William Tyler
The Magna Carta: The Basis of the Anglo-American Constitution

William Tyler - The Magna Carta: The Basis of the Anglo-American Constitution

- It’s two minutes past the hour. So I just want to say welcome back everybody, and William, we’re looking forward to this presentation. Thank you.

• Thank you Wendy. And welcome to everybody who’s come to listen. I’m talking about Magna Carta, and I’m going to begin by reading a contemporary account written by a man called Roger of Wendover. It’s an account of how the barons opposed to the king, King John, persuaded him, well, persuaded is a bit of a weak word, really put huge pressure on him to meet them, to discuss their wrongs, and for him to sign a charter, which we know as the Great Charter or in Latin, and of course it was written in Latin, was Magna Carta. And Roger of Wendover wrote this, the year is 1215. And he wrote, “King John, when he saw that he was deserted by almost all, so that out of his regal superabundance of followers, he scarcely retained seven knights.” He had been at civil war with his barons, and he only had what Roger of Wendover describes, he would’ve been a few more than that, but for emphasis he calls them seven knights. And in fact, his army was largely made up of mercenaries from France that he’d imported in. And that never goes down well in England. “So the king was much alarmed lest the barons would attack his castles and reduce them without difficulty as they would find no obstacle in their so doing. And he deceitfully pretended to make peace for a time with the aforementioned barons. And he send William Marshall, Earl of Pembroke, with other trustworthy messengers to them, and told them that for the sake of peace and for the exaltation and honour of the kingdom, he the king would willingly grant them the laws and liberties they required.

He also sent word to the barons by these same messengers, to appoint a fitting day and place to meet and carry all these matters into effect. The barons in their great joy, appointed the 15th of June, 1215, for the king to meet them at a field lying between Staines and Windsor,” which we know today on both sides of Atlantic as Runnymede. “Accordingly, at the time and place pre-agreed to, the king and nobles came to the appointed conference. And when each party had stationed themselves apart from the other, they began a long discussion about terms of peace and the aforesaid liberties.” And finally, I’m read just a couple of sentences of Roger of Wendover, “At length, after various points on both sides have been discussed, King John, seeing that he was inferior in strength to the barons.” And that doesn’t mean I think inferior in numbers of people, but inferior in his arguments. In other words, he was losing the argument. “Without raising any difficulty, granted the underwritten laws and liberties and confirmed them by his charter.” Incidentally, if any sort of quiz you’re in, and you’re asked, did King John sign Magna Carta? No, he didn’t sign. He sealed it. And it’s one of those things that even experienced historians get incorrect. He never signed it. He sealed it with the Great Seal. So then the charter referred to as Magna Carta entered history. The year 1215 had been a difficult year for the king that had brought him to this impasse. This is a king with total totalitarian autocratic powers sanctioned by God. And he’s called to account by the nobility of the realm.

And when I say nobility, not just the lay secular nobility, but also the ecclesiastical nobility led by the man who basically drafted the document, Stephen Langton, the Archbishop of Canterbury. So he’s actually alienated the church as well as the lords. And he’s been brought to account. And a contemporary whose name we don’t know, wrote this about 1215 leading up to the June of 1215, and the signing of Magna Carta. And he wrote, “Suffice it to say that what happened was that the barons came to the king, and asked him to grant their privileges. He refused them. And most of them present said that if they did not have their privileges, then he could rest assured that they would leave his service. He might also rest assured that he could not place his trust in them, and that they would do him harm in every possible way.” That was an earlier meeting before the meeting at Runnymede. Now that statement is an extraordinary statement, it’s a contemporary account. And so we must take it at face value. They are saying they’re going to break their feudal promises to the king, those feudal promises they made before God. And this is the Middle Ages, that’s a very serious, that’s a very serious commitment to make. And in the mediaeval Europe, to break a feudal promise made in front of God, usually in a church, is a dreadful thing to do. It’s a terrible step to take. So it shows how, I was going to say annoyed. That’s a silly word to use. How deeply offended they were by King John and King John’s acts, that they felt threatened them.

