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Magna Carta

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: British History 1500 and
before (including Roman Britain)

   Magna Carta
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   Magna Carta

   Magna Carta (Latin for "Great Charter", literally "Great Paper"), also
   called Magna Carta Libertatum ("Great Charter of Freedoms"), is an
   English charter originally issued in 1215. Magna Carta was the most
   significant early influence on the long historical process that led to
   the rule of constitutional law today. Magna Carta was originally
   created because of disagreements between Pope Innocent III, King John
   and his English barons about the rights of the King. Magna Carta
   required the king to renounce certain rights, respect certain legal
   procedures and accept that the will of the king could be bound by law.

   There are a number of popular misconceptions about Magna Carta, such as
   that it was the first document to limit the power of an English king by
   law (it was not the first, and was partly based on the Charter of
   Liberties); that it in practice limited the power of the king (it
   mostly did not in the Middle Ages); and that it is a single static
   document (it is a variety of documents referred to under a common
   name).

   Magna Carta was renewed throughout the Middle Ages, and further during
   the Tudor and Stuart periods, and the 17th and 18th centuries. By the
   early 19th century most clauses had been repealed from English law. The
   influence of Magna Carta outside England can be seen in the United
   States Constitution and Bill of Rights. Indeed just about every common
   law state has been influenced by Magna Carta, making it one of the most
   important legal documents in the history of democracy.

Events leading to Magna Carta

   One of the certified copies of Magna Carta made in 1215.
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   One of the certified copies of Magna Carta made in 1215.

   After the Norman Conquest of England in 1066 and advances in the 12th
   century, the English king had by 1199 become the most powerful monarch
   in Europe. This was due to a number of factors including the
   sophisticated centralised government created by the procedures of the
   new Anglo-Saxon systems of governance, and extensive Anglo-Norman land
   holdings in Normandy. But after King John was crowned in the early 13th
   century, a series of stunning failures on his part led the barons of
   England to revolt and place checks on the king's power.

France

   One major cause of discontent in the realm was John's actions in
   France. At the time of John's accession to the throne after Richard's
   death, there were no set rules to define the line of succession. John,
   as Richard's younger brother, was crowned over Richard's nephew, Arthur
   of Brittany. As Arthur still had a claim over the Anjou empire,
   however, John needed the approval of the French King, Philip Augustus.
   To get it, John gave to Philip vast tracts of the French-speaking Anjou
   territories.

   When John later married Isabella of Angoulême, her previous fiancé (
   Hugh IX of Lusignan, one of John's vassals) appealed to Philip, who
   then declared forfeit all of John's French lands, including the rich
   Normandy. Philip declared Arthur as the true ruler of the Anjou throne
   and invaded John's French holdings in mid-1202 to give it to him. John
   had to act to save face, but his eventual actions did not achieve
   this—he ended up killing Arthur in suspicious circumstances, thus
   losing the little support he had from his French barons.

   After the defeat of John's allies at the Battle of Bouvines, Philip
   retained all of John's northern French territories, including Normandy
   (although the Aquitaine remained in English hands for a time). As a
   result, John was revealed as a weak military leader, and one who lost
   to the French a major source of income, neither of which made him
   popular at home. Worse, to recoup his expenses, John would have to
   further tax the already unhappy barons.

   Note: John's nickname of "Lackland" does not refer to these losses to
   France, but to the fact that, unlike his elder brothers, he had
   received no land rights on the continent at birth.

The Church

   At the time of John’s reign there was still a great deal of controversy
   as to how the Archbishop of Canterbury was to be elected, although it
   had become traditional that the monarch would appoint a candidate with
   the approval of the monks of Canterbury.

   But in the early 13th century, the bishops began to want a say. To
   retain control, the monks elected one of their number to the role. But
   John, incensed at his lack of involvement in the proceedings, sent the
   Bishop of Norwich to Rome as his choice. Pope Innocent III declared
   both choices as invalid and persuaded the monks to elect Stephen
   Langton, who in fact was probably the best choice. But John refused to
   accept this choice and exiled the monks from the realm. Infuriated,
   Innocent ordered an interdict (prevention of public worship - mass,
   marriages, the ringing of church bells, etc.) in England in 1208,
   excommunicated John in 1209, and backed Philip to invade England in
   1212.

   John finally backed down and agreed to endorse Langton and allow the
   exiles to return, and to completely placate the pope he gave England
   and Ireland as papal territories and rented them back as a fiefdom for
   1,000 marks per annum. This further enraged the barons as it meant that
   they had even less autonomy in their own lands.

Taxes

   Despite all of this, England's government could function without a
   strong king. The efficient civil service, established by the powerful
   King Henry II had run England throughout the reign of Richard I. But
   the government needed money, for during this period of prosperity
   mercenary soldiers cost nearly twice as much as before. The loss of the
   French territories, especially Normandy, greatly reduced the state
   income and a huge tax would have to be raised in order to attempt to
   reclaim these territories. Yet it was difficult to raise taxes due to
   the tradition of keeping them at the same level.

   Novel forms of income included a Forest law, a set of regulations about
   the king’s forest which were easily broken and severely punished. John
   also increased the pre-existing scutage (feudal payment to an overlord
   replacing direct military service) eleven times in his seventeen years
   as king, as compared to eleven times in twice that period covering
   three monarchs before him. The last two of these increases were double
   the increase of their predecessors. He also imposed the first income
   tax which rose, what was at the time, the extortionate sum of £60,000.

Rebellion and civil war

   John of England signs Magna Carta—illustration from Cassell's History
   of England (1902)
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   John of England signs Magna Carta—illustration from Cassell's History
   of England (1902)

   By 1215, some of the barons of England banded together and took London
   by force on June 10, 1215. They and many of the fence-sitting moderates
   not in overt rebellion forced King John to agree to a document called
   the "Articles of the Barons", to which his Great Seal was attached in
   the meadow at Runnymede on June 15, 1215. In return, the barons renewed
   their oaths of fealty to King John on June 19, 1215. A formal document
   to record the agreement was created by the royal chancery on July 15:
   this was the original Magna Carta. An unknown number of copies of it
   were sent out to officials, such as royal sheriffs and bishops.

   The most significant clause for King John at the time was clause 61,
   known as the "security clause", the longest portion of the document.
   This established a committee of 25 barons who could at any time meet
   and over-rule the will of the King, through force by seizing his
   castles and possessions if needed. This was based on a medieval legal
   practice known as distraint, which was commonly done, but it was the
   first time it had been applied to a monarch. In addition, the King was
   to take an oath of loyalty to the committee.

