacy of the constitution over the king, as opponents of arbitrary royal power extracted from it various “democratic”interpretations. This movement reached its height in the 17th cent. in the work of such apologists for Parliament as Sir Edward Coke. It came to be thought that the charter forbade taxation without representation, that it guaranteed trial by jury, even that it invested the House of Commons (nonexistent in 1215) with great powers. These ideas persisted until the 19th cent., when certain scholars came to maintain that the Magna Carta was a completely reactionary, not a progressive, document—that it was merely a guarantee of feudal rights. It is generally recognized now, however, that the charter definitely did show the viability of opposition to excessive use of royal power and that this constitutes its chief significance.

Bibliography

See W. S. McKechnie, Magna Carta: A Commentary (2d ed. 1914, repr. 1960); H. E. Malden, ed., Magna Carta Commemoration Essays (1917); F. Thompson, The First Century of Magna Carta (1925, repr. 1967); M. Ashley, Magna Carta in the Seventeenth Century (1965); J. C. Holt, Magna Carta (1965, repr. 1969); A. Pallister, Magna Carta (1971); J. C. Holt, Magna Carta and the Idea of Liberty (1972) and Magna Carta and Medieval Government (1985).

“Magna Carta.”The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.
…..

Magna Carta and Its American Legacy

Before penning the Declaration of Independence–the first of the American Charters of Freedom–in 1776, the Founding Fathers searched for a historical precedent for asserting their rightful liberties from King George III and the English Parliament. They found it in a gathering that took place 561 years earlier on the plains of Runnymede, not far from where Windsor Castle stands today. There, on June 15, 1215, an assembly of barons confronted a despotic and cash-strapped King John and demanded that traditional rights be recognized, written down, confirmed with the royal seal, and sent to each of the counties to be read to all freemen. The result was Magna Carta–a momentous achievement for the English barons and, nearly six centuries later, an inspiration for angry American colonists.

Magna Carta was the result of the Angevin king’s disastrous foreign policy and overzealous financial administration. John had suffered a staggering blow the previous year, having lost an important battle to King Philip II at Bouvines and with it all hope of regaining the French lands he had inherited. When the defeated John returned from the Continent, he attempted to rebuild his coffers by demanding scutage (a fee paid in lieu of military service) from the barons who had not joined his war with Philip. The barons in question, predominantly lords of northern estates, protested, condemning John’s policies and insisting on a reconfirmation of Henry I’s Coronation Oath (1100), which would, in theory, limit the king’s ability to obtain funds. (As even Henry ignored the provisions of this charter, however, a reconfirmation would not necessarily guarantee fewer taxes.) But John refused to withdraw his demands, and by spring most baronial families began to take sides. The rebelling barons soon faltered before John’s superior resources, but with the unexpected capture of London, they earned a substantial bargaining chip. John agreed to grant a charter.

The document conceded by John and set with his seal in 1215, however, was not what we know today as Magna Carta but rather a set of baronial stipulations, now lost, known as the “Articles of the barons.”After John and his barons agreed on the final provisions and additional wording changes, they issued a formal version on June 19, and it is this document that came to be known as Magna Carta. Of great significance to future generations was a minor wording change, the replacement of the term “any baron”with “any freeman”in stipulating to whom the provisions applied. Over time, it would help justify the application of the Charter’s provisions to a greater part of the population. While freemen were a minority in 13th-century England, the term would eventually include all English, just as “We the People”would come to apply to all Americans in this century.

While Magna Carta would one day become a basic document of the British Constitution, democracy and universal protection of ancient liberties were not among the barons’ goals. The Charter was a feudal document and meant to protect the rights and property of the few powerful families that topped the rigidly structured feudal system. In fact, the majority of the population, the thousands of unfree laborers, are only mentioned once, in a clause concerning the use of court-set fines to punish minor offenses. Magna Carta’s primary purpose was restorative: to force King John to recognize the supremacy of ancient liberties, to limit his ability to raise funds, and to reassert the principle of “due process.”Only a final clause, which created an enforcement council of tenants-in-chief and clergymen, would have severely limited the king’s power and introduced something new to English law: the principle of “majority rule.”But majority rule was an idea whose time had not yet come; in September, at John’s urging, Pope Innocent II annulled the “shameful and demeaning agreement, forced upon the king by violence and fear.”The civil war that followed ended only with John’s death in October 1216.

A 1297 version of Magna Carta, presented courtesy of David M. Rubenstein, is on display in the West Rotunda Gallery at the National Archives.

To gain support for the new monarch–John’s 9-year-old son, Henry III–the young king’s regents reissued the charter in 1217. Neither this version nor that issued by Henry when he assumed personal control of the throne in 1225 were exact duplicates of John’s charter; both lacked some provisions, including that providing for the enforcement council, found in the original. With the 1225 issuance, however, the evolution of the document ended. While English monarchs, including Henry, confirmed Magna Carta several times after this, each subsequent issue followed the form of this “final”version. With each confirmation, copies of the document were made and sent to the counties so that everyone would know their rights and obligations. Of these original issues of Magna Carta, 17 survive: 4 from the reign of John; 8 from that of Henry III; and 5 from Edward I, including the version now on display at the National Archives.

Although tradition and interpretation would one day make Magna Carta a document of great importance to both England and the American colonies, it originally granted concessions to few but the powerful baronial families. It did include concessions to the Church, merchants, townsmen, and the lower aristocracy for their aid in the rebellion, but the majority of the English population would remain without an active voice in government for another 700 years.

Despite its historical significance, however, Magna Carta may have remained legally inconsequential had it not been resurrected and reinterpreted by Sir Edward Coke in the early 17th century. Coke, Attorney General for Elizabeth, Chief Justice during the reign of James, and a leader in Parliament in opposition to Charles I, used Magna Carta as a weapon against the oppressive tactics of the Stuart kings. Coke argued that even kings must comply to common law. As he proclaimed to Parliament in 1628, “Magna Carta . . . will have no sovereign.”

Source: Magna Carta and Its American Legacy, National Archives and Records Administration

…..

The principal offender is said to be Sir Edward Coke, himself both Judge and Parliamentarian.[1] In his Second Institutes, he wrote that the Charter derived its name from its ‘great importance, and the weightiness of the matter’.[2] He was wrong in this. It was so named to distinguish it from the separate and shorter Charter of the Forest.[3] Coke also considered that the terms of Magna Carta were ‘for the most part declaratory of the principal grounds of the fundamental laws of England, and for the residue it is additional to supply some defects of the common law … . [4]’ Coke certainly went too far, although it can be said that Magna Carta has had effect both as a statute and through the common law. The real issue, however, is whether Coke was closer than his critics to an enduring truth.

Magna Carta was re-issued four times, with various amendments, and is now thought to have been confirmed by Parliament on almost fifty further occasions.[5] The authoritative text, four chapters of which remain on the statute book in England,[6] is Edward I’s inspeximus of 1297.[7] A copy of this version, the only one outside the United Kingdom, is displayed in Australia’s new Parliament House. By accompanying words of confirmation, also still on the statute book,[8] it is said that the Charter of Liberties ‘made by common assent of all the realm … shall be kept in every point without breach’; [9] and that the Charter shall be taken to be the common law.[10] In many respects Magna Carta has transcended the distinction between law and politics and its legacy represents a joint commitment by Monarchs, Parliamentarians and the Courts, to the rule of law.[11] This legacy forms a central part of the shared constitutional heritage of Britain and Australia. It is in recognition of this that the monument to Magna Carta, which I visited earlier today, has been established in the Parliamentary Zone of Australia’s national capital, incorporating the British Government’s contribution towards the celebrations of the Centenary of Australia’s Federation last year.[12]

For some, Magna Carta today represents no more than a distant constitutional echo. My proposition, to the contrary, is that the spirit of Magna Carta continues to resonate in modern law. However, let me first reaffirm Magna Carta’s constitutional significance and refute suggestions that it was no more than a narrow baronial pact.[13]
Magna Carta and the Emergence of the Rule of Law

The dramatic events surrounding King John’s capitulation remain of central importance to understanding the constitutional significance and enduring message of Magna Carta. Indeed, the Australian monument to Magna Carta fittingly incorporates scenes from the period, which should continue to inspire generations of lawyers, laymen and parliamentarians alike.[14]

The story of Magna Carta is a chapter in the continuing history of the struggle between power and freedom. It is a chapter set in a time when ultimate power was concentrated in the hands of a single ruler. However, in a time before the principle of primogeniture had become established, the death of a King was usually followed by a contest for succession in which contestants relied both on might and right in enlisting the support of important magnates, the Church, and those in control of the treasury. It was at this stage that the privilege and power of Kings was most clearly limited. Before coronation by the Church, new Kings were required to make an Oath to observe justice and equity and to uphold the peace. Abuses of the previous reign were stipulated and forbidden for the future. Such were the terms of Henry I’s Coronation Oath, sworn in 1100. Henry had rapidly seized the throne after his father died suddenly, if not a little suspiciously, while they were hunting; but his claim was weak and he had shaky baronial support. For these reasons he embodied his Oath in a Charter of Liberties, which was the crude precursor of Magna Carta.[15] Nonetheless, once crowned, a Coronation Oath, even in the form of a Charter, was no restraint against a powerful King. Few expected such promises to be taken particularly seriously, and Henry broke every one of them.[16]

However, Magna Carta was not, as is often said, simply a reaction against the tyrannies and excesses of King John. Sir James Holt, the pre-eminent modern authority on Magna Carta, has argued that the predominant cause of the Charter was the manner in which the Angevin Kings exploited England in an attempt to expand and defend their continental empire.[17] This process can be traced to the accession of Henry II in 1154 who, as Count of Anjou and Duke of Normandy, had dominions covering three-fifths of France. To sustain this empire Henry gave the administrative centres of England, the Curia Regis and the Exchequer, a new lease of life. He extended the jurisdiction of the King’s Courts, and exploited the feudal obligations owed by his barons.[18] The momentum was increased by Henry’s successor, Richard I, and his Chief Justiciar, Hubert Walter, since it was necessary to pay for Richard’s prolonged and expensive crusades.[19] The Angevin Kings also eagerly seized new opportunities to raise revenue that were not open to other feudal lords, notably the taxation of trade and the control of weights and measures. Faced with this centralised and ruthlessly efficient governmental apparatus, the King’s subjects required assurances that good practices would be observed and their liberties preserved.

Even so, it was no accident that the revolt occurred in the reign of King John. He was a capricious and inconstant ruler. Moreover, he inflamed his barons by demanding enormous scutages and aids to finance his unsuccessful military expeditions. He lost Normandy to the French King and his nickname, “John Softsword”, set him in unfavourable contrast with his lionhearted brother, Richard. A battle with Rome ended in his astute but ignominious offer of homage to the Pope.

When John determined on setting out across the Channel to stamp his authority on his lands in Poitou and Anjou and perhaps even re-take Normandy itself, he found many of his barons refusing to follow, in open defiance of their fealty. Instead John, with his mercenaries, set off northward to bring the most intransigent northern magnates to heel. Civil war was averted only by the bold intervention of Stephen Langton, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who persuaded John not to distrain his barons without lawful judgment of his court. Enraged, John had to settle for a fortnight’s marching about his northern fiefdoms stamping his feet in frustration.[20] The following year in 1214 John renewed his assault on his enemies in France, but was this time deserted by his Poitevin barons. On his return to England his discontented English magnates seized their opportunity and John was confronted by open revolt. As John’s biographer has put it: ‘it may well have seemed to men already inflamed to the point of conspiracy, that John had been obliged to come to terms with the Church and with the French king and that the next item on the agenda, as it were, was that he should come to terms with them.’[21]

It was likely to have been Stephen Langton who produced Henry I’s Charter as a way of focusing and legitimating the baronial grievances.[22] While many of the barons, it is true, were principally activated by selfish desires for revenge and recompense, the Charter also appealed to moderates. It provided a point of compromise and a sure foundation for Magna Carta.[23] The terms of Magna Carta itself were hammered out during protracted negotiations in the meadow in Runnymead in 1215.[24] King John was undoubtedly trying to buy time and the country was still destined to descend into civil war. However, when the storm eventually subsided Magna Carta emerged as the rock upon which the constitution would gradually be built and the fulcrum upon which the constitutional balance would be struck.

The terms of John’s Charter amplified and expanded Henry I’s.[25] It was dominated by issues of contemporary importance as diverse as reliefs, widows, wardships and fishweirs. Scutages and aids were only to be levied by the Common Council of the Kingdom.[26] The City of London, which had played host to the rebel barons, was to have all its ancient liberties and free customs.[27] There were several concessions to merchants, and weights and measures were regularised. The most famous chapters,[28] which later became the venerated chapter 29, stated that no free man was to be arrested, imprisoned, disseised, outlawed or exiled or in any way destroyed, except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land. To no one in his realm, the King swore, would he sell, refuse, or delay right or justice. It is stretching imagination to find here a protection of jury trial, but Magna Carta manifestly asserted the superiority of the ordinary law and of regular over arbitrary justice.[29]

There is no reason to think, as is often suggested, that Stephen Langton was also solely responsible for the inclusion of ‘free men’ as addressees of the Charter. It was becoming clear to reflective Lords and Bishops that the Charter required a broader base than would be supplied by a simple baronial pact.[30] Coke later took the inclusion of “free men” to encompass the entire citizenry, but, while it was certainly used broadly, it excluded the villein who was protected only by local custom in his lord’s court.[31] Nonetheless, Sir James Holt has argued that the Charter was unique in accepting an exceptional degree of legal parity among free men, and also in its comprehensive application to a relatively cohesive community.[32]

By chapter 61, if the King transgressed, he was at the mercy of the ‘community of the whole realm’.[33] Moreover, some provisions applied universally, such as the promise not to sell, refuse or deny justice. The provision which might have had the greatest popular significance was chapter 20.[34] By this chapter no man was to be fined except in proportion to the degree of the offence; and his livelihood was to be at all times preserved. Merchants were not to be deprived of their goods nor villein tenants deprived of their ploughs. These protections against destitution were not, as such, binding against all the world, only against the King; but further protection against the abuses of feudal lords was embodied in chapter 60, according to which they were to observe the same good practices in respect of their men as promised by the King in respect of his.[35] This not only bestowed another dimension on chapter 20, but also extended the protections on such matters as wardships and marriage. The breadth of these protections is illustrated by the fact that in later times Magna Carta was most commonly relied upon in suits between private individuals.[36] This was, then, no mere private bargain between King and barons.