That P.S., they weren’t particularly bothered about the likes of you and I. This is an argument between the nobility and the king, and we’ll come to why you and I got involved later on. John was clearly, in serious, potentially catastrophic trouble whereby he could lose his crown. When he agreed, as I read in the first part from Roger of Wendover’s account, that he would meet the nobles at Runnymede, and would agree when they discussed the matter, would agree to put right their grievances. In truth, John did not have a leg to stand on. And all of Magna Carta is a document, as it were, written by the Archbishop of Canterbury on behalf of the nobility. And it isn’t like a treaty, this is imposed upon the king. He really has no choice but to seal the document. What were they complaining about? Well, basically in a simple sentence, that John had not fulfilled his obligations towards them. He may be king with autocratic powers, but he also, within the feudal system, has obligations towards them. And they felt that he was not fulfilling those obligations. They said specifically that John and his immediate predecessors as king, that Henry II in particular, John’s father, and his elder brother Richard, had extended royal control over large parts of the kingdom where only the royal writ ran. And they did so, the kings, under the forest laws. Now the forest laws don’t mean laws over wooded areas. They were whole chunks of England designated as to be under the forest laws. That’s what really bugged the nobility. In other words, their own land possessions were threatened by this king. They also complained of a lot of other things.

Well, if you’re going to complain, you might as well, might you not, put absolutely everything on the floor and to be debated. And they did. They objected, they said, to matters of religion. John was, well, John was ostensibly a Christian, but in reality was not. And they did not like the way that he treated the church. In matters of religion, in tax, it’s always tax, isn’t it? Tax, justice, they felt that you could not receive proper justice at the king’s courts. Privileges and urban government. Urban government, he’s interfering in the new towns. This is the beginning of the mediaeval economic miracle in England of the development of an urban middle class entrepreneurial society. And the king is interfering. So they say we object to his matters on religion, tax, justice, military service, feudal payments, that’s payments they had to make to the king in addition to taxes, so it’s mounting up. We all know that governments that increase taxation are likely to be voted out. Well, you couldn’t vote the king out. So this is the only thing they could do to bring him to the conference cable at Runnymede, and weights and measures, now that’s very interesting. Weights and measures were different in different parts of England. So that, take a simple example, a pound of butter in Cornwall would not be the same pound of butter as in Northumberland. It might be less, it might be more. Pounds or weights or measures. A length of cloth in Kent, shall we say five ells, ells was a measurement they used in the Middle Ages. Five ells in Kent might be seven ells in Shropshire. There was no consistency in weights and measures. And that’s obviously a very important thing in a country like England in the 13th century, which is a unified state.

Trading privileges and urban government. There we go back again to the new towns. So they’ve thrown everything in. It’s almost as though I’m chairing the meeting, and I say, look, chaps, there are no women present. Look chaps, is there anything else anyone can think of? Well, what about weights and measures? Oh, good idea, we’ll put that in. And they put everything in. And how did they justify this? Well, this is England, and it’s not so different than American common law either. If you want to prove something, you say, well, this is what we used to have in the past. And the barons said, we had all these things in the past, which of course was actually not true, but that’s what they said. And it’s only you and your brother and father that have messed everything up. We want to go back to what we might describe as a rosy, but ill-defined period in the past. The English are always obsessed by the past. And here is a very good example in 1215. But if you think about it in terms of American law as well as English law, it is a question of precedent, which is deeply important. Precedent in the States as well as in Britain or in England, a lawyer can quote something from centuries ago, it’s precedent that matters, and that’s what they were arguing. As I said, the original text was written in Latin, and there were multiple copies written, all of course handwritten in the 13th century, which were distributed throughout the kingdom. Today, four copies still exist. Two copies in the British Library, one copy at Salisbury Cathedral, and one copy at Lincoln Cathedral. And there is a copy of a copy if you like, which is in America. And we can all see an original copy or a copy of a copy whether we’re American or British, or if you simply want to read it, you can look online.