   King John had no intention to honour Magna Carta, as it was sealed
   under extortion by force, and clause 61 essentially neutered his power
   as a monarch, making him King in name only. He renounced it as soon as
   the barons left London, plunging England into a civil war, called the
   First Barons' War. Pope Innocent III also immediately annulled the
   "shameful and demeaning agreement, forced upon the king by violence and
   fear." He rejected any call for rights, saying it impaired King John's
   dignity. He saw it as an affront to the Church's authority over the
   king and released John from his oath to obey it.

Magna Carta re-issued

   John died in the middle of the war, from dysentery, on October 18,
   1216, and this quickly changed the nature of the war. His nine-year-old
   son, Henry III, was next in line for the throne. The royalists believed
   the rebel barons would find the idea of loyalty to the child Henry more
   palatable, and so the child was swiftly crowned in late October 1216
   and the war ended.

   Henry's regents reissued Magna Carta in his name on November 12, 1216,
   omitting some clauses, such as clause 61, and again in 1217. When he
   turned 18 in 1225, Henry III himself reissued Magna Carta again, this
   time in a shorter version with only 37 articles.

   Henry III ruled for 56 years (the longest reign of an English Monarch
   in the Medieval period) so that by the time of his death in 1272, Magna
   Carta had become a settled part of English legal precedent, and more
   difficult for a future monarch to annul as King John had attempted
   nearly three generations earlier.

   Henry III's son and heir Edward I's Parliament reissued Magna Carta for
   the final time on 12 October 1297 as part of a statute called
   Confirmatio cartarum (25 Edw. I), reconfirming Henry III's shorter
   version of Magna Carta from 1225.

Content of Magna Carta

   Seal of King John on original Magna Carta.
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   Seal of King John on original Magna Carta.

   The Magna Carta was originally written in Latin. A large part of Magna
   Carta was copied, nearly word for word, from the Charter of Liberties
   of Henry I, issued when Henry I ascended to the throne in 1100, which
   bound the king to certain laws regarding the treatment of church
   officials and nobles, effectively granting certain civil liberties to
   the church and the English nobility.

Rights still in force today

   Clause 1 of Magna Carta (the original 1215 edition) guarantees the
   freedom of the English Church. Although this originally meant freedom
   from the King, later in history it was used for different purposes (see
   below). Clause 13 guarantees the “ancient liberties” of the city of
   London. Clause 39 gives a right to due process.

   The 1215 edition was annulled in 1216 (see above) but some of the 1297
   version is still in force today and preserves the rights listed above.

   In 1828 the passing of the first Offences Against the Person Act, was
   the first time a clause of Magna Carta was repealed, namely Clause 36.
   With the document's perceived protected status broken, in one hundred
   and fifty years nearly the whole charter was repealed, leaving just
   Clauses 1, 13, 39, and 40 still in force after the Statute Law
   (Repeals) Act was passed in 1969.

Feudal rights still in place in 1225

   These clauses were present in the 1225 charter but are no longer in
   force, and would have no real place in the post-feudal world. Clauses 2
   to 7 refer to the feudal death duties; defining the amounts and what to
   do if an heir to a fiefdom is underage or is a widow. Clause 23
   provides no town or person should be forced to build a bridge across a
   river. Clause 33 demands the removal of all fish weirs. Clause 43 gives
   special provision for tax on reverted estates and Clause 44 states that
   forest law should only apply to those in the King’s forest.

Feudal rights not in the 1225 charter

   These provisions have no bearing in the world today, as they are feudal
   rights, and were not even included in the 1225 charter. Clauses 9 to
   12, 14 to 16, and 25 to 26 deal with debt and taxes and Clause 27 with
   intestacy.

   The other clauses state that no one may seize land in debt except as a
   last resort, that underage heirs and widows should not pay interest on
   inherited loans, that county rents will stay at their ancient amounts
   and that the crown may only seize the value owed in payment of a debt,
   that aid (taxes for warfare or other emergency) must be reasonable, and
   that scutage (literally, shield-payment, payment in lieu of actual
   military service used to finance warfare) may only be sought with the
   consent of the kingdom.

   These clauses were not present in the 1225 document, but still this led
   to the first parliament. Clause 14 provided that the common consent of
   the kingdom was to be sought from a council of the archbishops,
   bishops, earls and greater Barons. This later became the great council
   (see below).

Judicial rights (also in 1225 Charter)

   These rights were the beginning of English judicial rights. Clauses 17
   to 22 allowed for a fixed law court, which became the chancellery, and
   defines the scope and frequency of county assizes. They also said that
   fines should be proportionate to the offence, that they should not be
   influenced by ecclesiastical property in clergy trials, and that people
   should be tried by their peers. Many think that this gave rise to jury
   and magistrate trial, but its only manifestation in today’s world is
   the right of a Lord to trial in the House of Lords at first instance.

   Clause 24 states that crown officials (such as sheriffs) may not try a
   crime in place of a judge. Clause 34 forbids repossession without a
   writ precipe. Clauses 36 to 38 state that writs for loss of life or
   limb are to be free, that someone may use reasonable force to secure
   their own land and that no one can be tried on their own testimony
   alone.

   Clause 54 says that no man may be imprisoned on the testimony of a
   woman except on the death of her husband.

Anti-corruption and fair trade (also in 1225 Charter)

   Clauses 28 to 32 say that no royal officer may take any commodity such
   as corn, wood or transport without payment or consent or force a knight
   to pay for something they could do themselves and that he must return
   any lands confiscated from a felon within a year and a day.

   Clause 25 sets out a list of standard measures and Clauses 41 and 42
   guarantee the safety and right of entry and exit of foreign merchants.

   Clause 45 says that the king should only appoint royal officers where
   they are suitable for the post. Clause 46 provides for the guardianship
   of monasteries.

Temporary provisions

   These provisions were for immediate effect, and were not in any later
   charter. Clauses 47 and 48 abolish most of Forest Law. Clauses 49, 52
   to 53 and 55 to 59 provide for the return of hostages, land and fines
   taken in John’s reign.

   Article 50 says that no member of the D’Athèe family may be a royal
   officer. Article 51 provides all foreign knights and mercenaries should
   leave the realm.

   Articles 60, 62 and 63 provide for the application and observation of
   The Charter and say that The Charter is binding on the Kings and his
   heirs forever, but this was soon deemed to be dependent on that
   specific King reaffirming The Charter under his own seal.