The great nineteenth century constitutional historian, Bishop Stubbs, went as far as to declare Magna Carta the first great act of a united nation.[37] It is apparent that there was much insight in this assessment. Magna Carta was certainly the product of a shift in the structure of society. The Angevin Kings, with their powerful central administration, had been forced to concede that governmental power should be exercised according to principle, custom and law.[38] Although the crisis in 1215 was immediately and in great part a tussle between King and barons, under this surface the first great step was taken towards a new political theory of the state. Executive power could no longer be employed simply in pursuit of the King’s own private projects, nor was it only limited by the rights of a narrow baronial class. Henceforth, government not only had to be just, but also had to consider the good of the community.[39] Significantly, the terms of the settlement were distributed in sealed charters throughout the realm and sheriffs, foresters, and other bailiffs, were ordered to read them in public.[40] In a time when most law was orally proclaimed, Magna Carta not only became ‘the great precedent for putting legislation into writing’,[41] but also an awesome record of the terms on which power was to be exercised; intended, as its terms read, to be observed ‘in perpetuity’.[42]

King John’s death in 1216 brought the child King Henry III to the throne. During his minority the Charter was re-issued three times. This was at the behest of the King’s advisors and supporters, out of recognition that the continued legitimacy of government depended on the observance of certain principles of good administration, respect for the liberties of the subject, and adherence to the law. When Henry confirmed the Charter voluntarily and in full majority in 1237 its constitutional importance was secured. By 1300 copies of the Charter were being read and displayed in cathedrals and other public places across the land.[43]

We can conclude from this examination of the terms and historical context of Magna Carta that in celebrating its role in our shared constitutional heritage we need not fear that we are viewing history through rose-tinted spectacles. Magna Carta is a defining document in the emergence of the rule of law and, however it came to acquire its name, certainly it is Great.
Magna Carta and the Conception of Modern Human Rights Documents

If we shift our gaze from the thirteenth century to modern law, we find the modern-day equivalents of Magna Carta in agreements to respect human rights. Unlike Magna Carta, the abuses which inspired these documents became the concern of the whole world and they were conceived on the international plane. After the Second World War, the international community resolved to spell out in writing the inalienable rights of individuals to ensure the future protection of, as the Preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights puts it, “freedom, justice and peace in the world”. These principles increasingly flesh out the rule of law in modern democracies. However, the ancestral connection between Magna Carta and the modern human rights era, whilst there, must not be over-stated. Magna Carta was framed in a time when tests of legal right might still be by battle or ordeal[44] and even the most beneficent of childhood folk heroes, Robin Hood, was said to have paraded the mutilated head of Guy of Gisborne on the end of his bow.[45] This is a far cry from the respect for human dignity and the fundamental worth of human life which underpins modern human rights documents. Also, despite its universality, Magna Carta still rested upon a system of inequality and feudal hierarchy.[46]

However, to reject Magna Carta’s relevance and contribution to the modern human rights era would be to adopt a far too simplistic analysis. We should recall that the United States Constitution was held for many years to licence racial segregation; that, like Magna Carta, the American Declaration of Independence of 1776 consisted largely of a list of alleged wrongs committed by the Crown,[47] and that it was proclaimed against a background of legalised slavery. The primary importance of Magna Carta is that it is a beacon of the rule of law. It proclaimed the fundamental nature of individual liberties, notwithstanding that many of the liberties it protected would not find direct counterparts in modern democratic states. That said, I shall discuss later its provisions protecting access to justice and illustrate their continued vitality in modern law.

Magna Carta influenced human rights documents in several, connected, ways. The first was through its role in the development of theories of natural rights.[48] Second, these documents owe a large debt to the various constitutions of the American States and the United States Constitution itself. In their turn these owe much to the legacy of Magna Carta, and in particular the writings of Blackstone and Coke.[49] American constitutional documents effectively married this constitutional inheritance with the ideology of natural and inalienable rights, best represented by the writings of John Locke and Tom Paine. I do not intend to pursue these avenues;[50] but I will nevertheless show that the spirit of Magna Carta played an important role in the conception of modern human rights documents and continues to resonate through them.

On January 1st, 1942, the Allied powers included in their War aims the preservation of human rights and justice, in their own lands as well as in those lands in which human rights had been denied. From this point the Second World War can be seen as, in part, a crusade for what Winston Churchill termed, in an address to the World Jewish Congress that year, ‘the enthronement of human rights’.[51] The United Nations Charter, signed after the conclusion of the War, included central commitments to human rights.[52] In 1948 the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.[53]

Surprisingly perhaps, the most prominent voice demanding that the War be fought for human rights was that of the author, H.G. Wells, who had visited Canberra in the 1930s.[54] Wells sparked public debate in two letters to The Times in 1939. In the second he included a ‘trial statement of the Rights of Man brought up to date’.[55] He introduced his declaration with the proposition that at various moments of crisis in history, beginning with Magna Carta and going through various bills of rights, it has been our custom to produce a specific declaration of the broad principles on which our public and social life is based (perhaps better, on which our public and social life should be based).[56] The debate was conducted in the pages of the Daily Herald, and a drafting committee was established to refine the proposed declaration. It was nominally under the chairmanship of the former Lord Chancellor, Lord Sankey, whose name the declaration eventually bore. Wells produced a mass of material in this cause, and much was translated and published across the world. Some was even dropped by aircraft over the European Continent. His book, The Rights of Man—Or What are We Fighting For? is steeped in references to Magna Carta. He admits to having deliberately woven its terms into the provisions of the declaration itself, so that, he wrote, ‘not only the spirit but some of the very words of that precursor live in this, its latest offspring’.[57]

The extent to which the enterprise of Wells and his colleagues influenced Anglo-American policy, or the framers of the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, has not been conclusively established.[58] President F.D. Roosevelt, who was on good terms with Wells, commented upon his draft declaration in 1939.[59] In 1940 Wells conducted a lecture tour in the United States. Introducing the Universal Declaration to the General Assembly, the Lebanese delegate mentioned the contribution of six individuals. H.G. Wells was one, a second was Professor Hersch Lauterpacht, to whom we will return, and a third was President Roosevelt.[60] It is rightly considered to be Roosevelt’s famous ‘Four Freedoms’ address on the State of Union delivered in January 1941[61] that is the most direct ancestor of the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as well as the International Covenants that followed.[62] But if the spirit of Magna Carta was alive in the popular imagination in this period, so it was in political rhetoric. President Roosevelt himself appealed to Magna Carta and the heritage of freedom in his addresses to the American nation.[63] Similarly, in a broadcast to the United States after the conclusion of the war, Winston Churchill spoke of the ‘great principles of freedom and the rights of man which are the joint inheritance of the English-speaking world and which through Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights, the Habeas Corpus, trial by jury, and the English common law find their most famous expression in the American Declaration of Independence’.[64]

Popular oratory of this sort would, of course, have had no direct effect on the jurisprudential developments of the time. Nonetheless, the spirit of Magna Carta was alive and well. It was in the minds of those who made the great political moves of the time and in the ears of those who had to put those moves into practice. After the Lincoln Cathedral copy of Magna Carta was transported to the United States Library of Congress for safekeeping in 1939,[65] an astonishing fourteen million people queued to see it for themselves.[66] At a ceremony returning the Charter in 1946 the Minister representing the United Kingdom traced a lineage that he said was ‘without equal in human history’ and considered that the preamble to the United Nations Charter was the most recent of Magna Carta’s ‘authentic offspring’.[67]

In academic, but not physical, terms a far more weighty contribution than that of H.G. Wells to the development of modern human rights was Professor Lauterpacht’s work, An International Bill of the Rights of Man, published in 1945.[68] Like Wells, Lauterpacht sought to emphasise the continuum between Magna Carta and his own enterprise, and to affirm its continued relevance to the modern world. He extolled the significance of the Charter in initiating the English constitutional practice of safeguarding the rights of subjects by way of general statutory enactment,[69] and even went as far as to declare that, ‘in the history of fundamental rights no event ranks higher than that charter of the concessions which the nobles wrested from King John.’[70]

The United Nations itself has suggested that the roots of the human rights movement can be traced to John’s Charter of 1215.[71] And Eleanor Roosevelt, who chaired the Human Rights Commission responsible for drawing up the Universal Declaration,[72] proclaimed that it was a declaration of the basic principles to serve as a common standard for all nations and thus it ‘might well become a Magna Carta of all mankind’.[73] If there was much in Stubbs’ comment that Magna Carta was the first great act of a united nation, then there is also much to be said for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as the first great act of a united world. Dr H.V. Evatt, the Australian President of the General Assembly, saw the Declaration as ‘a step forward in a great evolutionary process … the first occasion on which the organised community of nations had made a declaration of human rights and fundamental freedoms.’[74]

The Universal Declaration, whilst not as ‘universal’ as we might today wish, triumphed in uniting the common values and traditions of many seemingly disparate nations. The Commission contained representatives from eighteen nations and republics. The Anglo-American legal tradition was a major element in its conception,[75] although the Chinese, French, Lebanese and Soviet Union representatives exerted influence.[76] Nonetheless, although the precise terms of Magna Carta found no place in the final document, we can see in the guarantee that ‘no one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile’[77] clear similarities with Chapter 29 of Magna Carta.

The fact that the spirit of Magna Carta continues to resonate through modern human rights documents is reason enough for sparing it from that dusty cupboard of constitutional relics that have outlived their significance. There is, however, a further dimension to the relationship between Magna Carta and modern protections of human rights. This relates to the translation of international human rights guarantees into domestic law.
Reinvigorating the Rule of Law: Guaranteeing Human Rights in Domestic Law

The Universal Declaration is not directly binding on States, although it has largely become part of customary international law[78] and can be considered by domestic courts.[79] However, two years ago this month, the United Kingdom brought into effect the Human Rights Act, 1998, which enables individuals to raise allegations of violations of the European Convention on Human Rights before domestic courts. The present Government’s White Paper preceding the Bill stated an intention to ‘bring rights home’[80] and records comments made by Sir Edward Gardner MP during an earlier attempt to incorporate the European Convention. He noted that the Convention’s language ‘echoes down the corridors of history. It goes deep into our history and as far back as Magna Carta.’[81] Individual rights and freedoms are believed, rightly, to be held of birthright in our countries. The Government recognised in the UK context that the common law alone could not meet the demands of the modern age, and in particular the demands of our international obligations in Europe. The UK was persistently found wanting by the European Court of Human Rights and our own courts had no powers to make comparable findings. Since it is the joint responsibility of Parliament and the courts to protect the birthright of our citizens it was entirely fitting, and in accord with our constitutional heritage from Magna Carta through to the Petition of Right 1672, the Habeas Corpus Act 1679 and the Bill of Rights, for Parliament to set out new terms on which power is to be exercised; and so reinvigorate the rule of law in the UK.

Recently, in the Boyer Lectures, Chief Justice Murray Gleeson stated that ‘human rights discourse is entering a new phase’ in Australia and described how the question

whether to enact a bill of rights is ‘a controversial issue in current political debate’.[82] It is an issue which is obviously for Australians to decide. Since 1991 Australia has extended to individuals the protection of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights by allowing those claiming to be the victims of violations of protected rights to submit a communication to the Human Rights Committee. However, Australia has so far kept this protection beyond the jurisdiction of its own courts. We must not, however, underestimate the extent to which the Australian Constitution and the Australian Courts already protect individual rights. Nonetheless, if the number of adverse opinions of the Human Rights Committee increases then Australians may find, as was our experience in the UK, that pressure continues to grow for a new settlement of individual rights.[83] Moreover, it occurs to me, as we celebrate today the bond between our two nations, that, but for the generally amicable manner in which Australia became an independent nation, it might, like other successor nations to dependent territories, already have a bill of rights.[84]
The Continuing Relevance of Magna Carta in Australian and United Kingdom Law

The process of Federation meant that Magna Carta was given concrete legal effect in Australian jurisdictions in a complex way. Jurisdictions with Imperial Acts (the Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria) all chose to enact chapter 29. This was not, primarily, for its potentially salutary legal effects, but rather to recognise Magna Carta’s pivotal role in the constitutional legacy that these jurisdictions had inherited. [85] By contrast, in the Northern Territory, South Australia, Tasmania and Western Australia, Magna Carta was received by Imperial law reception statutes.[86] These jurisdictions find themselves in the surprising position of having almost all the provisions of Magna Carta theoretically still in force. I say surprising because, as I mentioned at the start of this lecture, only four chapters still remain on the statute book in the UK, but Magna Carta was largely received in these jurisdictions before this process of repeal began.[87] The position is also theoretical because the chapters of Magna Carta would have to be suitable to modern conditions there, and many clearly would no longer be.