You want it online, you look at the British Library site, and you look up Magna Carta in English. Do put in English, or else you get the Latin. Although I’m sure lots of people listening to this are quite happy to read it in Latin. I will put up on my blog later a list of books that people might be interested in, but I give you the reference to the British Library as well if anyone is interested. So we only have four copies left. And as I say, two in the British Library, and one in the cathedrals at Lincoln and Salisbury. I’ve not seen the ones in the British Library. I’ve seen the one at Lincoln. It’s quite, it has quite easy access to be honest, although obviously surrounded by lots of technology that if you went within I suppose, a foot of it, alarms would ring across the country because it is a most important document. An important document for us who are English, for you, who are American or Australian. For you particularly who are American because it’s built into your Bill of Rights and your Constitution. And indeed, as I shall say at the end, through America, it has an international importance, and we will come to that. But at the time in 1215, no one drawing this up had any idea of the influence of this document in the centuries to come. They were just interested in pulling this king back, you know, controlling him, getting him to seal this document, and put things back. They would’ve said into proper order, and they probably anticipated having to do it many times. The document itself, if you look online and read it, it isn’t like a modern treaty or a modern political agreement or whatever you wish to call it. It’s a mishmash. It was even more of a mishmash then than it is now because originally it had no sections. It was written as one document.

Now we have sections, so I can refer to section 39 in Magna Carta, and you can look it up and see exactly what I’m talking about. Then, they didn’t. And so one subject went into another. So they’re talking about damming, taking away, banning the blocking of rivers. And the next, they’re talking about a widow who owes, who’s husband, the late husband, owed money to Jewish bankers. It’s all over the place. But it is actually, in a translation, it’s very easy to read. And if you read a modern translation, very easy to understand. If you read a 19th century translation, it’s a bit more difficult. Read a modern translation as on the British Library site, no one has problems with it. If you don’t like translations, and you think people are trying a wise one on you, go back to the Latin and read the Latin, which is awesome, nice and straightforward and simple in effect. The first part of Magna Carta. Now you would think that the first part would be the most important part, and it is, and does it deal with the barons’ concern about forests? No. Does it deal with banking? No. Does it deal with the lack of rights of women? No. Does it deal with rivers? No. It actually deals with the church. The church got its oar in first, not surprisingly, because the Archbishop of Canterbury had actually drafted the document. And so it begins, and I read from the translation from the British Library, “John, by the grace of God, King of England, Lord of Ireland, Duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, and Count of Anjou, to his archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls, barons, justices, foresters, sheriffs, stewards, servants, and all the officials and royal subjects, greeting. Know that before God for the health of our soul and those of our ancestors and heirs to the honour of God, the exaltation of the holy church, and the better ordering of our kingdom at the advice of our revered teachers and fathers, Stephen, Archbishop of Canterbury, Primate of all England and Cardinal of the Holy Roman church.”

And then he lists all the other clergy, including interestingly, in terms of a talk that I gave not so long ago about banking. “And Brother Aymeric, Master of the Knighthood of the Temple in England.” When anything important is done in early mediaeval Europe, there’s the Knights Templar. I always have an image of the Knights Templar sort of sulking on the side. And in the sort of coffee break, as it were, coming siding up to you and saying, uh-oh. But they’re there. They’re all there. And then he says, first, that is wonderful. Remember, this is not written by the king. He’s just forced to seal it. It’s written by Archbishop of Canterbury. “First, that we have granted to God, and by this present charter have confirmed for us and our heirs in perpetuity that the English church shall be free, and shall have its rights undiminished and its liberty is unimpaired.” Well, there’s no weaselly wording on that, is there. This is a firm solid statement. The church has got its oar in, as I said, in the very first clause of Magna Carta. Stephen could go home after that, the clergy could go home. They gained everything. Very important, the church gains through, well the church internationally through the Pope, et cetera, gains the power to appoint its own senior clergy.