1226–1495

   The document commonly known as Magna Carta today is not the 1215
   charter, but a later charter of 1225, and is usually shown in the form
   of The Charter of 1297 when it was confirmed by Edward I. At the time
   of the 1215 charter many of the provisions were not meant to make long
   term changes but simply to right the immediate wrongs, and therefore
   The Charter was reissued three times in the reign of Henry III (1216,
   1217 and 1225) in order to provide for an updated version. After this
   each individual king for the next two-hundred years (until Henry V in
   1416) personally confirmed the 1225 charter in their own charter.

   Magna Carta had little effect on the rest of the development of
   parliament until the Tudor period. Knights and county representatives
   attended the Great Council ( Simon de Montfort’s Parliament), and the
   council became far more representative under the model parliament of
   Edward I which included two knights from each county, two burgesses
   from each borough and two citizens from each city. The commons
   separated from the Lords in 1341. The right of commons to exclusively
   sanction taxes (based on a withdrawn provision of Magna Carta) was
   re-asserted in 1407, although it was not in force in this period. The
   power vested in the Great Council by, albeit withdrawn, Clause 14 of
   Magna Carta became vested in the House of Commons but Magna Carta was
   all but forgotten for about a century, until the Tudors.

Great Council

   The first long-term constitutional effect arose from Clauses 14 and 61.
   These clauses permitted a council comprised of the most powerful men in
   the country, to exist for the benefit of the state rather than in
   allegiance to the monarch. Members of the council were also allowed to
   renounce their oath of allegiance to the king in pressing circumstances
   and to pledge allegiance to the council and not to the king in certain
   instances. The common council was responsible for taxation and,
   although it was not representative, its members were bound by decisions
   made in their absence. The common council, later called the Great
   Council, was England's proto- parliament.

   The Great Council only existed to give input on the opinion of the
   kingdom as a whole, and only had power in relation to scutage until
   1258 when Henry III got into debt fighting in Sicily for the pope. The
   Barons agreed to a tax in return for reform, leading to the Provisions
   of Oxford. But Henry got a papal bull allowing him to set aside the
   provisions and in 1262 told royal officers to ignore the provisions and
   only to obey Magna Carta. The Barons revolted and seized the Tower of
   London, the cinque ports and Gloucester. Initially the king
   surrendered, but when Louis IX (of France) arbitrated in favour of
   Henry, Henry crushed the rebellion. Later he ceded somewhat, passing
   the Statute of Marlborough in 1267 that allowed writs for breaches of
   Magna Carta to be free of charge, enabling anyone to have standing to
   apply the charter.

   This secured the position of the council forever but its powers were
   still very limited. The council originally only met three times a year,
   when the king wore his crown, and so was subservient to the king’s
   council, Curiae Regis, who, unlike the Great Council, followed the king
   wherever he went unlike the Great Council.

   Still, in some senses the council was an early form of parliament. It
   had the power to meet outside the authority of the king, and was not
   appointed by him. Whilst modern government descends from the Curiae
   Regis, parliament descends from the Great Council which was later
   called the parliamentum. Still, the council was very different from
   modern parliament. There were no knights, let alone commons, and it was
   composed of the most powerful men, rather than elected.

The Tudors

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

First uses of the charter as a bill of rights

   This statute was used widely in the reign of Henry VIII, but it seems
   that it was seen as any other statute which could be amended and
   removed. But later in the reign, the Lord Treasurer stated in the Star
   Chamber that many had lost their lives in the Baronial wars fighting
   for the liberties, which were guaranteed by The Charter, and therefore
   it should not so easily be overlooked as a simple and regular statute.

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

   Although the early Tudor period saw a re-awaking of the use of Magna
   Carta in the common law, it was not seen, as it was later, as an
   entrenched set of liberties guaranteed for the people against The Crown
   and Government. Rather, it was a normal statute which gave a certain
   level of liberties, most of which could not be relied on, least of all
   against the King. Therefore The Charter had little effect on the
   governance of the early Tudor period. Although lay parliament evolved
   from The Charter, by this stage the powers of the institution had gone
   far beyond those humble beginnings under its own volition. The Charter
   had no real effect until the Elizabethan age.

Reintepretation of the charter

   In the Elizabethan age, England was becoming the most powerful force in
   Europe and so pride became a primary force in academia, thus attempts
   were made to prove that Parliament had Roman origins. This futile
   search was undertaken with great earnest. The events at Runnymede were
   re-discovered in 1215, allowing a possibility to show the antiquity of
   Parliament, and Magna Carta became synonymous with the idea of an
   ancient house with origins in Roman government.

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

   Magna Carta again occupied the forefront of legal thought, and it again
   became possible for it to shape the way that government was run. Soon
   the Charter was seen as an immutable entity. In the trial of Arthur
   Hall for questioning the antiquity of the house, one of his alleged
   crimes was an attack on Magna Carta.

Edward Coke’s opinions

   Jurist Edward Coke interpreted Magna Carta to apply not only to the
   protection of nobles but to all subjects of the crown equally. He
   famously asserted: "Magna Carta is such a fellow, that he will have no
   sovereign."
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   Jurist Edward Coke interpreted Magna Carta to apply not only to the
   protection of nobles but to all subjects of the crown equally. He
   famously asserted: "Magna Carta is such a fellow, that he will have no
   sovereign."

   One of the first respected jurists to write seriously about the great
   charter was Edward Coke (1552 - 1634), who had a great deal to say on
   the subject and was hugely influential in the way Magna Carta was
   perceived throughout the Tudor and Stuart periods, although his
   opinions changed across time and his writing in the Stuart period was
   more influential; that will be discussed below. In the Elizabethan
   period Coke wrote of Parliament evolving alongside the monarchy and not
   existing due to any allowance on the part of the monarch. However he
   was still fiercely loyal to Elizabeth and the monarchy still judged The
   Charter in the same light it always had, an evil document forced out of
   their forefathers by brute force, therefore he suppressed a
   re-affirmation of The Charter from passing the house and although he
   spoke highly of The Charter he did not speak out against imprisonments
   without due process; actions which came back to haunt later when he
   moved for a reaffirmation of The Charter himself.