The legacy of Magna Carta has also been inherited by Australia through the common law. Today, it can be seen to resonate most clearly through the fundamental common law doctrine of legality and the right of access to justice. We shall see, however, that the High Court of Australia in Jago v. District Court[88] limited the extent of Magna Carta’s contribution to the right of access to justice, at least in Australian law. Nonetheless, Isaacs J, speaking in the High Court of Australia in 1925, was speaking truly when he proclaimed Magna Carta to be ‘the groundwork of all our Constitutions’.[89]

I will return to the common law doctrine of legality shortly, but first let me address the right of access to justice. English courts attach considerable importance to the individual’s right of access to justice; and now speak of it as a constitutional right.[90] The wellspring of the modern case law is the case of Chester v. Bateson.[91] Regulations enacted during the First World War for the defence of the realm prevented certain landowners from recovering possession of their property from munition workers without the consent of the Minister of Munitions. This provision was held to deprive the subject “of his ordinary right to seek justice in the Courts of law”,[92] and was consequently declared to be invalid. As a matter of ‘constitutional law’ Avory J was prepared to hold that the regulations were in direct contravention of chapter 29 of Magna Carta.[93] Darling J, however, recognised that, had the regulations been made within the authority of the parent statute, Magna Carta would have been of no assistance, since it cannot stand in the face of the doctrine of Parliamentary sovereignty. However, he declared that the blanket sweep of the regulations, coupled with their draconian penalties, was unnecessary and represented an unjustified interference with individual rights.[94] The case foreshadowed the development of a common law method of constitutional interpretation, now routinely adopted by the English courts,[95] which demands that public officials justify their actions by reference to the principles of necessity and proportionality when they interfere with individual rights. Darling J’s judgment, in particular, also illustrates the way that Magna Carta has effect not only as a statute, but also resonates through the common law principles of interpretation developed to safeguard the liberties of the individual from the exercise of governmental power.[96]

Lord Scarman, a champion of human rights and an early and strong advocate of a Bill of Rights for the UK,[97] suggested judicially in 1975 that Magna Carta had been “reinforced” by the European Convention.[98] Certainly it is now Article 6 of the Convention, which concerns the right to a fair trial, and its developing jurisprudence that will provide most assistance to UK courts in interpreting the right of access to justice. However, it is interesting to reflect on the fact that Article 6 itself makes no mention of any right of access to a court. This right has been read into its terms by the European Court. The Court argued that the ‘principle whereby a civil claim must be capable of being submitted to a judge ranks as one of the universally ‘recognised’ fundamental principles of law.’[99] In its turn, this fundamental principle found one of its first and most important expressions in Magna Carta.[100]

In Australia there has been some judicial disagreement about whether Magna Carta’s promise not to delay or defer[101] right or justice supports a right to a speedy trial, or at least a right not to have one’s trial unreasonably delayed.[102] In Jago v. District Court the High Court was faced with a claim for a permanent stay of criminal proceedings that were scheduled to be held over five and a half years after the accused had been charged. Refusing the stay, it held that no such right existed separate from either the court’s duty to prevent injustice or from the accused’s right to fair trial.[103] This view was subsequently adopted by the English Court of Appeal.[104] I agree that Magna Carta should not be read to require a stay of proceedings, or the quashing of a conviction, unless there has been an abuse of process or an unfair trial. However, it seems to me inescapable that there is, enshrined in Magna Carta, a right not to have justice delayed.[105] Deane J in Jago, differing slightly from the rest of the court, accepted that such a right exists. He pointed out that it was ordinarily vindicated through the ability of the accused to apply to the court for an appropriate order, and that it would only result in a permanent stay or quashing of a conviction in the circumstances envisaged by the whole court.[106] Michael Kirby in Jago, as President of the New South Wales Supreme Court, considered that Magna Carta was sufficiently secured in Australian law,[107] but, in comments that have recently been reiterated by the High Court,[108] said that a more relevant source of guidance in interpreting the law was modern statements of human rights.[109] In the UK context the European Convention and the Human Rights Act have, indeed, fortified and reinvigorated the right, enshrined in Magna Carta, not to have justice delayed. Article 6 of the Convention confers a right to a hearing

‘within a reasonable time’.[110] The Court of Appeal has recently held that a stay of proceedings or the quashing of a conviction will, as before, only be appropriate where there is an abuse of process or an unfair trial. However, in the event of an unreasonable delay the court can now mark a contravention of Article 6 and this can be taken into account when sentencing. Also, where appropriate, for example where there is a subsequent acquittal, UK courts can now make an enforceable award of damages to remedy such a violation.[111] This seems to me to be an example of a specific instance of the continuum between Magna Carta and the modern protection of human rights.

Finally, I promised that I would return to the doctrine of legality. The doctrine of legality mandates that government action cannot proceed arbitrarily and without lawful authority. It represents the kernel of the rule of law. A recent case has vividly illustrated how Magna Carta continues to underpin this doctrine in important respects.

Bancoult was an Illois, an indigenous inhabitant of the Chagos archipelago in the middle of the Indian Ocean. The Islands were divided from the British colony of Mauritius in 1965, creating the British Indian Ocean Territory. Today these Islands house a United States defence facility; but its establishment was at the expense of the Islands’ indigenous population, thought to have numbered around four hundred people. This population was, in all relevant respects, exiled by an Immigration Ordinance in 1971. Aware that if the inhabitants of the Chagos Islands were recognised as indigenous their actions would be in violation of the UN Charter, successive British governments maintained that the inhabitants were only contract workers. Belatedly, almost thirty years later, the Divisional Court ruled that the actions of the British government in 1971 had been unlawful.[112]

Relying on Magna Carta, it was argued that Bancoult had a statutory right not to be exiled unless it was by the law of the land. However, Laws LJ held that direct reliance on Magna Carta could not assist Bancoult’s case for two reasons. First, to find that the terms of Magna Carta had been breached the court would have to be satisfied that the Ordinance had been made without lawful authority. If there was no such authority the government’s actions would be ultra vires in any event, although admittedly they would violate Magna Carta into the bargain.[113] Second, and more fundamentally, Magna Carta, as a statute, was held not to apply to the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) because it was a ceded colony to which the benefit of UK statutes had to be expressly extended.[114] But this was not the end of the matter. Laws LJ stated that the ‘enduring significance’ of Magna Carta was that it was a ‘proclamation of the rule of law’ and in this guise it followed the English flag even to the Chagos archipelago.[115] Although Magna Carta did not provide the answer to this case, what did was that the ‘wholesale removal of a people from the land where they belong’ could not reasonably be said to conduce to the territory’s peace, order and good government. The Ordinance of 1971, therefore, violated the fundamental doctrine of legality and flouted the rule of law.[116]
The Continuing Relevance of Magna Carta in Modern Law

Let me sum up this discussion briefly. The constitutions of the UK and Australia are distinct, but they share the same roots and Magna Carta and its legacy represent the sturdiest and the oldest. The fact that the provisions of Magna Carta rarely break the surface or provide explicit contributions to the outcome of modern cases should not obscure its contemporary importance.[117] I hope I have shown that in celebrating the legacy of Magna Carta in the UK and Australia we are not clinging to a constitutional relic, vastly overestimated by generations and without modern significance. The opposite is in fact true. Magna Carta can be truly appreciated as the foundation stone of the rule of law. Its terms continue to underpin key constitutional doctrines; its flame continues to burn in the torches of modern human rights instruments; and its spirit continues to resonate throughout the law.

* This paper is based on the inaugural Magna Carta Lecture, presented in the Great Hall of Parliament House, Canberra, on 14 October 2002.

[1] The most notorious and vociferous condemnation was that of Edward Jenks, ‘The Myth of Magna Carta’ Independent Review, no. 4 (1904), p. 260.

[2] Institutes—Second Part, vol. I (1642), Proeme.

[3] A.B. White, ‘The Name Magna Carta’ English Historical Review (EHR) vol. 30, 1915, p. 472; vol. 32, 1917, p. 554. The terms of the Forest Charter were initially part of King John’s Charter of Liberties, but they were separated from it in 1217 when it was reissued by his successor Henry III.

[4] Coke, Proeme, cited at note 2.

[5] F. Thompson, Magna Carta—Its Role in the Making of the English Constitution 1300–1629, Octagon, New York, 1972, chapter 1.

[6] Halsbury’s Statutes, vol. 10, Part 1, Butterworths, London 2001, pp. 14–17; the chapters are: 1, 9, 29, 37.

[7] 25 Edw 1

[8] Halsbury’s Statutes, p. 18.

[9] These words of confirmation refer to Henry III’s reissue, which is discussed below. This was the version on which Coke based his Second Institutes, since copies of Johns’ Charter were unknown to him.

[10] See Coke, Proeme, op. cit.

[11] It is important to recognise, as Coke himself emphasised, that Magna Carta also provided a measure against which the acts of Parliament were to be judged. Coke stated that a it was a ‘good caveat to parliaments to leave all causes to be measured by the golden and straight metwand of the law and not the uncertain and crooked cord of discretion’ and castigated Parliamentary conduct that failed to observe the promises enshrined in Magna Carta (Institutes—Fourth Part (c.1669), 37, 41).

[12] Magna Carta Committee, Australia-Britain Society, Magna Carta Place in Australia’s National Capital: A Report on Its Naming and Development (March, 2002).

[13] Modern texts frequently give only passing reference to Magna Carta or even entirely omit mention of it: e.g. S. De Smith and R. Brazier, Constitutional and Administrative Law, 8th edition, Penguin, London, 1998; J. Jowell and D. Oliver (eds.), The Changing Constitution, 4th edition, OUP, Oxford, 2000; G. Williams, Human Rights under the Australian Constitution, OUP, Melbourne, 1999, pp. 2–3; O. Hood Phillips and P. Jackson, Constitutional and Administrative Law, 8th edition, Street & Maxwell, London, 2001, 2–007. Alternatively it is said to be a narrow document, the significance of which has been overestimated: e.g. J. Alder, Constitutional and Administrative Law, 2nd edition, Macmillan, Basingstoke, 1994, p. 39; D. Feldman, Civil Liberties and Human Rights in England and Wales, 2nd edition, OUP, Oxford, 2002, p. 71.

[14] Magna Carta Committee, 2002, op. cit., pp. 13–21, 33–34.

[15] W. Stubbs, The Constitutional History of England—In its Origin and Development, vol. I, 4th edition, Clarendon, Oxford, 1883, pp. 328–330.

[16] W.S. McKechnie, Magna Carta—A Commentary on the Great Charter of King John, Glasgow UP, Glasgow, 1905, p.118.

[17] J.C. Holt, Magna Carta, 2nd edition, Cambridge UP, Cambridge, 1992, p. 24.

[18] ibid, pp. 29–33.

[19] Historians have recently revised views of Richard I’s reign and administration, which were traditionally thought to have been retrogressive. See generally, J. Gillingham, Richard Coeur De Lion—Kingship, Chivalry and War in the Twelfth Century, Hambledon Press, London, 1994, pp. 95–118; M.T. Clanchy, England and Its Rulers 1066-1272, 2nd edition, Blackwell, Oxford, 1998, pp. 94-98.

[20] See W.L. Warren, King John, Yale UP, New Haven, 1997, p. 214.

[21] ibid, p. 225.

[22] Langton’s role is celebrated by the Australian Magna Carta monument. Modern historians, however, disagree over precisely what role he had. Certainly Warren regards him as the only person who deserves to be singled out from among Magna Carta’s framers (ibid, p. 213, cf. pp. 217, 232, 245). He also believes that Langton produced Henry I’s charter, probably at the famous St Paul’s meeting in 1213: ibid, pp. 226–228 also Clanchy, above note 19, p. 138. Holt, however, is more circumspect and argues that the meeting never took place: above note 17, pp. 219–220, 224–225, 269–270, 279–287.

[23] Warren, 1997, above note 20, p. 231; Holt, above note 17, p. 222.

[24] See Holt, above note 17, chapter 7.

[25] Stubbs, above note 15, p. 572.

[26] Chapters 12 and 14, these provisions were altered in the 1217 charter (see McKechnie, above note 16, pp. 172–175) and were altogether excluded from later re-issues. Furthermore, this provision in no way limited the King’s right to tallage London and other towns. It thus contained only the germ of the later principle that taxation was only to be levied by the consent of property owners, as represented in Parliament.

[27] Chapter 13, which later became chapter 9.

[28] Chapters 39 and 40.

[29] Other chapters likewise protected the citizenry’s access to justice. Chapter 17 (which became chapter 11) stated that common pleas shall not follow the King’s court but shall be heard in some fixed place; a provision that led to the separation of the Common Pleas and the King’s Bench. Chapter 38 (which became chapter 28) provided that no man was to be put to wager his law except by the provision of an honest witness.

[30] Chapter 1; Holt, above note 17, pp. 269–270.

[31] See J.H. Baker, An Introduction to English Legal History, 3rd edition, Butterworths, London, 1990, pp. 347–349, 531–540; McKechnie, above note 16, pp. 341–344, 448–449.

[32] Holt, above note 17, pp. 276–280; cf. P. Vinogradoff, ‘Magna Carta’ Law Quarterly Review, vol. 21, 1905, pp. 250, 253.

[33] It was the King’s inability to satisfy the barons in respect of the contentious issues relating to the retrospective correction of previous transgressions that essentially led to the civil war which followed the events in Runnymede: Holt, above note 17, chapter 10.

[34] Which became chapter 14.

[35] See Holt, above note 17, pp. 276–277, who points out that this was ‘not simply laid down as an airy principle’ but was backed-up by chapters 15 (no one shall levy an aid from his free men) and 16 (no one can be forced to perform more service for any tenement than is due therefrom). He concludes: ‘When the framers of the Charter set out to protect the interests of under-tenants, they meant business.’

[36] Thompson, above note 5, chapter 2.

[37] Stubbs, above note 15, pp. 571 and 583.

[38] ‘Magna Carta has thus been truly said to enunciate and inaugurate “the reign of law” or “the rule of law”’ (McKechnie, above note 16, p. 148); ‘… the permanent regulations which the Charter was intended to establish were, taken as a whole, a remarkable statement of the rights of the governed and of the principle that the king should be ruled by law’ (Holt, above note 16, p. 338).

[39] See in particular the analyses of Clanchy, above note 19, pp. 97–98, and Warren, above note 20, p. 240.

[40] M.T. Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record—England 1066–1307, Edward Arnold, London, 1979, pp. 211–212.

[41] ibid.

[42] Chapter 1.

[43] Clanchy, above note 40, p. 213.

[44] Although ordeal was dying out, and from 1215 the clergy were forbidden from participating: Baker, above note 31, pp. 5–6.

[45] J.C. Holt, Robin Hood, revised edition, Thames and Hudson, London, 1989, pp. 10–11, 32–33.

[46] Reflecting what were regarded as the good Christian ethics of the time, chapters 10 and 11 of Magna Carta also explicitly discriminated against Jewish money lenders (one of the primary sources of credit at the time).