Some of you remember that I was talking about Abbey at Bury St. Edmunds, and its appointment of its first English abbot. Because the kings had been appointing these people. Because they appointed people that would, as it were, support them. I was going to say vote for them. It’s like a president or a prime minister in England who appoint people that they know are onside. Shall we say it like that. The rest of the nation is then addressed in the document. Having established the church in the king’s name, it reads, “To all free men of our kingdom, we have also granted for us and our heirs forever, all the liberties written out below to have and to keep for them and their heirs of us and our heirs.” Now that does take us into a new realm. This is not to my lords spiritual and secular, this is to all free men. Remember this is not drafted by the nobility, but by the Archbishop of Canterbury. We owe Stephen Langton a great deal. “To all free men of our kingdom.” That’s everybody other than a serf. There are no slaves in England by this date. The serfs who are tied to the land and to their Lord. But this is all free men. As indeed today, whichever country you’re living in, who are listening to me tonight, at least, we are all free men and women, men being translated in later centuries to incorporate women as well as men. And we go into, I’m not going to read. I spared you, I’m promised I won’t read all of Magna Carta, but I will give you some flavour of it by highlighting some things. The entire Magna Carta, if you print it off on A4 paper from the British Library copy off the internet, it’s five sides only. Five single sheets of paper give you the whole of Magna Carta.

One of the things I always say in terms of constitutions if Britain, or perhaps I should say when Britain, gets a written constitution, I personally, I think we will have to have one, others disagree. But just for a moment humanly, when Britain gets a constitution, it will look nothing like the European countries’, continental European countries’ constitutions, which are very wordy. Do you remember when Giscard d'Estaing, the retired French president, drafted a potential constitution for the European Union? It met with horror. It met with horror actually, on the continent, let alone here in England. Because if we do have one, it will be based on the American Constitution. In other words, as short as you can make it, as clear as you can make it, and in short, snappy bits, exactly like Magna Carta. And what a surprise, because those who drafted the American Constitution had Magna Carta in their sights. And one of the things that distinguishes Anglo-American democracy is the simplicity of the American Constitution. You could say that the English unwritten constitution is complex. Well, we could argue a great deal about our unwritten constitution, but basically the American Constitution is the one that we didn’t get in the 17th century. And you got over the other side of the Atlantic from me in the 18th century. But linking the two are the Constitutions of Massachusetts and Connecticut in colonial America written by Englishmen, and Magna Carta is central to that.

Why, to those English men and women who went to North America in the 17th century, because they were fleeing from another king imposing control, Charles I. And they were quoting, and in pulpits preaching about Magna Carta, and the freedom of individuals, and they took that with them to America. It was in their DNA. So when American colonists are writing those two documents which sever the political link between our two nations, they automatically look at Magna Carta. They don’t even think about it, because they don’t think about it as a foreign document at all. They think of it as their document, and their document it is. Because those ideas were carried by English men and women to North America because of a tyrant, in their view, they faced. And in the 1770s, the Americans view George III as a tyrant. However, that may not fit history, but that’s how he was viewed, as a tyrant. And therefore again they turn to Magna Carta. This is a document of enormous importance. And yet I think if Stephen, if I could magic Stephen Langton back and do an interview with him for you and say, “Archbishop, did you have any idea of what would happen to your document?” He’d say, “I’m astounded. All I was trying to do was contain this king who was in our view a bad king.” “But you were writing a document for the world, and you didn’t realise it.” “No, no we didn’t.” That’s what makes this document so remarkable. So let me read you section 7 and 8.

When it was sectionized. “At her husband’s death, a widow may have her marriage portion and inheritance at once and without trouble. She shall pay nothing for her dower, marriage portion, or any inheritance that she and her husband held jointly on the day of his death. She may remain in her husband’s house for 40 days after her death, and within this period, her dower shall be assigned to her.” Section 8, “No widow shall be compelled to marry so long as she wishes to remain without a husband. But she must give security that she will not marry without royal consent if she holds her lands to the crown or without the consent of whatever other Lord she may hold her lands from.” So a noble woman had to ask permission to remarry, but the snag is, right the way through to 1882, on remarriage, all her property became her new husband’s, as indeed on marriage in the first place, all her property became her husband’s. This lasted throughout the history of England until the Married Women’s Property Act of 1882, which recognised that women’s property remained their property, and did not become the property of their husband either on marriage or remarriage. Now, as a non-Norman, thinking back to last week, when we were were talking about Saxons and Normans. I must make it quite clear, this was a Norman law. Under Saxon England, A woman held her own property on marriage and on remarriage, this is a Norman action. Isn’t that interesting? When we were talking last week about freedom and the Saxons, Saxon women had a much better deal than women in Norman times, and right up to 1882. Now we move to Jews.