   It does not seems strange that Coke’s opinions were so confused
   however, as the times were confused about how to treat The Charter; the
   Petition of Right in 1628 was meant as a reaffirmation of The Charter,
   but was defeated by the Attorney General as he stated that the petition
   claimed it was a mere codification of existing law stemming for Magna
   Carta, but that there was no precedent shown as to these laws existing
   in such as a way as they bound the present king; there was a definite
   feeling that the king could not be bound by law and therefore Clause 39
   and all others did not apply to him. The Charter was seen as important
   as a statement as to the antiquity of Parliament; not, as could
   rightfully be claimed, because it was the catalyst to the genesis of
   Parliament but instead of Parliament being pre-Norman (again, this
   latter point is disputed by certain critics). It was seen to an extent
   as entrenched law due to this as no one would dare refute it, but it
   most certainly was not seen as binding on the king; it would need the
   Stuart period before anyone would dare suggest such a thing.

Magna Carta’s Role in the lead-up to the Civil War

   By the Stuart age, Magna Carta had attained an almost mystical status
   for its admirers and was seen as representing a ‘golden age’ of English
   liberties extant prior to the Norman invasion. Whether or not this
   'golden age' ever truly existed is open to debate; regardless,
   proponents of its application to English law saw themselves as leading
   England back to a pre-Norman state of affairs. What is true, however is
   this age existed in the hearts and minds of the people of the time,
   Magna Carta was not important because of the liberties it bestowed, but
   simply as ‘proof’ of what had come before; many great minds
   influentially exalted The Charter; by the Seventeenth Century Coke was
   talking of The Charter as an indispensable method of limiting the
   powers of the Crown, a topic very much subscribed to in the Stuart
   period where the kings were preaching about their divine right and were
   looking, to the mind of their subjects at least, to become absolute
   monarchs (and who would indeed openly attempt to return England to the
   Catholicism first brought by William of Normandy in 1066).

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

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

   In the four centuries since The Charter had originally catered for
   their creation, Parliament’s power had increased greatly from their
   original level where they existed only for the purpose that the king
   had to seek their permission in order to raise scutage. Now they were
   the only body allowed to raise tax, a right, which although descended
   from the 1215 Great Charter was no longer guaranteed by it, as it was
   removed from the 1225 edition. Parliament had now got so powerful that
   The Charter was at that time being used for two purposes with
   Parliament as a new organ of the Crown by those wishing to limit
   Parliament’s power, and as a set of principles Parliament was sworn to
   defend against the King by those wishing to rival the power of the king
   with Parliament’s power. When it became obvious that people wished to
   limit the power of Parliament by claiming it to be tantamount to the
   crown, Parliament claimed they had the sole right of interpretation of
   The Charter.

   This was a hugely important step, for the first time Parliament was
   claiming itself a body as above the law; whereas one of the fundamental
   principles in English law was that all were held by the law;
   Parliament, the monarch and the church, albeit to very different
   extents. Parliament here were claiming exactly what Magna Carta wanted
   to prevent the King from claiming, a claim of not being subject to any
   higher form of power. This was not claimed until ten years after the
   death of Lord Coke, but he most certainly would not have agreed with
   this, as he claimed in the English Constitution the law was supreme and
   all bodies of government were subservient to the supreme law; the
   common law, embodied in The Great Charter. These early discussions of
   Parliament sovereignty seemed to only involve The Charter as the
   entrenched law, and the discussions were simply about whether or not
   Parliament had enough power to repeal the document or not. This debate
   was not as important as it may seem, for although it was important for
   Parliament to be able to claim a great deal of power, as they could
   foresee that war was brewing and that very soon they have to claim
   themselves as more powerful than the King himself, this very provision
   was provided for by The Charter itself. Clause 61 of The Charter
   enables people to swear allegiance to what became the Great Council and
   later Parliament and therefore to renounce allegiance to the King.
   Moreover, Clause 61 allowed for the seizing of the kingdom by the body
   which was later to become Parliament if Magna Carta was not respected
   by the King or Lord Chief Justice. In which case there was no need to
   show any novel level of power in order to overthrow the King; it had
   already been set out in Magna Carta nearly half a millennium before
   hand. However, Parliament was not simply seeking for a justification to
   overthrow the monarch, they were seeking to establish themselves as the
   true and sovereign government of the United Kingdom and for this they
   need to show they could overrule Magna Carta. However Parliament was
   not ready to repeal The Charter yet, they would need it in order to war
   against the King, and in fact was cited as the reason why ship-money
   was illegal, which was the first time Parliament overruled the king;
   the start of the rebellion.

Trial of Archbishop Laud

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

Civil War and interregnum

   After 7 years of civil war the King surrendered and was executed; it
   seemed Magna Carta no longer applied, as there was no King. Oliver
   Cromwell was accused of destroying Magna Carta and many thought he
   should be crowned just so that it would apply. Cromwell himself had
   much disdain for the Magna Carta, at one point describing it as "Magna
   Farta" to a defendant who sought to rely on it.

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

The Levellers

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

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

The Diggers

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

Charles II

   The Commonwealth was relatively short lived however, and when Charles
   II took the throne in 1660 the struggle between the Monarchy and
   Parliament died down as both roles were clearly defined for the time
   being; Parliament was established as the everyday government of Britain
   independent of but not yet more powerful than the King. However, the
   struggles based on The Charter were far from over but now took on the
   form of the struggle for supremacy between the Houses of Parliament.
   Also in 1660 Charles II vowed to respect both the common law and The
   Charter; it seems that the influence of Magna Carta would, for now,
   fall on the houses.

In Parliament

   In 1664 the British navy seized Dutch lands in both Africa and America
   leading to full-scale war with Holland in 1665. The Lord Chancellor,
   Edward Lord Clarendon, resisted an alliance with the Spanish and Swedes
   in favour of maintaining a relationship with the French, who were
   unfortunately also the allies of the Dutch. This lack of any real
   policy led to the Second Anglo-Dutch War (1665-67), with the Dutch
   burning a number of ships in the docks at Chatham, and the blame was
   placed on the shoulders of Clarendon. The Commons demanded that
   Clarendon be indicted before the Lords, but the Lords refused, citing
   the due process requirements of The Charter giving Clarendon the time
   to escape to Europe. A very similar set of events followed in 1678 when
   the Commons asked the Lords to indict Thomas Lord Danby on a charge of
   fraternising with the French. As with Clarendon the Lords refused,
   again citing Magna Carta and their own supremacy as the upper house.
   Before the quarrel could be resolved Charles dissolved the Parliament.
   When Parliament was re-seated in 1681 again the Commons attempted to
   force an indictment in the Lords. This time Edward Fitzharris who was
   accused of writing libellously that the King was involved in a papist
   plot with the French (including the overthrowing of Magna Carta).
   However, the Lords doubted the veracity of the claim and refused to try
   Fitzharris saying Magna Carta stated that everyone must be subject to
   due process and therefore he must be tried in a lower court first. This
   time the Commons retorted that it was the Lords who were denying
   justice under Clause 39 and that it was the Commons who were right to
   cite The Charter as their precedent. Again before any true conclusions
   could be drawn Charles dissolved the Parliament, although more to serve
   his own ends and to rid himself of a predominantly Whig Parliament, and
   Fitzharris was tried in a regular court (the King’s Bench) and executed
   for treason. Here The Charter, once again, was used far beyond the
   content of its provisions, and simply being used as a representation of
   justice. Here both houses were struggling for supremacy in a state
   which was now open for the taking. Each house was claiming its
   supremacy was supported by The Charter under Clause 39, but the power
   of the King was still too great for either house to come out fully as
   the more powerful.