[47] ‘The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world. …’ [they are then listed]

[48] It must be admitted that this was not always a positive contribution. Tom Paine was less than effusive about Magna Carta in Rights of Man where he distinguished it from the French Declaration, arguing that it was not a founding constitutional instrument: B. Kuklick (ed.), Thomas Paine Political Writings, Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought, Cambridge UP, Cambridge, 1997, p. 191. However, in Common Sense he had earlier called for an American Continental Charter of the United Colonies ‘answering to what is called the Magna Charter of England’ (ibid, at pp. 28–29). The Levellers generally admired Magna Carta and it was prominent in their thought and demands. A few, however, particularly William Walwyn, dismissed it. For example, Overton and Walwyn described Magna Carta as ‘a beggarly thing containing many marks of intolerable bondage …’ (‘A Remonstrance of many thousand citizens …’, 1646, in A. Sharp (ed.), The English Levellers, Cambridge UP, Cambridge, 1998, 33 at pp. 46–47). See generally on Magna Carta and Leveller thought, A. Pallister, Magna Carta—The Heritage of Liberty, Clarendon, Oxford, 1971, pp. 13–22.

[49] A.E.D. Howard, The Road from Runnymede—Magna Carta and Constitutionalism in America, Virginia UP, Charlottesville, 1968. For a short account see D.V. Stivison, ‘Magna Carta in American Law’, in Magna Carta in America, Gateway Press, Baltimore, 1993.

[50] An account of the United Kingdom’s contribution to human rights was given by Professor Palley as the 42nd Hamlyn Lecture Series, The United Kingdom and Human Rights, Street & Maxwell, London, 1991.

[51] The Times, 29 October 1942, 30 October 1942 (cited in H. Lauterpacht, An International Bill of the Rights of Man, Columbia UP, New York, 1945, p. 86).

[52] Preamble and Articles 55 and 56. See Lord Irvine of Lairg, ‘The Development of Human Rights in Britain’, Public Law, Summer 1998, pp. 221–224.

[53] General Assembly Resolution 217 (III), 10 December 1948.

[54] For accounts of Wells’ role see D.C. Smith, H. G. Wells—Desperately Mortal —a Biography, Yale UP, New Haven, 1986, chapter 17; J.H. Burgers, ‘The Road to San Francisco: The Revival of the Human Rights Idea in the Twentieth Century’, Human Rights Quarterly, vol. 14, no. 4, 1992, pp. 447, 464–468. (1992); and A.W.B. Simpson, Human Rights and the End of Empire—Britain and the Genesis of the European Convention, OUP, Oxford, 2001, pp. 161–167, 204.

[55] 23 October 1939.

[56] In The Rights of Man—Or what are we fighting for? Penguin, Harmondsworth, Eng, 1940, Wells wrote: ‘the first … [necessity] is to do again what it has been the practice of the Parliamentary peoples to do whenever they come to a revolutionary turning-point of their histories, which is to make a declaration of the fundamental principles upon which the new phase is to be organised. This was done to check the encroachments of the Crown in Magna Carta. The Petition of Right made in 1628 repeated this expedient. It was done again in the Declaration of Right and the Bill of Rights which ended the “Leviathan” and the Divine Right of Kings. Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights are an integral part of American law. The American Declaration of Independence was another such statement of a people’s will, and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man derived its inspiration directly from that document.’ (pp. 28–29).

[57] ibid, p. 75.

[58] Wells’ biographer, D.C. Smith, (op. cit.) argues that Wells and the debate influenced the Atlantic Charter drawn up by Churchill and Roosevelt on 14 August 1941 (which was the sapling that later blossomed into the UN Charter) and Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms. He also states that Wells’ views were introduced by Eleanor Roosevelt to the UN and even that ‘final form’ of the Rights of Man was the UDHR itself (The Correspondence of H. G.Wells, D.C. Smith (ed.), vol. 1880–1903, xli-xlii.). For criticism of these latter assertions see Simpson, above note 54, p. 166. However, Simpson notes that some of Wells’ views were directly introduced to the San Francisco conference in another form (p. 204).

[59] Burgers, above note 54, p. 465.

[60] Official Records of the Third Session of the General Assembly, Part 1, Plenary Meetings of the General Assembly, 21 September–12 December 1948, 180th, 857–858 (Mr. Charles Malik).

[61] S.I. Rosenman (ed.), The Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1940 Volume—War and Aid to Democracies, Macmillan & Co., London, 1941, p. 663. See also his State of the Union Address of 11 January 1944, in S.I. Rosenman (ed.), The Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1944–5 Volume—Victory and the Threshold of Peace, Harper & Bros. Publishing, New York, 1950, p. 32.

[62] The direct influence can be seen from the preamble to those documents. The inspiration derived from Roosevelt’s speech was repeatedly stressed in the General Assembly, see above note 60. For an excellent brief history see L.B. Sohn, ‘Human Rights Movement: From Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms to the Interdependence of Peace, Development and Human Rights’, Harvard Law School, 1995.

[63] See ‘The Third Inaugural Address’, 20 January 1941, S.I. Rosenman (ed.), The Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1941 Volume—The Call to Battle Stations, Harper & Bros. Publishing, New York, 1950, 3 at 5; and ‘A Radio Address Announcing the Proclamation of an Unlimited National Emergency’, 27 May 1941, 181 at 193.

[64] M. Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill 1874–1965, volume VIII 1945–1965—Never Despair, Heinemann, London, 1988, p. 200. Further eloquent testimony to Churchill’s veneration for Magna Carta can be found in his A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, Volume I—The Birth of Britain, Cassell, London, 2002, chapter VII (‘Magna Carta’).

[65] The Charter’s evacuation was approved by Neville Chamberlain. It is an interesting aside to note that Churchill would not have allowed its removal and instructed that all national treasures, rather than be displaced from their homeland, be buried or hidden in caves: M. Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill 1874–1965, volume VI 1939–1941—Finest Hour, Heinemann, London, 1987, p. 449.

[66] Sir Thomas Bingham MR (as he then was), discussing the long queue of pilgrims to the US Constitution that accumulates each day outside the National Archives in Washington, considered that ‘[t]he nearest we come, perhaps, is the Great Charter of 1215, an instrument of which the significance is, interestingly, much more generally appreciated in the United States than here’ (‘The Courts and the Constitution’, King’s College Law Journal, vol. 7, no. 12 (1996–1997) p. 12.

[67] John Balfour, New York Times, 11 January 1946 (cited in Thompson, above note 5, p. v).

[68] Above note 51. The book was reprinted as part of H. Lauterpacht, International Law and Human Rights, Stevens & Sons Ltd., London, 1950.

[69] Above note 51, p. 55 and generally chapter V.

[70] Above note 51, p. 56.

[71] The United Nations and Human Rights, Office of Public Information, New York, 1978, p. 1.

[72] For the influence of Eleanor Roosevelt on the UDHR see M.G. Johnson, ‘The Contributions of Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt to the Development of International Protection for Human Rights’ Human Rights Quarterly, vol. 9, 1987, pp. 19, 27–48.

[73] Above note 60, p. 862. However, Lauterpacht, criticising the Universal Declaration, rejected parallels with Magna Carta and other later declarations because, at least initially, it was primarily aspirational: see ‘The Universal Declaration of Human Rights’ British Yearbook of International Law, vol. 25, 1948, pp. 354, 371–372.

[74] Above note 60, 183rd, p. 934.

[75] For an unrivalled account of the English role, and the origins of modern Human Rights documents generally, see Simpson, above note 54.

[76] M.G. Johnson and J. Symonides, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: a History of its Creation and Implementation, 1948–1998, UNESCO, 1998.

[77] UDHR Article 9.

[78] Johnson and Symonides, above note 76, pp. 67–68

[79] See e.g. Hunter v. Canary Wharf Ltd. [1997] AC 655, 714 (Lord Cooke).

[80] The White Paper, Rights Brought Home: the Human Rights Bill, Cm 3782.

[81] ibid, 1.5 (Hansard H.C., 6 February 1987, col.1224).

[82] The Rule of Law and the Constitution, ABC Books, Sydney, 2000. A study published by the University of Wollongong has described this as a ‘Millennium Dilemma’ for Australia: J. Innes, Millennium Dilemma, Constitutional Change in Australia, Wollongong University, 1998. The literature on this dilemma is voluminous, but for one comprehensive study which pays particular attention to the British heritage (considering Magna Carta a ‘landmark document’) see the Queensland Electoral and Administrative Review Commission, Issue Paper No. 20, Review of the Preservation and Enhancement of Individual Rights and Freedoms, Brisbane, June 1992, especially pp. 43–46.

[83] Cf. Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, A Review of Australia’s Efforts to Promote and Protect Human Rights, Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra, December 1992, which concluded that there are gaps in Australia’s protection of human rights.

[84] For a brief account of the process of separation see G. Sawyer, ‘Government and Law’ in J.D.B. Miller (ed.), Australians & British—Social and Political Connections, Methuen, North Ryde NSW, 1987.

[85] David Clark, ‘The Icon of Liberty: the Status and Role of Magna Carta in Australian and New Zealand Law’ Melbourne University Law Review, vol. 24, 2000, pp. 866–891; A.C. Castles, ‘Australian Meditations on Magna Carta’, Australian Law Journal, vol. 63, 1989, pp. 122, 124.

[86] Clark, ibid, pp. 870–872.

[87] For an account of the process of repeal see Pallister, above note 48, chapter 7.

[88] (1989) 168 CLR 23.

[89] Ex parte Walsh and Johnson (1925) 37 CLR 36, 79; he continued: ‘[Chap. 29] recognizes three basic principles, namely, (1) primarily every free man has an inherent individual right to his life, liberty, property and citizenship; (2) his individual rights must always yield to the necessities of the general welfare at the will of the State; (3) the law of the land is the only mode by which the State can so declare its will.’

[90] Raymond v. Honey [1983] 1 AC 1; R v. Secretary of State for the Home Department, ex parte Leech (No 2) [1994] QB 198; R v. Lord Chancellor, ex parte Witham [1998] QB 575; R v. Secretary of State for the Home Department, ex parte Simms [2000] 2 AC 115. See my ‘Activism and Restraint: Human Rights and the Interpretive Process’, European Human Rights Law Review, 1999, pp. 350, 369-70.

[91] [1920] 1 KB 829.

[92] ibid, p. 834 (Darling J).

[93] ibid, p. 836.

[94] ibid, pp. 832–833.

[95] See R (Daly) v. Secretary of State for the Home Department [2001] 2 AC 532; Ex parte Simms [2000] 2 AC 115.

[96] In Ex parte Walsh and Johnson (1925) 37 CLR 36, 79-80 Isaacs J stated: ‘… the Courts have evolved two great working corollaries in harmony with the main principles [of chapter 29], and without which these would soon pass into merely pious aspirations. The first corollary is that there is always an initial presumption in favour of liberty, so that whoever claims to imprison or deport another has cast upon him the obligation of justifying his claim by reference to the law. The second corollary is that the Courts themselves see that this obligation is strictly and completely fulfilled before they hold that liberty is lawfully restrained. The second is often in actual practice and concrete result the more important of the two to keep steadily in view … it will be seen that the principles themselves and the corollaries are far more than mere academic interest. They materially help to solve disputed points …’.

[97] 26th Hamlyn Lecture Series, English Law—The New Dimension, Stevens & Sons, London, 1974; 7th Lord Fletcher Lecture, 1985, ‘Human Rights in the UK—Time for Change’.

[98] R v. Secretary of State for the Home Department, ex parte Phansopkar [1976] QB 606, 626.

[99] Golder v. United Kingdom (1975) 1 EHRR 524, para 35.

[100] Lord Donaldson MR, speaking before important developments in the jurisprudence on Article 6, declared the common law, Magna Carta and Article 6 to be consistent: R v. Home Secretary, ex parte Wynne [1992] 1 QB 407, 418. See also AB v. John Wyeth & Bros. Ltd. (1992) 12 BMLR 50. For a survey of the developments of the law on Article 6 since Golder’s case see Matthews v Ministry of Defence [2002] EWCA Civ 773.

[101] This is the term adopted in the 1297 version.

[102] Relying on Magna Carta, McHugh JA (as he then was) powerfully argued that the common law recognised such a right: Herron v. McGregor (1986) 6 NSWLR 246, 252; Aboud v. Attorney-General for New South Wales (1987) 10 NSWLR 671, 691-692); Jago v. District Court of New South Wales (1988) 12 NSWLR 558, 583-585; Brisbane South Regional Health Authority v. Taylor (1996) 186 CLR 541, 552. In this latter case McHugh J expressed apparently slightly modified views in stating that chapter 29 of Magna Carta was protected by the power ‘to stay proceedings as abuses of process if they are satisfied that, by reason of delay or other matter, the commencement or continuation of the proceedings would involve injustice or unfairness to one of the parties.’ I will not discuss here Magna Carta’s rather indirect contribution to the notion of ‘due process of law’, which has also been considered by Australian courts (see Alder v. District Court of New South Wales (1990) 19 NSWLR 317) as well as by the Privy Council (Thomas v. Baptiste [2000] 2 AC 1).

[103] (1989) 168 CLR 23; subsequently followed and affirmed in respect of new arguments in Alder v. District Court of New south Wales (1990) 19 NSWLR 317. The case led K.C. Gould to remark that ‘the Charter’s place in the sun, if anywhere, rests largely on the towel of sentimentality’ (‘Australian Meditations on Magna Carta—A Postscript’, Australian Law Journal, vol. 64, 1990, p. 376.)

[104] Attorney-General’s Reference (No 1 of 1990) [1992] 1 QB 630.

[105] For a discussion of the delay or denial of justice in the context of civil proceedings see Allen v. Sir Alfred McAlpine & Sons Ltd. [1968] 2 QB 229, 245 (Lord Denning MR).

[106] (1989) 168 CLR 23, 59.

[107] However, he did not recognise a separate right to a speedy trial. Nonetheless, by contrast, none of the other justices in either the High Court or the New South Wales Supreme Court (other than McHugh JA, on whose views see above note 102) acknowledged that Magna Carta made any normative contribution to modern law. Brennan J considered that Coke’s views on access to justice were merely aspirational (ibid, p. 42), and agreed with Toohey J. Toohey J, ibid, pp. 66–67, himself following Samuels JA in the court below ((1988) 12 NSWLR 558, 473–575), criticised Coke’s interpretation of the Charter and argued that chapter 29 was primarily intended to correct the worst abuses of royal justice while at the same time securing its pre-eminence. However, these provisions of Magna Carta can be regarded as reflecting an emerging view that justice was a community right and not simply a baronial privilege. It should also be recalled that by virtue of Chapter 60 of Magna Carta lords at each rung of the feudal ladder were expected to abide by the good principles of the Charter. Cf. Holt, above note 17, pp. 279, 285–286, 327.