Now what is interesting about the sections on Jews, it refers to Jews, but it’s actually referring to all bankers, and it only cites Jews because they were the largest identifiable group in banking. So there is nothing anti-Semitic in this whatsoever. If there’s anything in it, it’s anti-bankers, but I’m not sure it’s even that. Well, judge for yourself, section 10. “If anyone who has borrowed a sum of money from Jews dies before the debt has been repaid, his heir shall pay no interest on the debt for as long as he remains underage, irrespective of whom he holds his lands. If such a debt falls into the hands of the crown, it will take nothing except the principal sum specified in the bond.” So that’s actually has some advantages to the Jewish bankers. They will get their bond, but on the other hand, they’re disadvantaged, they won’t get their interest. Section 11, “If a man dies owing money to Jews, his wife may have her dower, and pay nothing towards the debt from him. If he leaves children that are underage, their needs may also be provided for on a scale appropriate to the size of the holding of bonds. The debt will be paid out of the residue, reserving the service due to his feudal lords. Debts owed to persons other than Jews are to be dealt with similarly.” So it’s not a Jewish banking thing at all, it’s about bankers. And in the world we live in where there’s quite a lot of, well, I don’t know about America, but in Britain we’ve gone through a very anti-banking stage.

This would be thought to be appropriate. There’s nothing else about Jews by the way. Section 13, now this is critical. All the people facing John at Runnymede were secular lay lords or ecclesiastical lords, ecclesiastical dignitaries, bishops, archbishops, and abbots. There was one, and one only, lay person, not a lord, either secular or ecclesiastical. And this was the Lord Mayor of London. I know it’s called the Lord Mayor, but it isn’t a title that gives him access to the House of Lords. It’s not a title at all, it’s just the job. The Lord Mayor of London was there. And why was the Lord Mayor of London there? Well the first Lord Mayor had only been appointed in 1189, and this is 1215, and John is trying to interfere with the rights of the city of London. And so the Lord Mayor asks to be present. Well, I assume he asked, we don’t know. Maybe he was told to be present by Steven Langton. My guess is he asked to be present in order to defend the city of London. But what is remarkable about the Lord Mayor of London at Runnymede, is he did not only represent London, but he took it upon himself with no authority at all to represent all the towns in England. And in section 13, he wins an enormous privilege. “The city of London shall enjoy all its ancient liberties and free customs both by land and by water. We also will and grant that all other cities, boroughs, towns, and ports shall enjoy all their liberties and free customs.” And that kicks off in England, the mediaeval economy, entrepreneurial age of the later 13th and into the 14th century.

But we’ve managed to do it, unlike in France and other European countries, without the cities being independent of the crown, but to be contained within it, have their rights, but the crown can’t change those rights and impose their own view. So there’s an element of freedom but within a structure, an infrastructure of a monarchical kingdom. You think about Germany at this time, there were princely monarchical states, there were archbishop-ruled states, and there were towns like Lubeck where the marzipan comes from, which is entirely independent of kings or lords. That’s not so here, that is not so in England, we’re all part of the same political polity if you like. And that particular sentence, section 13, is a really important one. You can begin to see now why this document is a mishmash. One about what happens if the husband and father dies owing money. So we’ve got to make provision for the wife, we’ve got to make provision for the children. And then we’re talking about the rights of a huge city like Southampton, or my city of Bristol, with all the goods coming in. The king does not and cannot interfere thanks to the Lord Mayor of London. In parenthesis, during the Civil War, the city of London was on the side of parliament and not on the side of the king. The city of London has always been opposed to autocratic rule.