Outside Parliament

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

The supremacy of the Commons

   This was not the end of the struggle however, and in 1679 the Commons
   passed the Habeas Corpus Act, which greatly reduced the powers of the
   Crown and almost certainly established the Commons as the more powerful
   house. The act passed through the Lords by a small majority, almost as
   an acquiescence of the Commons being more powerful. This was the first
   time since the importance of The Charter had been so magnified that the
   Government had admitted that the liberties granted by The Charter were
   inadequate, however this did not completely oust the position of The
   Charter as an entrenched signification of the law of the ‘golden age’
   and the basis of common law. It did not take long however before the
   questioning of The Charter really took off and Sir Matthew Hale soon
   afterwards introduced a new doctrine of common law based on the
   principle that the Crown (including the cabinet in that definition)
   made all law and could only be bound by the law of God, and showed that
   the 1215 charter was effectively overruled by the 1225 charter, which
   made any claims of entrenchment very difficult to back up. This added
   further credence to the principle that the Commons were a supreme
   branch of Government. Some completely denied the relevance of the 1215
   Charter as it was forced upon the king by rebellion (although no-one
   seemed to worry that the 1225 charter was forced on a boy by his
   guardians) or that The Charter was nothing more than a relaxation of
   the rigid feudal laws and therefore had no meaning outside of this
   application.

The Glorious Revolution

   The danger posed by the fact Charles II had no heir was becoming more
   and more real; as this meant that the heir apparent was the Duke of
   York, a Catholic and firm believer in the divine right of kings. This
   could well mean that all the Common’s work establishing itself as the
   most powerful arm of government could all too soon be undone.
   Parliament did all it could to prevent James’ succession but was
   prevented when Charles dissolved the Parliament, and danger realised
   itself in February 1685 when Charles died of a stroke and James II
   assumed the throne of the United Kingdom. Almost straight away James
   attempted to impose Catholicism as the religion of the country and to
   regain the royal prerogative now vested in the Parliament. All this was
   bad enough, but Parliament was slightly placated when James’
   four-year-old son died in 1677 and it seemed his Protestant daughter
   Mary would take his throne. However when James' second wife, Mary of
   Modena, gave birth to a male heir in 1688 Parliament could not take the
   risk that this would be another Catholic monarch would assume the
   throne and take away their power, which they had managed to attain, and
   in 1688 the Convention Parliament declared that James had broken the
   contract of Magna Carta and nullified his claim to the throne. This
   once and for all proved that Parliament was the major power in the
   British Government; Mary, James II's eldest daughter was invited to
   take the throne with her husband William of Orange. Many thought that,
   with bringing in a new monarch, it would be prudent to define what
   powers this monarch should have; hence, the Bill of Rights. The Bill of
   Rights went far beyond what the Magna Carta had ever achieved. It
   stated that the crown could not make law without Parliament and
   although specifically mentioned the raising of taxes did not limit
   itself to such, as Magna Carta did. However one important thing to note
   is that the writers of the bill did not seem to think that included any
   new provisions of law; all the powers it ‘removes’ from the crown it
   refers to as ‘pretended’ powers, insinuating that the rights of
   Parliament listed in the Bill already existed under a different
   authority, which one assumes is Magna Carta. Therefore the importance
   of Magna Carta did not extinguish at this point if, albeit it
   diminished somewhat.

The eighteenth century

   The myth of Magna Carta was still continuing into the 18th century; in
   1700 Samuel Johnson talked of Magna Carta being “born with a grey
   beard” referring to the belief that the liberties set out in The
   Charter harked back to the Golden Age and the time immemorial. However
   ideas about the nature of law in general were beginning to change; in
   1716 the Septennial Act was passed, which had a number of consequences;
   firstly is showed that Parliament no longer considered its previous
   statutes entrenched as this act provided that the parliamentary term
   was to be seven years, whereas less than twenty-five years beforehand
   they had passed the Triennial Act (1694) which provided a parliamentary
   term was to be three years. Not only this but it greatly extended the
   powers of Parliament as before all legislation passed in a
   parliamentary session was listed in the election manifesto so
   effectively the electorate was consulted on all issues which were to be
   brought before Parliament. With a seven-year term, however, it was
   unlikely if not impossible that even half the legislation passed would
   be discussed at the election. This effectively gave Parliament the
   power to legislate as it liked, but not in the same way as we
   understand Parliamentary sovereignty today, as Parliament still
   considered itself held by the higher law, such as Magna Carta, it just
   now felt it could overrule its own statutes. Arguments for
   Parliamentary sovereignty were not new, however even the proponents
   would not have expected Parliament to be as powerful as it is today.
   For example in the Century beforehand Coke had discussed how Parliament
   may well have the power to repeal the common law and Magna Carta, but
   they were, in practice, prohibited from doing such as the common law
   and Magna Carta were so important in the constitution that it would be
   dangerous to the continuing existence of the constitution to repeal
   them to any extent.