[108] Azzopardi v. The Queen (2001) 205 CLR 50, 65 (Gaudron, Gummow, Kirby and Hayne JJ). Cf. M. Kirby, ‘The Australian Use of International Human rights Norms: From Bangalore to Balliol—A View from the Antipodes’, University of New South Wales Law Journal, vol. 16, no. 2, 1993, p. 363. For a discussion of the protection of human rights in Australian domestic law: J. Doyle and B. Wells, ‘How Far Can The Common Law Go Towards Protecting Human Rights?’ in P. Alston, Promoting Human Rights Through Bills of Rights: Comparative Perspectives, Oxford UP, Oxford, 1999.

[109] (1988) 12 NSWLR 558, 569.

[110] Kirby P in the Supreme Court of New South Wales in Jago ((1988) 12 NSWLR 558, 570) addressed Article 14.3 ICCPR, which states: ‘In the determination of any criminal charge against him, every one shall be entitled to the following minimum guarantees …. (c) to be tried without undue delay.’ He concluded that this did not protect an independent right to a speedy trial and, like chapter 29 of Magna Carta, the provision was ‘sufficiently secured’ by the principles relating to unfair trials and abuse of process. Samuels JA adopted a wider interpretation of the ICCPR, suggesting it did protect an independent right to a speedy trial, but took a narrower view about the value of international legal instruments regarding ‘the normative traditions of the common law as a surer foundation for development’ (pp. 580 and 582).

[111] Attorney-General’s Reference (No 2 of 2001) [2001] 1 WLR 1869; R v. Massey [2001] EWCA Crim 2850. Damages may be awardable by virtue of section 8 HRA, which confers a broad remedial discretion on courts when a violation of the Convention has been found.

[112] [2001] QB 1067.

[113] Magna Carta often emerges behind the doctrine of legality in this manner: e.g. Holden v. Chief Constable of Lancashire [1987] 1 QB 380; Re B (Child Abduction: Wardship: Power to Detain) [1994] Fam 607; In re S-C (Mental Patient: Habeas Corpus) [1996] QB 599; R v. Commissioners of Customs and Excise, ex parte a Company, 15 October 1996.

[114] For a discussion of Magna Carta’s extension to the Commonwealth see Sir I. Jennings ‘Magna Carta and Constitutionalism in the Commonwealth’ in S.E. Thorne, W.H. Dunham Jr, P.B. Kurland and I. Jennings, The Great Charter—Four Essays on Magna Carta and the History of Our Liberty, Pantheon, New York, 1965.

[115] [2001] QB 1067, para 36. This phrase was coined by the Canadian Supreme Court, which stated in Calder v. Attorney-General of British Columbia (1973) 34 DLR (3d.) 145, 203 that ‘Magna Carta has always been considered to be the law throughout the Empire. It was a law which followed the flag as England assumed jurisdiction over newly-discovered or acquired lands or territories.’

[116] ibid, para 57 and para 71 (Gibbs J). Despite the fact that the actions of the British Government infringed fundamental rights, Laws LJ felt that comments made in the Privy Council case Liyanage v. The Queen [1967] 1 AC 259 precluded him from adopting a more rigorous constitutional standard of scrutiny of the legality of the ordinance (although he was not strictly bound by the decision). He made no mention of whether he would have felt so compelled if Magna Carta had extended to the BIOT. Gibbs LJ, however, felt that if Magna Carta had applied to the BIOT ‘I might have found assistance in the provisions of Chapter 29 in interpreting the legality of the Ordinance, at least in the resolution of any doubts on the point’ (para 68). Laws LJ has since suggested that Magna Carta might be one of a small number of fundamental statutes that the common law insulates from all but expressly stated repeal: Thorburn v. Sunderland City Council [2002] 3 WLR 247, para 62. However, the High Court of Australia has stated that Magna Carta does not ‘legally bind the legislatures of this country or, for that matter, the United Kingdom. Nor … [does it] limit the powers of the legislatures of Australia or the United Kingdom’ (Essenberg v. The Queen, 22 June 2000) and it is treated like any other statute.

[117] Concluding a comprehensive study of the continuing role of Magna Carta in Australian and New Zealand law, Dr David Clark states, ‘…the myth of Magna Carta has proved legally, and above all, constitutionally, useful to subsequent generations. While, as we have seen, it is of little practical use in actual cases, it remains an animating idea and one important basis upon which judges continue to found the legitimacy of the rule of law and constitutionalism generally (above note 85, p. 891).

Source: Lord Irvine of Lairg “The Spirit of Magna Carta Continues to Resonate in Modern Law*”(Parliament of Australia)

……

cross-references

Common Law; English Law; Feudalism

Due Process of Law (8.8)
History of Censorship (6.3)
Classical law authors (6.3)
Outline of English Legal History (6.3)
Sir Edward Coke (6)
Absolutism (5.5)
Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England (5.4)
Law and Society (5.3)
Aristocracy (5.1)
Common Law Systems (5)

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AND 2 OUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS OF THE USA- Why those flag colours don’t run

Why these colors don't run: Dyeing the Star-Spangled Banner

We all know the colors of the American flag. But how did those colors physically come to fly on flagpoles and inspire national anthems? When people in the flag's era wanted to put colors on fabric, the answer came down to dye.

This is a fragment of the Star-Spangled Banner, which was in the care of the Armistead family for 90 years. They occasionally gave away dozens of small pieces of the flag.

Dyeing has been used for most of human history to add color to textile products, including yarn and fabric. Nowadays, chemists add synthetic dyes to many synthetic materials before the fibers are even created. For the thousands of years prior to the invention of synthetic dye in 1856, artisans had to use natural, plant-based dyes for fabrics. Only about eight colors were available from plant-based dyes: red, blue, yellow, green, black, brown, orange, and purple.
Natural dyes were necessary to create the colorful broad stripes and bright stars that Francis Scott Key saw so gallantly streaming at the Battle of Baltimore in September 1814. The fabrics would have been pre-dyed before Mary Pickersgill, her two nieces, her daughter, and her indentured servant began work to create the Star-Spangled Banner flag.

The flag on display in the museum. This year marks the anthem's 200th anniversary.

The flag on display in the museum. This year marks the national anthem's 200th anniversary.

Pickersgill created the flag from three fabrics. White cotton was used for the stars, which retained the cotton's original color. Undyed wool was used for the white stripes. She used dyed wool for the blue star background and red stripes.
The wool for the starfield background was dyed with indigo. Indigo, possessing a deep, rich blue color, is one of the oldest natural dyes for fabrics and is created from the leaves of the plant Indegofera tinctoria. Note that the term "tinctoria" in the indigo plant's scientific name comes from the Latin root "tinctorius," which refers to dyeing or staining.

An Indegofera tinctoria plant in the Henri Gaussen Botanical Garden, Paul Sabatier University. Via the creative commons license.

Indigo, like many other plants, was introduced to the Americas from across the ocean. In the 1740s, South Carolina planters were searching for new cash crops to support their colony's plantation economy. When she was only a teenager, South Carolinian Eliza Lucas, whose father was the governor of British Antigua, experimented with and successfully introduced a profitable strain of indigo from the West Indies. By the 1770s, indigo was a staple crop in the American South, comprising one third of South Carolina's exports.

Indigo Wool Quilt, 1800-1815. The fabric for this quilt was dyed blue with indigo, one of the oldest dyes used for textiles. Glazing, a process involving the use of a hot press on wool fabric, resulted in a smooth, lustrous fabric surface.

The wool for the red stripes was dyed red with the root of the madder plant, Rubia tinctorum. (There's that "tinctorius" root again!)

Flowers of Rubia tinctorum at Botanischer Garten Jena, Germany. Via the creative commons license.

Madder root dye can produce reds of many different shares, from peaches and corals to deep burgundies. To get the right shade of red, the madder root has to be combined with mordants, metallic salts that help set and intensify natural dyes. Mordants help protect the dyed cloth from perspiration, water, and fading over time. The pH of the dye bath also affects the final color so many different shades can be achieved by altering the pH with the same mordant.

Close-up of the red-dyed wool fibers on the Star-Spangled Banner

The colors and shapes of flags have been used to denote military units, mark territory, and inspire national pride. Americans identify with "red, white, and blue" as a national and personal concept. Without the use of dyes to help create the distinctive hues of the American flag, we would not have had the Star-Spangled Banner to inspire Francis Scott Key, or the flags that we proudly fly today.

Fragment of the Star-Spangled Banner flag

Daniel Holm is an educator at the National Museum of American History. Background information for this post was adapted from the activity "Star-Spangled Banner: The Technique of Natural Dyeing", presented by the Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation. We also invite you to have a Star-Spangled Summer, hear from Mary Pickersgill, and peek inside our conservator's project to preserve the flag forever.

http://americanhistory.si.edu/blog/2014/04/why-these-colors-dont-run-dyeing-the-star-spangled-banner.html?hootPostID=42c046f58d3b7278e64f31b7991b9777

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MAGNA CHARTA

On June 15, 1215, King John (1199–1216) was surrounded on the battlefield at Runnymede by a cordon of England's most powerful barons, who demanded royal recognition for certain liberties and legal procedures they enumerated in a written document known today as the Magna Charta. Contained in the Magna Charta's 63 chapters are the seeds of trial by jury, due process, habeas corpus, and equality under the law. The Magna Charta was reissued three times during the reign of Henry III (1216–72) with some minor alteration, and confirmed by the Crown more than 30 times thereafter.
Sometimes called the Great Charter, the Magna Charta is widely considered to be the foundation of the English and U.S. constitutional systems, representing the first time the often tyrannical power of the monarchy was restrained by law and popular resistance. The Magna Charta was cited by sir edward coke, esteemed English jurist and member of the House of Commons, in opposition to the monarchy's assertion of absolute power in the seventeenth century. During the American Revolution, colonists relied on the Magna Charta when they convened the First continental congress to restore the rights lost under the coercive legislation of Parliament.
Almost from its inception, the Great Charter has been imbued with two separate meanings, one literal and the other symbolic. The literal meaning is reflected by the original understanding of the Magna Charta in the thirteenth century; the symbolic meaning was developed by subsequent generations, which interpreted its provisions in light of a changing political landscape. The literal meaning was associated with the concrete rights enforced by the barons against the monarchy; the symbolic meaning became associated with the rule of law, an impartial system of justice, and government by the consent of the people and their representatives. To understand the symbolic importance attached to the Magna Charta, one must view the literal meaning in its original context.
The Magna Charta is the product of three competing legal jurisdictions: royal, ecclesiastical, and baronial. The royal system of justice maintained jurisdiction over all matters that
affected the monarch's peace, directly or indirectly. Royal courts heard disputes at a central location in Westminster, and royal itinerant judges traveled locally to dispense the monarch's justice to communities across England.
The Catholic church, with the pope presiding as the spiritual head in Rome, ran the ecclesiastical courts. These courts maintained jurisdiction over the discipline of the church's clergy, religious offenses such as heresy, and most moral, marital, and testamentary matters
Baronial courts were governed by barons, powerful men who were given titles of dignity by the Crown and who held large parcels of land, known as manors, from the monarch. Each baron, as lord of his manor, was invested with the authority to hear disputes involving his tenants, men and women who agreed to work the land in exchange for shelter and security.
John alienated both the ecclesiastical and baronial jurisdictions during his reign as king, converting them into adversaries. The first ten years of John's reign were consumed by controversy with the church. John considered the pope to be subordinate to the Crown and treated the archbishop as a mere civil servant. The church, on the other hand, considered itself to be a separate and independent sovereign that had shared power with the Crown since the time of Henry I (1100–1135). Henry I and the church had agreed that the nomination of bishops in England would tacitly remain with the king. But the pope retained power to confirm bishops by conferring upon them the honorary symbols of their title, the spiritual staff and ring.
The agreement between Henry I and the church provided no resolution for the controversy between King John and Pope Innocent III at the outset of the thirteenth century. The controversy began when Innocent III rejected John's candidate for archbishop of Canterbury and substituted his own choice, Stephen Langton, a man of superior "moral and intellectual greatness" (Trevelyan 1982, 146). John responded by confiscating the church's property in England. The papacy, whose power had grown as a result of its compromise with Henry I, subsequently undertook a series of steps to damage the Crown's prestige and credibility.
The pope excommunicated King John, suspended religious sacraments in England, and declared the English empire a forfeit from God. Facing growing pressure from the church and increasing unpopularity among Catholics within his own country, John surrendered England to the papacy, receiving it back as a fief, which meant the Crown was now subordinate to Rome and was required to pay homage to the pope. These royal concessions satisfied the pope and made him a cautious ally of the Crown. Archbishop Langton was determined to achieve similar concessions for the barons.
The grievances voiced by the barons were quite different from those voiced by the church. The barons' dissatisfaction stemmed from the manner in which the royal system of justice had been abused by King John. Prior to the reign of henry ii (1154–89), english law had comprised a loose collection of customs and traditions followed by a variety of ethnic groups scattered across the realm. Henry II created a centralized system of justice that emanated from London, which the monarch's officials administered in a uniform manner to all English people in common. Although this "common law" established a body of rights and procedures by which all litigants appearing before the ruler's courts would theoretically be treated the same, it also vested an enormous amount of power in the Crown. The tension separating arbitrary royal power from the principle of equality under the law erupted during the struggle between King John and his baronial magnates.
King John regularly sold legal rights and privileges to the highest bidder, rewarded favorites, punished enemies, and otherwise administered justice in an erratic and unfair fashion. For a dispute to be heard by the royal courts, parties were required to pay the monarch fees, which varied from case to case depending on the circumstances. If the Crown was in need of emergency revenue—and it seemingly always was during the reign of King John—these litigation fees were increased commensurate with the urgency of a particular financial crisis. Litigants in good graces with the monarch typically paid lower court fees than litigants in disfavor. A defendant who requested the postponement or suspension of a legal matter was required to pay a greater fee than the plaintiff was charged.
Such litigation fees, which were paid in all legal matters—civil, criminal, matrimonial, and probate—simply enabled parties to assert their claims and defenses before the royal court. They did not guarantee a particular outcome, although the amount paid may have influenced the outcome, and they bore no relationship to the penalty or fine imposed on the losing party. Consequently, defendants who paid an exorbitant fee just to present an unsuccessful defense often faced fines of an equally outrageous amount. Defendants who suffered incarceration for a wrongdoing were usually forced to purchase their freedom from the monarch.
The manner in which the ruler enforced and collected royal debts was no less capricious. Litigants who could not afford to pay the legal fees set by the Crown frequently borrowed money from the ruler in order to pursue a particular right or remedy. The terms of such loan agreements were typically draconian. As collateral for these loans, John required the debtors to pledge their estates, personal property, and sometimes family members. In one case, a debtor was forced to pledge his castle and four sons as collateral. On other occasions, friends and family members of the debtor were held hostage by the king until the loan was repaid in full.
In some instances, the king simply forgave a loan because the debtor was a personal friend, had promised political favors, or had provided an invaluable service. In most instances, the invaluable service was military duty. During the thirteenth century, each baron was required to serve as a soldier in the monarch's army, and provide the Crown with a certain number of knights for military service. A fine could be paid in lieu of the baron's military service, and a tax, known as scutage, was then paid in lieu of the knights' service. When King John launched a military campaign, he dramatically increased the fines and taxes for nonservice, and used these monies to pay mercenaries to fight his battles.
Although King John dreamed of building an English empire through military conquest on the European continent, he was an utter failure on the battlefield. With each military loss, the miscellaneous economic demands made by the Crown seemed less justified and more absurd. It is not surprising, then, that the barons renounced loyalty to the king, plotted his assassination, and ultimately compelled his capitulation to the Magna Charta.
The grievances King John promised to redress in the Magna Charta represent both the substance of the Great Charter's original meaning and its later symbolic import. The document's immediate purpose was to appease the baronial leadership. In this vein, it provided that justice would not be sold, denied, or delayed (ch. 40), and ensured that certain rights and procedures would be "granted freely" without risk of "life or limb" (ch. 36). It guaranteed the safe return of hostages, lands, castles, and family members that had been held as security by the Crown for military service and loan agreements. The Magna Charta mandated the investigation and abolition of any "ill customs" established by King John (ch. 48), and required that no "justices, constables, sheriffs, or bailiffs" be appointed unless they "know the law of the land, and are willing to keep it" (ch. 45).
The phrase "law of the land" is interspersed throughout the Magna Charta, and is emblematic of other abstract legal concepts contained in the Great Charter that outlasted the exigencies of 1215. Nowhere in the Great Charter is "law of the land" defined, but a number of sections offer an early glimpse of certain constitutional liberties in embryonic form.
For example, the American colonies equated "law of the land" with "due process of law," a legal principle that has been the cornerstone of procedural fairness in U.S. civil and criminal trials since the late 1700s. The due process clause of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments has been relied on by the U.S. Supreme Court as a source for substantive rights as well, including the right to privacy.
Chapter 39 of the Magna Charta linked the law-of-the-land principle with another important protection. It provided, "No free man shall be seized, or imprisoned, or disseised, or outlawed, or exiled or injured in any way, nor will we enter on him or send against him except by the lawful judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land." In 1215, a person obtained "lawful judgment of his peers" through a communal inquest in which 12 knights or landowners familiar with the subject matter of the dispute took an oath, and swore to testify truthfully based on their own knowledge or on knowledge gained from an eyewitness or other credible source.
This primitive form of fact-finding replaced even cruder methods—such as trial by battle, where the disputants fought savagely until one party begged for mercy or died, and the victorious party was presumed to have God and Right on his side. The process of one's peers in the community rendering judgment also presaged the modern trial by jury recognized by the seventh amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which similarly entitles a defendant to be tried by a body of jurors that is a "truly representative" cross section of the community (Glasser v. United States, 315 U.S. 60, 62 S. Ct. 457, 86 L. Ed. 680 [1942]).
The U.S. Supreme Court has also traced the origins of modern habeas corpus law to chapter 39 of the Magna Charta (Murray v. Carrier, 477 U.S. 478, 106 S. Ct. 2639, 91 L. Ed. 2d 397 [1986]). Habeas corpus is a procedure that authorizes a court to determine the legality under which a person is jailed, imprisoned, or otherwise detained by the government. If the court finds that the person was deprived of liberty through "due process of law," continued detention is permissible until trial, where guilt and innocence are placed in issue. Similarly, the Magna Charta validated the continued imprisonment of persons who had been originally incarcerated by the "law of the land."
In Harmelin v. Michigan, 501 U.S. 957, 111 S. Ct. 2680, 115 L. Ed. 2d 836 (1991), the Supreme Court also pointed to the Magna Charta as an early source of its eighth amendment proportionality analysis. Chapter 20 of the Great Charter prohibited the monarch from imposing a fine "unless according to the measure of the offense." It further provided that "for a great offense [a free man] shall be [punished] according to the greatness of the offense." Under the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution, the Supreme Court has echoed this principle by prohibiting state and federal governments from imposing fines and other forms of punishment that are disproportionate to the seriousness of the offense for which the defendant was convicted.
The contemporary significance of the Magna Charta is not confined to the areas of civil and criminal procedure. The Great Charter prohibited the government from assessing any military tax such as scutage "except by the common counsel of [the] realm" (ch. 12). The common counsel comprised persons from various classes of English society, including bishops, abbots, earls, and barons. The common counsel was a forerunner to Parliament and Congress as a representative body limiting the power of the government to pass legislation, particularly tax legislation, without popular consent.
The common counsel also proclaimed what would become a battle cry of the American colonists: No Taxation without Representation. Indeed, some colonists decried the stamp act, a statute passed by Parliament that taxed everything from newspapers to playing cards, as an illegal attempt to raise revenue in violation of the Magna Charta. Other colonists cited "the assembly of barons at Runnymede, when Magna Carta was signed" as precedent for the Continental Congress (Bailyn 1992, 173 n. 13).
The achievement of the Magna Charta, then, is found not only in the original meaning understood by Englanders of the thirteenth century, but also in the subsequent application of the document's principles. The Magna Charta began as a peace treaty between the baronial class and the king, but later symbolized a written contract between the governed and the government, a contract that included the right of rebellion when the government grew despotic or ruled without popular consent.
The Magna Charta also came to represent the notion of government bound by the law, sometimes referred to as the rule of law. The distinction between government according to law and government according to the will of the sovereign has been drawn by legal and political philosophers for thousands of years. This distinction was also made during the reign of King John. For example, Peter Fitz Herbert, an important landowner, complained that his father had been "disseised" of land "by the will of the king" despite evidence that the land belonged to his family as a matter of "right."
In another case, jurors returned a verdict against the Crown because the king had acted "by his will and without judgment" (Holt 1965, 91). For subsequent generations, in both England and the United States, the Magna Charta signified the contrast between tyrannical government unfettered by anything but the personal whims of its political leadership, and representative government limited by the letter and spirit of the law. The Magna Charta implied that no government official, not even an autocratic monarch asserting absolute power, is above the law.
Finally, the Magna Charta has come to symbolize equality under the law. Although the baronial leadership of 1215 represented a privileged class of male landowners, many provisions of the Magna Charta safeguarded the interests of women as well. For example, the Magna Charta granted women the right to refuse marriage and the option to remarry. It also protected a widow's dower interest in one-third of her husband's property.
Some provisions of the Magna Charta applied more broadly to all "free" individuals (ch. 39), whereas other provisions seemingly applied to every person in the realm, free or not. Chapter 16, for example, stated that "no one" shall be compelled to perform service for a knight's fee, and chapter 42 guaranteed a safe return to "anyone" who left the realm.
The most telling provision in this regard was chapter 40, which provided that "justice" will be sold to "no one." This provision embodies more than the idea that justice is cheapened when bought and sold. It also underscores the principle that all persons, rich and poor, must be treated the same under the law. An extension of this principle was captured by the equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which, as interpreted by the Supreme Court, invalidates laws that discriminate on the basis of, among other things, race, gender, national origin, and illegitimacy.

further readings

Bailyn, Bernard. 1992. The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. Enl. ed. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press.
Caher, John. 2002. "Rosenblatt Reflects on Impact of Magna Carta." New York Law Journal 228 (July 11): 1.
Holt, J.C. 1965. Reprint 1992. Magna Carta. Cambridge: University of Cambridge.
Irvine, Alexander Andrew Mackay. 2003. "The Spirit of Magna Carta Continues to Resonate in Modern Law." Law Quarterly Review 119 (April): 227–45.
McKechnie, William Sharp. 2000. Magna Carta: A Commentary on the Great Charter of King John: With an Historical Introduction. Union, N.J.: Lawbook Exchange.
Plucknett, Theodore. 1956. A Concise History of the Common Law. Boston: Little, Brown.
Siegan, Bernard H. 2001. Property Rights: From Magna Carta to the Fourteenth Amendment. New Brunswick, N.J.: Social Philosophy and Policy Foundation.
Trevelyan, G.M. 1982. A Shortened History of England. Middlesex, England: Penguin.
Wells, J.C. 2002. Magna Charta, or, The Rise and Progress of Constitutional Civil Liberty in England and America: Embracing the Period from the Norman Conquest to the Centennial Year of American Independence. Buffalo, N.Y.: W.S. Hein.
Wormald, Patrick. 1999. The Making of English Law. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell.

cross-references

Common Law; English Law; Feudalism; Magna Charta (Appendix, Primary Document).

Magna Carta

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Emerging as a thirteenth-century agreement between crown and aristocracy, the language of Magna Carta (literally, “great charter”) proved pregnant with meaning for later generations. The charter came to be seen as representing wider legal and political principles, especially those of lawful and limited government.
The charter was drafted against a backdrop of complex political and military disputes. At the center of each was King John (c. 1167–1216), the Plantagenet ruler of England, Wales, Ireland, and much of northern France. A descendant of the Normans who had conquered England a century earlier, John would become the first to reside permanently in England. He was crowned king in 1199 and immediately faced competing claims on his French territories, not least those of King Philip II (1165–1223) of France. In a series of wars with Philip and his allies, John lost much of his continental holdings by 1204. The following years saw him invade successively—and more successfully—Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. To exacerbate these military demands, John fell foul of Pope Innocent II (d. 1143). In 1207 the king contested the pope’s nominee for archbishop of Canterbury, Stephen Langton (c. 1150–1228). As a result, the pope placed England under an interdict on religious worship, excommunicated the king, and sided with Philip.
In attempting to pay for his military activities, John imposed increasing financial demands on the Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Combined with complaints about royal interference with the administration of justice, the result was rebellion against the king. In 1212 John acquiesced to the pope, agreeing to surrender his kingdoms to the papacy as feudal overlord and repurchasing them from him. An invasion of England was narrowly avoided the following year when the French fleet was destroyed. John then invaded France in 1214 in the hope of reclaiming his territories there. He suffered a major defeat at Bouvines, resulting in the loss of most of his remaining continental possessions.
John soon faced additional problems within England. Encouraged by Archbishop Langton, the Anglo-Norman barons there remonstrated against the king’s financial demands and judicial interference. In May 1215 they took London by military force. A truce was sought and representatives met at Runnymede, a meadow west of London on the river Thames, in June 1215. After much discussion, they agreed to a document of compromises called the Articles of the Barons. This was superseded by the charter subsequently known as Magna Carta. Formally, Magna Carta was a royal letter written in Latin dealing with a wide variety of issues: the freedom of the church, feudal customs, taxation, trade, and the law. This was not the first attempt to limit political power by a written charter. In England, for example, the Charter of Liberties issued by Henry I (c. 1068–1135) predated Magna Carta by over a century. Magna Carta was also similar to contemporaneous continental charters and legislation. Many of its rules came from a common pool of European political and legal thought, not least the canon law of the church. In the short term, the most potentially radical element of Magna Carta was probably the provision for a commission of barons to ensure royal compliance. But this came to nothing. Contrary to subsequent interpretation, it had little to do with the lesser landholders or the vast peasantry of England.
John renounced Magna Carta almost immediately. The pope, too, issued a papal bull against the agreement because it had been imposed by force. Civil war returned. Numerous barons now aligned themselves with Louis (1187–1226), Philip’s son and later Louis VIII of France, who invaded England in May 1216 with a significant army. Louis subsequently occupied London, where he was received enthusiastically by the barons and was proclaimed king of England. John made some military gains, but died of dysentery in October 1216. With his death, the barons’ complaints were less pressing. John’s nine-year-old son, Henry III (1207–1272), was seen as more politically malleable and was crowned English king. His regent, William Marshall (c. 1146–1219), one of the signatories of Magna Carta, revised and reissued the document in November 1216. Marshall was also able to convince most of the rebellious barons to renew their loyalty to the crown, ending the war. In 1217 a treaty was signed, and Louis left England. Another revision of Magna Carta that year separated the document into two sections: a brief Charter of the Forest concerning the royal forests, and the remaining text, the larger Magna Carta. Henry III reissued a still shorter version of Magna Carta in 1225. This version was confirmed by Edward I (1239–1307) in 1297.
The vague wording of Magna Carta, combined with changing social structures, meant that its text was continually reinterpreted. This is already evident in the fourteenth century. In general, the charter was largely ignored for centuries. By the seventeenth century, however, it took on greater significance in conflicts between king and Parliament. Lord Chief Justice Edward Coke (1552–1634) was especially important in popularizing the belief in Magna Carta’s wider constitutional principles. With parliamentary ascendancy in the late seventeenth century, it continued to play an important role in debates both in and out of Parliament. In the eighteenth century, Magna Carta served as a touchstone for American independence and constitutional government. In England, the nineteenth century brought a more balanced assessment of its historical meaning and the removal of most of its antiquated provisions from English law.
The document retains a deeply symbolic importance throughout the English-speaking world. The American Bar Association erected a monument at Runnymede in 1957. In May 2003 the Australian Parliament opened Magna Carta Place in Canberra. In the early twenty-first century, four copies of the original charter remain: two in the British Library and one each in the cathedral archives at Lincoln and Salisbury.
SEE ALSO Democracy; Feudalism; Monarchy; Monarchy, Constitutional; Sovereignty

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Breay, Claire. 2002. Magna Carta: Manuscripts and Myths. London: British Library.
Hindley, Geoffrey. 1990. The Book of Magna Carta. London: Bury St. Edwards.
Holt, J. C. 1985. Magna Carta and Medieval Government. London: Hambleton.
Holt, J. C. 1992. Magna Carta. 2nd ed. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press.
Seán Patrick Donlan

Magnacharta

The document that has come to be known as Magna Charta (spelled variously as "charta" or "carta"), or Great Charter, is recognized as a fundamental part of the English constitutional tradition. Although it is not a constitution, it contains provisions on criminal law that were incorporated into the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution.