The extent of the Commons' powers

   In 1722 the Bishop of Rochester ( Francis Atterbury, a Stuart
   Jacobite), who sat at the Lords was accused of treason; in response the
   Commons brought a bill intending to remove him from his post and send
   him into exile; and meanwhile locked him in the Tower of London. This,
   once again, brought up the subject of which was the more powerful
   house, and exactly how far that power went, as the Atterbury claimed,
   and many agreed, that the Commons had no dominion over the Lords.
   Although many influential people disagreed; the Bishop of Salisbury
   (also seated in the Lords) for example was of the strong opinion that
   the powers of Parliament, mainly vested in the Commons, were sovereign
   and unlimited and therefore their could be no such thing as entrenched
   law and no limit on these powers at all, including the freedom of the
   upper house from the dominion of the lower. Many intellectuals also
   agreed; Jonathan Swift for example went as far to say that Parliament’s
   powers extended so far as to be able to alter or repeal Magna Carta; a
   claim which would still have caused many a room to fall silent. This
   argument incensed the Tories and Bolingbroke spoke of the day when
   “liberty is restored and the radiant volume of Magna Carta is returned
   to its former position of Glory” and he advocated the age-old beliefs
   of the immemorial Parliament. This belief was anchored in the
   relatively new theory that when William the Conqueror invaded England
   he only conquered the throne, not the land, and he therefore assumed
   the same position in law as the Saxon rulers before him; The Charter
   was a recapitulation or codification of these laws rather than as
   previously believed an attempt to reinstate these laws after the
   tyrannical Norman Kings, therefore these rights had existed constantly
   from the ‘golden age immemorial’ and could never be removed by any
   government. This belief was still widely subscribed to, although some
   level of sovereignty had been established it was not what one would
   recognise as sovereignty today. The Whigs on the other hand claimed,
   rightfully, that The Charter only benefited the Nobility and the Church
   and granted nowehere near the liberty they had come to expect. So
   although they attacked the content of The Charter, they did not
   actually attack the myth of the ‘golden age’ or attempt to say that The
   Charter could be repealed, and the myth remained as immutable as ever.

America

   By 1765 the taxes paid by the American colonists no longer covered the
   expenses of the garrisons protecting them and therefore the government
   of the time extended the stamp duty which had been in force on home
   territory since 1694 to cover the American colonies as well in the
   Stamp Act 1765. However the colonists despised this as they were not
   represented in Parliament and refused to see how a body, which did not
   represent them, could tax them. The cry ‘ no taxation without
   representation’ rang throughout the colonies. The fact that this cry
   could have equally been applied in the United Kingdom seemed to be lost
   on them, as at the time, Manchester and Birmingham had no MP. It did
   not seem an option to give representation to both America and
   Manchester. The debate was certainly a complicated one with the
   ‘representationalists’ quoting Magna Carta as precedent although there
   is absolutely nothing in that document which provides for a
   representative Parliament at all, so when the Great Council was
   approving taxation in the fourteenth century, it was certainly not
   representative of all those who were paying that tax. This is a further
   example of how the idea of the liberties of Magna Carta went far beyond
   its content. Whether it was legal or not to raise tax from those who
   were not represented, Magna Carta certainly did not prohibit it, albeit
   that logical argument can flow from it, there is no law, at least in
   The Charter itself, which prohibits it.

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

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

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

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

Parliamentary sovereignty

   The doctrine of parliamentary supremacy if not parliamentary
   sovereignty had all but emerged by the regency; William Blackstone
   argued strongly for sovereignty in his Commentaries on the English Law
   in 1765. He essentially argued that absolute supremacy must exist in
   one of the arms of Government and he certainly thought it resided in
   Parliament as Parliament could legislate on anything and potentially
   could even legislate the impossible as valid law if not practical
   policy. The debate over whether or not Parliament could limit or
   overrule the supposed rights granted by Magna Carta was to prove to be
   the basis for the discussion over parliamentary sovereignty, however
   Blackstone preached that Parliament should respect Magna Carta as a
   show of law from time immemorial and the other great legal mind of the
   time, Jeremy Bentham used The Charter to attack the legal abuses of his
   time.

John Wilkes

   In 1763 John Wilkes, an MP, was arrested for writing an inflammatory
   pamphlet, No. 45, 23 April 1763. In his defence he cited Magna Carta
   incessantly, and the weight that Magna Carta held at the time meant
   Parliament was wary of continuing the charge and he was released and
   awarded damages for the wrongful seizure of his papers as the general
   warrant under which he was arrested was deemed illegal. He was still
   expelled from Parliament after spending a week in the Tower of London.

   He spent a number of years abroad until 1768 when he returned and
   failed to be elected as the MP for London. Unperturbed he stood again
   for Middlesex but he was expelled again on the basis of the earlier
   offence the next year. He stood again and was elected but the Commons
   ruled that he was ineligible to sit. At the next three re-elections
   Wilkes again was the champion, but the House did not relent and his
   opponent, Lutteral, was announced the winner.

   The treatment of Wilkes caused a furore in Parliament, with Lord Camden
   denouncing the action as a contravention of Magna Carta. Wilkes made
   the issue a national one and the issue was taken up by the populace.
   All over the country there were very popular prints of him being
   arrested whilst teaching his son about Magna Carta and he had the
   support of the Corporation of London, which had long sought to
   establish its supremacy over Parliament based on The Charter. The fight
   for the Charter was misplaced and it was merely the idea of the
   liberties which were supposedly enshrined in The Charter that people
   were fighting for.

   It is no coincidence that those who supported Wilkes would have little
   or no knowledge of the actual content of The Charter, or if they did
   were looking to protect their own position based on The Charter. Wilkes
   re-entered the House in 1774 but he had talked of Magna Carta as he
   knew it would capture public support to achieve his aims. But he had
   started the ball rolling for a reform movement to ‘restore the
   constitution’ through a more representative, less powerful, and shorter
   termed Parliament.

Granville Sharp

   One of the principal reformists was Granville Sharp. He was a
   philanthropist who supported, among other causes, the Society for the
   Abolition of Slavery and the Society for the Conversion of the Jews.
   Sharp called for the reform of Parliament based on Magna Carta, and to
   back this up he devised the doctrine of accumulative authority. This
   doctrine stated that because almost innumerable parliaments had
   approved Magna Carta it would take the same number of Parliaments to
   repeal it. Like many others, Sharp accepted the supremacy of Parliament
   as an institution, but did not believe that this power was without
   restraint, namely that Parliament could not repeal Magna Carta. Many
   reformists agreed that The Charter was a statement of the liberties of
   the mythical and immemorial golden age, but there was a popular
   movement to have a holiday to commemorate the signing of The Charter in
   a similar way to the American 4th of July holiday; however, very few
   went as far as Sharp.

The Myth-Busters

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

   The work of people like Cartwright was fast showing that the rights
   granted by The Charter were out of pace with the developments which
   followed in the next six centuries. There were certain provisions, such
   as Clauses 23 and 39, which were not only still valid then but still
   form the basis of important rights in the present English law.
   Undeniably, though, the importance of Magna Carta was diminishing and
   the arguments for having a fully sovereign Parliament were increasingly
   accepted. Many in the House still supported The Charter, such as Sir
   Francis Burdett who in 1809 called for a return to the constitution of
   Magna Carta and denounced the house for taking proceedings against the
   radical John Gale Jones, who had denounced the house for acting in
   contravention of Magna Carta. Burdett was largely ignored as by this
   stage Magna Carta had largely lost its appeal, but he continued,
   claiming that the Long Parliament (1640-60) had usurped all the power
   then enjoyed by the Parliament of the time. He stated that Parliament
   was constantly contravening Magna Carta (although he was referring to
   its judicial not legislative practice) which it did not have the right
   to do. He received popular support and there were riots across London
   when he was arrested for these claims. Again, a popular print
   circulated of him being arrested while teaching his son about Magna
   Carta

The Compromise

   The major breakthrough occurred in 1828 with the passing of the first
   Offences Against the Person Act, which for the first time repealed a
   clause of Magna Carta, namely Clause 36. With the myth broken, in one
   hundred and fifty years nearly the whole charter was repealed leaving
   just Clauses 1, 13, 39, and 63 still in force today after the Statute
   Laws (Repeals) Act was passed (although interestingly at the same time
   as the moon landings, possibly to distract public attention for
   repealing The Charter).

   With the popular movements being in favour of the liberties of The
   Charter, and Parliament trying to establish their own sovereignty there
   needed to be some sort of action in order to swing the balance in
   favour of one or the other. However all that occurred was the Reform
   Act 1832 which was such a compromise that it ended up pleasing no one.
   Due to their disappointment in the Reform Act a group was founded
   calling itself the Chartists; they called for a return to the
   constitution of Magna Carta and eventually culminated in a codification
   of what they saw as the existing rights of the People; the Peoples
   Charter. At a rally for the Chartists in 1838 the Reverend Raynor
   demanded a return to the constitution of The Charter; freedom of speech
   worship and congress. This is a perfect example of how the idea of
   Charter went so far beyond the actual content of The Charter, it
   depicted for many people the idea of total liberty whereas the actual
   liberties granted by The Charter were very limited and not at all
   intended to be applied to all. It was this over-exaggeration of The
   Charter that eventually led to its downfall. The more people expected
   to get from The Charter, the less Parliament was willing to attempt to
   cater to this expectation, and eventually writers such as Tom Paine
   refuted the claims of those such as the Chartists, this meant that the
   educated were no longer supporting any of these claims, and therefore
   the Myth gradually faded into obscurity, and the final claim against
   sovereignty of Parliament was erased, and the road was open for
   establishing this doctrine.

Influences on later constitutions

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

   Magna Carta has influenced international law as well: Eleanor Roosevelt
   referred to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as "a Magna Carta
   for all mankind".

Magna Carta and the Jews in England

   Magna Carta contained two articles related to money lending and Jews in
   England. Jewish involvement with money lending caused Christian
   resentment, because the Church forbade the lending of money at interest
   (known at the time as usury); it was seen as vice (such as gambling, an
   un-Christian way to profit at others' expense) and was punishable by
   excommunication, although Jews, as non-Christians, could not be
   excommunicated and were thus in a legal grey area. Secular leaders,
   unlike the Church, tolerated the practice of Jewish usury because it
   gave the leaders opportunity for personal enrichment. This resulted in
   a complicated legal situation: debtors were frequently trying to bring
   their Jewish creditors before Church courts, where debts would be
   absolved as illegal, while the Jews were trying to get their debtors
   tried in secular courts, where they would be able to collect plus
   interest. The relations between the debtors and creditors would often
   become very nasty. There were many attempts over centuries to resolve
   this problem, and Magna Carta contains one example of the legal code of
   the time on this issue:

          If one who has borrowed from the Jews any sum, great or small,
          die before that loan be repaid, the debt shall not bear interest
          while the heir is under age, of whomsoever he may hold; and if
          the debt fall into our hands, we will not take anything except
          the principal sum contained in the bond. And if anyone die
          indebted to the Jews, his wife shall have her dower and pay
          nothing of that debt; and if any children of the deceased are
          left under age, necessaries shall be provided for them in
          keeping with the holding of the deceased; and out of the residue
          the debt shall be paid, reserving, however, service due to
          feudal lords; in like manner let it be done touching debts due
          to others than Jews.

   After the Pope annulled Magna Carta, future versions contained no
   mention of Jews. Jews were seen by the Church as a threat to their
   authority, and the welfare of Christians, because of their special
   relationship to Kings as moneylenders. "Jews are the sponges of kings,"
   wrote the theologian William de Montibus, "they are bloodsuckers of
   Christian purses, by whose robbery kings dispoil and deprive poor men
   of their goods." Thus the anti-semitic wording as seen in Magna Carta
   originated in part because of Christian nobles who permitted the
   otherwise illegal activity of usury, a symptom of the larger ongoing
   power struggle between Church and State during the Middle Ages.

Popular perceptions

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

   Magna Carta is often a symbol for the first time the citizens of
   England were granted rights against an absolute king. However this is
   not entirely accurate. In practice the commons could not enforce Magna
   Carta in the very rare situations where it affected them, so its
   effects in reality were limited. In addition a large part of Magna
   Carta was copied, nearly word for word, from the Charter of Liberties
   of Henry I, issued when Henry I ascended to the throne in 1100, which
   bound the king to certain laws regarding the treatment of church
   officials and nobles, effectively granting certain civil liberties to
   the church and the English nobility.

   The document commonly known as Magna Carta today is not the 1215
   charter, but a later charter of 1225, and is usually shown in the form
   of The Charter of 1297 when it was confirmed by Edward I. At the time
   of the 1215 charter many of the provisions were not meant to make long
   term changes but simply to right the immediate wrongs, and therefore
   The Charter was reissued three times in the reign of Henry III (1216,
   1217 and 1225) in order to provide for an updated version. After this
   each individual king for the next two hundred years (Until Henry V in
   1416) personally confirmed the 1225 charter in their own charter, so
   one must not think of it as one document but a variety of documents
   coming together to form one Magna Carta in the same way many treaties
   such as the treaties of Rome and Nice come together to form the
   Treaties of the European Union and the European Community.