Magna Charta contains sixty-three chapters. Many of the chapters defined the king's feudal rights over his vassals, preventing the king from arbitrarily collecting revenue from the barons. Chapter 39 established the right to due process of law, and in chapter 40 the king promised that he would not sell, deny, or delay justice to anyone.

Magna Charta did not resolve the dispute between the barons and King John. Within months they were fighting again. In August 1215 the charter was annulled by Pope Innocent III, John's feudal overlord, on the grounds that it had been executed under duress. In 1216, however, after John's death the charter was reissued with some modifications. At the conclusion of the civil war in 1217, it was reissued again with minor revisions. This version of Magna Charta became part of the English constitutional tradition; confirmed by later kings and interpreted by Parliament, it is still revered as a symbol of English liberties.

Magna Charta

John, by the grace of God, king of England, lord of Ireland, duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, count of Anjou, to all his archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls, barons, justiciars, foresters, sheriffs, stewards, servants, and all bailiffs and faithful men, health. Know that we by looking to God, and for the health of our soul, and of all our ancestors and heirs, to the honor of God, and the exaltation of his holy Church, and the rectifying of our realm by the counsel of our venerable fathers, Stephen, archbishop of Canterbury, primate of all England and cardinal of the holy Roman Church; Henry, archbishop of Dublin; William of London, Peter of Winchester, Joscelin of Bath and Glastonbury, Hugh of Lincoln, Walter of Worcester, William of Coventry and Benedict of Rochester, bishops; Master Pandulf, subdeacon of our lord pope and servant; brother Eymeric, master of the knights of the Temple in England; and of nobles, William Marshall, Earl of Pembroke; William, Earl of Salisbury; William, Earl Warrenne; William, Earl of Arundel; Alan of Galway, constable of Scotland; Warin, son of Gerold; Peter, son of Herbert; Hubert de Burg, seneschal of Poitou; Hugh de Neville; Matthew, son of Herbert; Thomas Basset; Alan Basset; Philip de Albini; Robert de Ropley; John Marshall; John, son of Hugh; and others our lieges.

CHAPTER 1

First, we grant to God, and by this our present charter we confirm, for us and our heirs forever, that the English church be free, and have its rights whole and its liberties unimpaired; and so we will to be observed, which appears from the fact that we have of pure and free will, before difference arose between us and our barons, granted, and by our charter confirmed, freedom of elections, which is conceived greatest and most necessary for the English church, and have got it confirmed from our lord Pope Innocent III, which we will observe ourselves and will to be observed in good faith by our heirs forever.¹ We have granted to all free men of our realm, for ourself and our heirs forever, all these underwritten liberties to have and to hold, for themselves and their heirs, from us and our heirs.

CHAPTER 2

If any of our earls or barons, or other tenant of us in chief by military service, die, and when he dies, his heir be of full age, and owe a relief, he shall have his inheritance by the old relief, to wit, the heir, or heirs of an earl, for the whole barony of an earl by P100; the heir or heirs of a baron, the whole barony by P100; the heir or heirs of a knight for a whole military fee by 100s. at most, and he who owes less should pay less according to the ancient custom of fees.

CHAPTER 3

If the heir of any of these be below age, and be in wardship, when he comes to full age he shall have his inheritance without relief or fine.

CHAPTER 4

The guardians of the land of any heir, who is below age, shall not take from the land of the heir more than reasonable exits [revenues], and reasonable customs, and reasonable services, and this without destruction and waste of men or property; and if we commit the wardship of any such land to the sheriff or any one else, who is to answer to us for the exits, and he made destruction or waste of his wardship, we will take recompense of him, and the land shall be committed to two lawful and discreet men of that fee, who will answer to us of the exits, or to him to whom we have assigned them; and if we have given or sold to any one the wardship of any such land, and he does destruction or waste, he shall lose his wardship, and give it to two lawful and discreet men of that fee, who shall in like manner answer to us as is aforesaid.

CHAPTER 5

The guardian, as long as he have wardship of the land, shall keep up houses, parks, stews, pools, mills, and other things belonging to that land, from the exits of the same land, and restore to the heir, when he comes to full age, all that land stocked with teams, according to what the season of teams demands, and the exits of the land can reasonably sustain.²

CHAPTER 6

Heirs shall be married without disparagement, so that before they contract matrimony it be communicated to the kinsmen in blood of the heir.

CHAPTER 7

A widow after the death of her husband shall at once and without hindrance have her marriage and inheritance, nor give anything for her dower, or for her marriage, or for her inheritance, which inheritance she and her husband had on the day of her husband's death, and she shall remain in her husband's home for forty days after his death, within which her dower shall be assigned to her.³

Source: Selections from The Second Treatise on Government, 5 J. Locke, WORKS (1823). The footnotes have been renumbered.

¹ The full text of the Charter of 1215 has been included here. Sections that were omitted in later versions of the charter are printed in italic type on this and subsequent pages. Unless otherwise indicated, the omissions were made in 1216. Important alterations and additions have been indicated in the notes.

² A clause added in 1216 stipulated that the chapter also applied to ecclesiastical properties except that those wardships should not be sold.

³ In 1217 a clause was added that guaranteed a widow one-third of her husband's lands unless a smaller dower had been assigned at the time of the marriage. In 1225 chapters 7 and 8 were combined into one.

CHAPTER 8

No widow shall be forced to marry as long as she wills to live without a husband, so that she give security that she will not marry without our assent, if she hold from us, or without the assent of the lord from whom she holds, if she holds from another.

CHAPTER 9

Neither we nor our bailiffs will seize any land or rent for any debt, as long as the chattels of the debtor suffice for paying the debt, nor shall the sureties of the debtor be distrained, as long as that debtor in chief suffices for the payment of the debt, and if the debtor in chief fail in paying the debt, not having whence to pay, the sureties shall answer for the debt, and if they will, shall have the land and rents of the debtor till they are satisfied of the debt which they paid for him, unless the debtor in chief show that he is quit thence against these sureties.

CHAPTER 10

If anyone borrows anything from the Jews, more or less, and dies before the debt is paid, the debt shall not bear usury as long as the heir is under age, from whoever he holds it, and if that debt fall into our hands we will take only the chattel contained in the deed.

CHAPTER 11

And if anyone die and owes a debt to the Jews, his wife shall have her dower and pay nothing of that debt, and if the children of the dead man are under age, necessaries shall be provided for them according to the holding of the dead man, and the debt shall be paid from the residue, the service of the lords saved, and in the same way shall it be done with debts which are owed to other than Jews.

CHAPTER 12

No scutage or aid shall be laid on our realm except by the common counsel of our realm, unless for ransoming our person, and making our eldest son a knight, and marrying our eldest daughter once, and this must only be a reasonable aid, and so shall it be with the aids of the city of London.

CHAPTER 13

And the city of London shall have all its ancient liberties and its free customs, both by land and by water. Besides we will and grant that all other cities, and burghs [boroughs], and vills [towns], and ports shall have all their liberties and free customs.

CHAPTER 14

And to have a common counsel of our realm on assessing an aid other than in the three aforenamed cases, or assessing a scutage, we will cause to be summoned archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls, and greater barons, singly by our letters, and we will also cause to be summoned in general, by our sheriffs and bailiffs, all those who hold of us in chief, at a certain day, to wit, at least forty days after, and a certain place; and in all letters of summons we will express the cause of summons, and when summons is made the business assigned for the day shall proceed according to the council of those who are present, though not all who are summoned come.

CHAPTER 15

We will grant to no one in future that he take aid from his free men, except to ransom his person, to make his eldest son a knight, and to marry his eldest daughter once, and for this there shall only be a reasonable aid.

CHAPTER 16

No one shall be distrained to do a greater service for a knight's fee, or any other frank [free] tenement than is due from it.

CHAPTER 17

Common pleas shall not follow our court, but shall be held in some certain place.

CHAPTER 18

Recognizances of novel disseisin, mort d'ancestor, and darrein presentment shall not be taken except in their own counties and in this manner; we, or, if we be out of the realm, our chief justiciar, will send two justices to each county four times in the year, who, with four knights of each county, elected by the county, shall take in the county and day and place the aforenamed assises of the county.⁴

⁴ In 1217 the text was changed to say that justices (number unspecified) would be sent through each county once a year to hold assises with knights of the county (number unspecified). A separate chapter was created that stipulated that assises involving darrein presentment should always be held before the justices of the bench.

CHAPTER 19

And if the aforesaid assises of the county cannot be taken on that day, so many knights and free tenants shall remain of those who were at the county on that day, by whom judgments can be sufficiently effected, according as the business is great or small.

CHAPTER 20

A free man shall not be amerced for a small offense unless according to the measure of the offense, and for a great offense he shall be amerced according to the greatness of the offense, saving his tenement, and the merchant in the same manner, saving his merchandise, and the villein shall be amerced in the same manner, saving his tools of husbandry, if they fall into our mercy, and none of the aforenamed mercies shall be imposed except by the oath of reputable men of the vicinage.

CHAPTER 21

Earls and barons shall not be amerced but by their equals, and only according to the measure of the offense.

CHAPTER 22

No cleric shall be amerced of his lay tenement, except according to the measure of the other aforesaid, and not according to the size of his ecclesiastical benefice.⁵

CHAPTER 23

No vill or man shall be distrained to make bridges at rivers, unless he who of old, or by right, is bound to do so.

CHAPTER 24

No sheriff, constable, coroners, or others of our bailiffs shall hold pleas of our crown.

CHAPTER 25

All counties, hundreds, wapentakes, and ridings shall be at the old farms [rents] without any increase, saving the manors of our demesne.

CHAPTER 26

If anyone holding a lay fee [fief] of us dies, and the sheriff or our bailiff shows our letters patent of the summonses of a debt which the dead man owed us, it shall be lawful for our sheriff or bailiff to attach and enroll the chattels of the dead man found in this fee to the value of the debt by the view of lawful men, so that nothing be moved thence till our debt which is clear be paid us, and the residue shall be left to the executors to fulfill the testament of the deceased, and if nothing be owed us by the deceased, all his chattels shall go to the deceased, save the reasonable shares to his wife and children.

CHAPTER 27

If any free man die intestate, his chattels shall be distributed by his nearest relations and friends, by the view of the church, save the debts due to each which the deceased owed.

CHAPTER 28

No constable, or other bailiff of ours, shall take the corn or chattels of anyone, unless he forthwith pays money for them, or can have any respite by the good will of the seller.⁶

CHAPTER 29

No constable shall distrain any knight to give money for the wardship of a castle [military service in the garrison of a castle], if he be willing to perform that wardship in his own person, or by some other reputable man, if he cannot do it himself for some reasonable cause, and if we have led or sent him to an army, he shall be quit of the wardship, according to the length of time that he is with us in the army.

CHAPTER 30

No sheriff or bailiff of ours, or any other, shall take horses and carts of any free man for carrying, except by the will of the free man.⁷

CHAPTER 31

Neither we nor our bailiffs will take any wood for our castles, or other our works, except by consent of the man whose wood it is.

⁵ In 1225 chapters 20, 21, and 22 were combined in a single chapter.

⁶ In 1216 the chapter was modified to say that constables and their bailiffs should not take the goods of anyone who is not from the village where the castle is located unless they pay cash or make arrangements to pay later; persons from the village should be paid in three weeks. In 1217 the three weeks was changed to forty days.

⁷ In 1216 the chapter was modified to say that the horses and carts should not be taken unless the owner received a specified amount of money. In 1217 a chapter was inserted that prohibited bailiffs from taking carts from the demesne of a cleric, a knight, or a lady. In 1225 chapters 30 and 31 from the Charter of 1215 and the new chapter were combined into a single chapter.

CHAPTER 32

We will not hold the lands of those who are convict of felony, except for one year and one day, and then the lands shall be returned to the lords of the fees.

CHAPTER 33

All kidells [fish-weirs] shall for the future be wholly taken away from the Thames and the Medway, and through all England, except at the coast of the sea.

CHAPTER 34

The writ which is called praecipe for the future shall not issue to anyone about any tenement from which a free man may lose his court.

CHAPTER 35

There shall be one measure of wine throughout our whole realm, and one measure of beer, and one measure of corn, to wit, the London quarter, and one breadth of dyed cloth, and russet and haberget cloth, to wit, two ells within the lists, and of weights it shall be as of measures.

CHAPTER 36

Nothing shall be given or taken hereafter for the writ of inquisition on life or limb, but it shall be granted freely, and not denied.

CHAPTER 37

If anyone holds of us by fee-farm, either by socage or by burgage, or of any other land by military service, we shall not have the wardship of the heir or his land which belongs to another's fee, because of that fee-farm, or socage or burgage, nor shall we have wardship of that fee-farm, or socage or burgage, unless the fee-farm itself owes military service. We shall not either have wardship of heir or any land, which he holds of another by military service, by reason of some petty serjeanty which he holds of us, by the service of paying us knives, or arrows, or the like.

CHAPTER 38

No bailiff in future shall put anyone to law by his mere word, without trustworthy witnesses brought forward for it.

CHAPTER 39

No free man shall be seized, or imprisoned, or disseised, or outlawed, or exiled, or injured in any way, nor will we enter on him or send against him except by the lawful judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land.⁸

CHAPTER 40

We will sell to no one, or deny to no one, or put off right or justice.

CHAPTER 41

All merchants shall have safe conduct and security to go out of England or come into England, and to stay in, and go through England, both by land and water, for buying or selling, without any evil tolls, by old and right customs, except in time of war; and if they be of the land at war against us, and if such shall be found in our land, at the beginning of war, they shall be attached without loss of person or property, until it be known by us or our chief justiciar how the merchants of our land are treated who are found then in the land at war with us; and if ours be safe there, others shall be safe here.⁹

CHAPTER 42

It shall be lawful for anyone hereafter to go out of our realm, and return, safe and sound, by land or by water, saving fealty to us, except in time of war for some short time, for the common weal of the realm, except imprisoned men, and outlaws according to the law of the realm, and as natives of a land at war against us, and to the merchants of whom is done as is aforesaid.

CHAPTER 43

If any person holds of any escheat, as of the honor of Wallingford, Nottingham, Boulogne, Lancaster, or of other escheats which are in our hands, and they are baronies, and he dies, his heir shall not pay any other relief, or do us any other service but that which he would do for the baron, if the barony were in the hand of a baron, and we similarly will hold him in the same way that the baron held him.¹⁰

⁸ In 1217 the words "of his freehold liberties or free customs" were inserted after "disseised." In 1225 the words "in the future" were inserted after "No free man shall," and the chapter and the one following it were joined together.

⁹ In 1216 the words "unless formerly they have been publicly prohibited" were inserted after "All merchants."

¹⁰ In 1217 a sentence added at the end of the chapter stipulated that the king would not have an escheat or wardship by reason of such an escheat or barony unless the person who held the property was a tenant-in-chief for other property.

¹¹ Chapter 44 of the Charter of 1215 was retained in the Charter of 1216, but in 1217 it was transferred to the separate Charter of the Forest. In 1217 a new chapter was inserted at this point that stipulated that no free man should give or sell so much of his land that he would be prevented from doing the full service due from the fief.

CHAPTER 44

Men who dwell without the forest shall not come hereafter before our justices of the forest, by common summonses, unless they are in plea, or sureties of one or more, who are attached for the forest.¹¹

CHAPTER 45

We will not make justices, constables, sheriffs, or bailiffs except from those who know the law of the realm, and are willing to keep it.

CHAPTER 46

All barons who have founded abbeys, whence they have charters of the kings of England, or ancient tenure, shall have their custody while vacant, as they ought to have it.

CHAPTER 47

All forests which have been afforested in our time shall be forthwith deforested, and so with the rivers which have been forbidden by us in our time.¹²

CHAPTER 48

All ill customs of forests and warrens, and foresters and warreners, sheriffs and their servants, rivers and their keepers, shall be forthwith inquired into in each county by twelve sworn knights of the same county, who should be chosen by the reputable men of the same county; and, within forty days after the inquest is over, they shall be wholly done away by them, never to be recalled, so we know this first, or our justiciar, if we are not in England.

CHAPTER 49

We will forthwith return all hostages and charters which were delivered to us by the English as security of peace or faithful service.

CHAPTER 50

We will wholly remove from their bailiwicks the relations of Gerard de Athée so that hereafter they shall have no bailiwick in England, Engelard de Cigogné, Andrew, Peter, and Guy de Chanceux, Geoffrey de Martigny and his brothers, Philip Mark and his brothers, and Geoffrey his nephew, and all their following.

CHAPTER 51

And immediately after the restoration of peace, we will remove from the realm all foreign knights, bowmen, officers, and mercenaries who came with horses and arms to the harm of the realm.

CHAPTER 52

If anyone has been disseised or deprived by us without lawful judgment of his peers, from lands, castles, liberties, or his right, we will forthwith restore him; and if a dispute arise about this, judgment shall then be made by twenty-five barons, of whom mention is made below, for the security of peace, and of all those matters of which a man has been disseised or deprived without the lawful judgment of his peers, by King Henry our father, or by King Richard our brother, which lands we have in our hands, or which others have, which we ought to warrant, we will have respite up to the common term of the crusaders, those being excepted of which the plea was raised or inquisition was made by our order, before the taking of our cross, and when we return from our journey, or if we chance to remain from our journey, we will forthwith show full justice thence.

CHAPTER 53

We will have the same respite, and in the same way, about exhibiting justice of deforesting or maintaining the forests, which Henry our father, or Richard our brother afforested, and of the wardship of the lands which are of another's fee, of which thing we have hitherto had the wardship, by reason of the fee, because someone held of us by military service, and of the abbeys which were founded on the fee of another than our own, in which the lord of the fee says he has the right; and when we return, or if we stay from our journey, we will afford full justice to those who complain of these things.

CHAPTER 54

No one shall be seized or imprisoned for the appeal of a woman about the death of any other man but her husband.

¹² In 1217 the first clause was transferred to the Charter of the Forest; the second clause became a separate chapter.

CHAPTER 55

All fines which have been made unjustly and against the law of the land with us, and all amercements made unjustly and against the law of the land, shall be wholly excused, or it shall be done with them by the judgment of twenty-five barons, of whom mention will be made below on the security of the peace, or by the judgment of the greater part of them, along with the aforenamed Stephen, archbishop of Canterbury, if he can be present, and others whom he wills to summon to him, and if he be unable to be present, nevertheless the business shall go on without him, so that if one or more of the aforenamed twenty-five barons arein a like suit, they may be removed as far as this judgment is concerned, and others be appointed, elected, and sworn for this matter only, by the residue of the same twenty-five.

CHAPTER 56

If we have disseised or deprived the Welsh of their lands or liberties or other goods, without lawful judgment of their peers, in England or in Wales, let these things be forthwith restored, and if a dispute arise upon this, let it be thereafter settled in the march by the judgment of their peers; on tenements in England according to the law of England; on tenements in Wales according to the law of Wales; on tenements in the march according to the law of the march. The Welshmen shall do the same to us and ours.¹³

CHAPTER 57

In all these matters in which anyone of the Welsh was disseised or deprived without lawful judgment of his peers, by King Henry our father, or King Richard our brother, which we have in our hands, or which others hold, and which we ought to warrant, we will have respite to the common term of the crusaders, those excepted in which our plea has been raised, or inquisition has been made by our order, before we took the cross; but, when we return, or if by chance we wait from our journey, we will show full justice to them thence, according to the laws of Wales, and the aforesaid parties.

CHAPTER 58

We will restore the son of Llewellyn forthwith, and all the hostages of Wales, and the charters which have been delivered to us for the security of peace.

CHAPTER 59

We will do to Alexander, king of Scots, about his sisters, and restoring his hostages, and his liberties, and his right, according to the form in which we have dealt with our other barons of England, unless they are bound to other matters by the charters which we have of William his father, once king of the Scots, and this shall be by judgment of their peers in our court.

CHAPTER 60

All these aforesaid customs and liberties which we have granted to be held in our realm, as far as belongs to us, towards our own, all in our realm, both clergy and lay, shall observe, as far as belongs to them, towards their own.

¹³ Chapter 56 was retained in the Charter of 1216 but was omitted thereafter.

CHAPTER 61

But since, for the sake of God and for the bettering of our realm, and for better quieting the discord which has arisen between us and our barons, we have ganted all the aforesaid, wishing to enjoy them in pure and firm security forever, we make and grant them the underwritten security: viz. that the barons choose twenty-five barons from the realm, whom they will, who should with all their power keep, hold, and cause to be kept, the peace and liberties which we grant them, and by this our present charter confirm, so that, if we, or our justiciar, or our bailiffs, or any of our servants, do wrong in any case to anyone, or we transgress any of the articles of peace and security, and the offense is shown to four out of the aforenamed twenty-five barons, those four barons shall come to us, or our justiciar, if we are out of the realm, to show the wrong; they shall seek that we cause that wrong to be rectified without delay. And if we do not rectify the wrong, or if we are without the realm, our justiciar does not rectify it within forty days from the time in which it was shown to us or our justiciar, if we are without the realm, the aforesaid four barons shall bring the case before the rest of the twenty-five barons, and those twenty-five barons, with the commonalty of the whole realm, shall distrain and distress us, in every way they can, to wit, by the capture of castles, lands, possessions, and other ways in which they can, till right is done according to their will, saving our person and that of our queen and our children; and, when right is done, they shall obey us as before. And whoever of the land wishes, may swear that he will obey the orders of the aforesaid twenty-five barons, in carrying out all the aforesaid, and that he will distress us as far as he can, with them, and we give publicly and freely license to all to swear who wills, and we will forbid no one to swear. But all those in the land who will not, by themselves and of their own accord, swear to the twenty-five barons about distraining and distressing us with them, we will cause them to swear by our orders, as is aforesaid. And if any one of the twenty-five barons dies, or quits the country, or in any way is hindered from being able to carry out the aforesaid, the remainder of the aforesaid twenty-five barons may choose another into his place, at their discretion, who shall be sworn in like manner with the rest. In all those matters which are committed to the baronsto carry out, if these twenty-five happen to be present and differ on any one point, or others summoned by them will not or cannot be present, that must be had settled and fixed which the majority of those who are present provides or decides, just as if all the twenty-five agreed on it, and the aforesaid twenty-five shall swear that they will faithfully keep all the aforesaid, and cause them to be kept with all their power. And we will ask nothing from anyone, by ourselves or any other, by which any one of these grants and liberties shall be revoked or lessened; and if we do obtain any such thing, it shall be vain and void, and we will never use it by ourselves or by another.

CHAPTER 62

And all ill will, wrath, and rancor, which has arisen between us and our men, clerics and laymen, from the time of the discord, we fully have remitted and condoned to all. Besides, all the offenses done by reason of the same discord, from Easter in the sixteenth year of our reign to the renewal of peace, we wholly remit to all, clerics and laymen, and as far as we are concerned fully have condoned. And, moreover, we have caused letters patent to be made to them, in witness of this, of lord Stephen, archbishop of Canterbury, of lord Henry, archbishop of Dublin, and of the aforesaid bishops, and of Master Pandulf, as the aforenamed security and grants.

¹⁴ Several chapters were added in 1217 that regulated the sheriff's tourn (tour through the hundreds, or subdivisions, of a county to hold court) and view of frankpledge; made it illegal for anyone to give land to a religious house and receive it back to hold as a tenant; established that scutage should be taken as it had been during the reign of King Henry II (1154–1189); and decreed that all adulterine castles (castles built without the king's permission) that had been erected since the beginning of the war between John and the barons should be destroyed. All but the last chapter were retained in 1225.

CHAPTER 63

Wherefore we will and firmly order that the English church should be free, and that the men of our realm should have and hold all the aforenamed liberties, rights, and grants, well and in peace, freely and quietly, fully and completely, for them and their heirs, from us and our heirs, in all things and places, forever, as is aforesaid. It is sworn both by us, and on the part of the barons, that all these aforesaid shall be kept in good faith and without ill meaning. Witnesses, the above-named and many others. Given by our hand, in the meadow which is called Runnymede, between Windsor and Staines, on the fifteenth day of June, in the seventeenth year of our reign.¹⁴

http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Magna_Carta.aspx

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Rolling Out “Old Glory”

In 1824, Captain William Driver of Salem, Massachusetts was presented with a handcrafted United States flag, which had one star for each state in the Union, and he named it “Old Glory.” He coined the term, in fact, and kept “Old Glory” with him on his numerous voyages at sea.

He eventually retired from service and settled down in Nashville, Tennessee, which by 1861 had been overtaken by the Confederacy. Captain Driver, still loyal to the Union, hid the original “Old Glory” — which was a symbol of his loyalty to the north — by sewing it into a quilt, where it stayed until the Union reclaimed Nashville in 1862.

Today, the original “Old Glory” resides at the National Museum of American History. Have a look at the American artifact in the video below.

CANADA: True Patriot Love Foundation launches Highway of Heroes concert tour

Friday, June 12, 2015

Clauses still in force today

And what of the Magna Carta’s relevance today?

When:June 12, 2015 toDecember 29, 2015

http://members.tripod.com/mr_sedivy/engrise13.html

---

God bless our troops, then, now ...always... thank u 4 r freedoms

Standing Strong & True (For Tomorrow) Official Music Video (HD)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuNeV0fMflw

The Law of First Nations

The Law of First Nations

The Early Years

Canada - Nationhood & Expansion

The Indian Treaties

General Laws (Indian Act)

Links to More Information

http://www.canadianlawsite.ca/aboriginal.htm

---

The Great Charter

Why a thirteenth-century piece of parchment endorsed by an English king who was under threat of death has meaning for Canadians today.

Magna Carta on tour

Magna Carta becomes iconic

Still dangerous? Magna Carta's protest heritage

Magna Carta in Canada

MAGNA CARTA BY THE NUMBERS

Rate This Article

The clauses of Magna Carta and American Legacy

Magna Carta

Why these colors don't run: Dyeing the Star-Spangled Banner

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Post a Comment

Friday, June 12, 2015

Clauses still in force today

And what of the Magna Carta’s relevance today?

When:June 12, 2015 toDecember 29, 2015

http://members.tripod.com/mr_sedivy/engrise13.html

---

God bless our troops, then, now ...always... thank u 4 r freedomsStanding Strong & True (For Tomorrow) Official Music Video (HD)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuNeV0fMflw

The Law of First Nations

The Law of First Nations

The Early Years

Canada - Nationhood & Expansion

The Indian Treaties

General Laws (Indian Act)

Links to More Information

http://www.canadianlawsite.ca/aboriginal.htm

---

The Great Charter

Why a thirteenth-century piece of parchment endorsed by an English king who was under threat of death has meaning for Canadians today.

Magna Carta on tour

Magna Carta becomes iconic

Still dangerous? Magna Carta's protest heritage

Magna Carta in Canada

MAGNA CARTA BY THE NUMBERS

Rate This Article

The clauses of Magna Carta and American Legacy

Magna Carta

Why these colors don't run: Dyeing the Star-Spangled Banner

No comments:

Post a Comment

God bless our troops, then, now ...always... thank u 4 r freedoms

Standing Strong & True (For Tomorrow) Official Music Video (HD)