   The document is also honored in America as some view it as an
   antecedent of the United States Constitution and Bill of Rights. The
   United States has contributed the Runnymede Memorial and Lincoln
   Cathedral offers a Magna Carta USA week . The UK lent one of the four
   remaining copies of Magna Carta to the U.S. for its bicentennial
   celebrations and donated a gold copy which is displayed in the U.S.
   Capital Rotunda.

   In 2006, BBC History Magazine held a poll to recommend a date for a
   proposed "Britain Day". June 15, as the date of the signing of the
   original 1215 Magna Carta, received most votes, above other suggestions
   such as D-Day, VE Day, and Remembrance Day. The outcome was not
   binding, although Chancellor Gordon Brown had previously given his
   support to the idea of a new national day to celebrate British
   identity.

Usage and spelling

   Since there is no direct, consistent correlate of the English definite
   article in Latin, the usual academic convention is to refer to the
   document in English without the article as "Magna Carta" rather than
   "the Magna Carta". According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the
   first written appearance of the term was in 1218: "Concesserimus
   libertates quasdam scriptas in Magna Carta nostra de libertatibus."
   (Latin: "We concede the certain liberties here written in our great
   charter of liberties.") However, "the Magna Carta" is also frequently
   used. In the past, the document has also been referred to as "Magna
   Charta".

Copies

   Numerous copies were made each time it was issued, so all of the
   participants would each have one - in the case of the 1215 copy, one
   for the royal archives, one for the Cinque Ports, and one for each of
   the then 40 counties. Several of those still exist and some are on
   permanent display. If there ever was one single ' master copy' or
   original version of Magna Carta sealed by King John in 1215, it has not
   survived. Four contemporaneous copies (known as "exemplifications")
   remain, all of which are located in the UK:
     * The 'burnt copy', which was found in the records of Dover Castle in
       the 17th century and so is assumed to be the copy that was sent to
       the Cinque Ports. It was subsequently involved at a house fire at
       its owner's property, making it all but illegible. It is the only
       one of the four to have its seal surviving, although this too was
       melted out of shape in the fire. It is currently held by the
       British Library
     * Another supposedly original, but possibly ammended version of the
       Magna Carta is on show just outside of the chamber of the House of
       Lords situated in Westminster Palace.
     * one owned by Lincoln Cathedral - on display at Lincoln Castle. It
       has an unbroken attested history at Lincoln since 1216. We hear of
       it in 1800 when the Chapter Clerk of the Cathedral reported that he
       held it in the Common Chamber and then silence again until 1846
       when the Chapter Clerk of that time moved from within the Cathedral
       to a property just outside it and in 1848 Magna Carta was shown to
       a visiting group who reported it as “hanging on the wall in an oak
       frame in beautiful preservation”. It went to the New York World
       Fair in 1939 and so had to be held in Fort Knox, next to the
       original of the US Constitution, until the end of the Second World
       War. Having returned to Lincoln, it has been back to America on
       various occasions since then.
     * one owned by and displayed at Salisbury Cathedral.

   Thirteen other versions of Magna Carta dating to 1297 or earlier
   survive, including four from 1297. Durham Cathedral possesses 1216,
   1217, and 1225 copies.
   Magna Carta Place, within Canberra, Australia's Parliamentary Triangle
   opened on 24 May 2003.
   Enlarge
   Magna Carta Place, within Canberra, Australia's Parliamentary Triangle
   opened on 24 May 2003.

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

   In September 1984, The Perot Foundation purchased another copy of the
   1297 issue of Magna Carta. This copy is on indefinite loan to the
   National Archives and Records Administration in Washington, D.C.

Participant list

   Barons, Bishops and Abbots who were party to Magna Carta.

Barons

   Surety Barons for the enforcement of Magna Carta:
     * William d'Albini, Lord of Belvoir Castle.
     * Roger Bigod, Earl of Norfolk and Suffolk.
     * Hugh Bigod, Heir to the Earldoms of Norfolk and Suffolk.
     * Henry de Bohun, Earl of Hereford.
     * Richard de Clare, Earl of Hertford.
     * Gilbert de Clare, heir to the earldom of Hertford.
     * John FitzRobert, Lord of Warkworth Castle.
     * Robert Fitzwalter, Lord of Dunmow Castle.
     * William de Fortibus, Earl of Albemarle.
     * William Hardell, ** Mayor of the City of London.
     * William de Huntingfield, Sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk.*
     * John de Lacie, Lord of Pontefract Castle.
     * William de Lanvallei, Lord of Standway Castle.
     * William Malet, Sheriff of Somerset and Dorset.
     * Geoffrey de Mandeville, Earl of Essex and Gloucester.
     * William Marshall jr, heir to the earldom of Pembroke.
     * Roger de Montbegon, Lord of Hornby Castle.
     * Richard de Montfichet, Baron.
     * William de Mowbray, Lord of Axholme Castle.
     * Richard de Percy, Baron.
     * Saire/Saher de Quincey, Earl of Winchester.
     * Robert de Roos, Lord of Hamlake Castle.
     * Geoffrey de Saye, Baron.
     * Robert de Vere, heir to the earldom of Oxford.
     * Eustace de Vesci, Lord of Alnwick Castle.

Bishops

   These bishops being witnesses (mentioned by the King as his advisers in
   the decision to sign the Charter):
     * Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury, Cardinal of the Holy
       Roman Church,
     * Henry, Archbishop of Dublin
     * E. Bishop of London,
     * J. Bishop of Bath,
     * P. Bishop of Winchester,
     * H. Bishop of Lincoln,
     * R. Bishop of Salisbury,
     * W. Bishop of Rochester,
     * W. Bishop of Worcester,
     * J. Bishop of Ely,
     * H. Bishop of Hereford,
     * R. Bishop of Chichester,
     * W. Bishop of Exeter.

Abbots

   These abbots being witnesses:
     * the Abbot of St. Edmunds
     * the Abbot of St. Albans
     * the Abbot of Bello
     * the Abbot of St. Augustines in Canterbury
     * the Abbot of Evesham
     * the Abbot of Westminster
     * the Abbot of Peterborough
     * the Abbot of Reading
     * the Abbot of Abingdon
     * the Abbot of Malmesbury Abbey
     * the Abbot of Winchcomb
     * the Abbot of Hyde
     * the Abbot of Certesey
     * the Abbot of Sherborne
     * the Abbot of Cerne
     * the Abbot of Abbotebir
     * the Abbot of Middleton
     * the Abbot of Selby
     * the Abbot of Cirencester

Others

     * Master Pandulff, subdeacon and member of the Papal Household
     * brother Aymeric, Master of the Knights Templar in England

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