And that’s something that perhaps people don’t appreciate. For American, Canadian, and other friends who are not British, the Lord Mayor of London is only Lord Mayor of the city of London, which is a square mile in the middle of London on the north bank of the Thames. It isn’t the whole massive millions of people living city of London whose mayor is not Lord Mayor, but simply mayor of London. A job that Boris Johnson held at one point. This is the Lord Mayor of the square mile of the city of London, the corporation of London. Then there are rights for all. Now this is where it gets really interesting. Section 28, “No constable or other royal official shall take corn or other movable goods from any man without immediate payment unless the seller voluntary offers postponement.” Sorry, “Offers postponement of this.” So no one can come into my house and say on order of the sheriff, on order of the mayor, on order of the queen, I am seizing your computer because we’re short of them in the Department of Transport. They can’t do that. They might ask, and I could say no, which I hope she would. So this is an enormous step forward. Section 30, “No sheriff, royal official, or other person shall take horses or carts for transport from any freeman without his consent.” So if there’s the king is at war, he can’t suddenly say, “Oh by the way, can you open your garage up and lend me your car, or open your stables as it would be and lend me your horses. I’m going to take your horses away with no compensation.” No, no, no, I don’t want you to take my horses away, but I’ll do a deal with you. Pay me 10 shillings a day to have them, and I’m your man. Section 31, “Neither we nor any royal official will take wood for his castle or for any other purpose without the consent of the owner.” Wood is a valuable property in the Middle Ages.

You can do anything with wood. You build houses with wood, you build ships with wood, you build furniture with wood, you build carts. The list just goes on and on and on. Section 35, “There shall be standardised measures of wine, ale, and corn based on the London measurements throughout the kingdom. There shall also be a standard unit for dyed cloth, russet, namely two ells within the selvages. Weights are to be standardised similarly.” That I mentioned earlier. France doesn’t get standardised weights and measures across the whole of France until Napoleon, and the end of the 18th, beginning of the 19th century. And Germany doesn’t get them until the middle, just before the middle of the 19th century. And we have them in 1215. That’s something else dropped in. How important is that to the developing trade, these ports and towns and cities which are now got all their rights. So I know that a pound of butter in Bristol exported to Southampton and weighed will be a pound of butter because it’s the same everywhere and the weights don’t change. “All forests that have been created in our reign, shall at once be disafforested. Riverbanks that have been enclosed in our reign shall be similarly.” Well, you see, river banks were important, and river banks are, and rivers are important today because we know what happens if you dam a river further up, lower down, you’ll have no water. And people were damming rivers for water mills, water mills before windmills, water mills. And so there were began, as I say, with gradual slow industrialization.

In my part of the world, in the south of England, in the county of Sussex, in the weald, which is an area, in the geographical description of ere, The weald had lots of wood, and it had lots of iron. And it’s where ironmaking took place, and the charcoal out of the wood to make the iron, and it needed power and the power came. This was the other advantage of the weald, with lots of rivers. And so this says, and hang on, we’ve got to have some regulation over this. And then we come to three staggering sections. All the rest were important. This, this is important in capital letters and lights around it. But all of us who’s listening tonight, section 38, “In future, no official shall place a man on trial upon his own unsupported statement without producing credible witnesses to the truth of it.” So if I’m an official, a local official here in where I live in Worthing, and I’m taking someone to court for whatever it might be, letting his dogs loose or something, I can’t do it. I’ve got to find credible witnesses, and I can’t produce my brother who would not be considered a credible witness, nor can I present John who works for me, and that isn’t a credible witness. I’ve got to provide credible witnesses to the damage done by this man’s dogs. You say, well that’s a small thing. No it isn’t. It stops the arbitrary use of power. But the two real key sections are these. Section 39, “No freeman shall be seized or imprisoned or stripped of his rights or possessions or outlawed or exiled or deprived of his standing in any way. Nor will we proceed with force against him or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgement of his equals or by the law of the land.”

Wow. Wow, and we’re free. No one can deal with me without going through a court. That’s fantastic. Utterly, utterly bewildering. Section 40, “To no one will we sell. To no one deny or delay right of justice.” That is the basis, that is the basis of our society in Britain and Britain’s former dominions, Canada, Australia, and so forth and the United States. We have a guarantee of our freedom. The conclusion to Magna Carta. There are of course other, there are in fact 60-odd sections. It ends by saying, “Since We,” that’s John, “Since we have granted all these things for God, for the better ordering of our kingdom and to allay the discord that has been arisen between us and our barons. And since we desire that they shall be enjoyed in their entirety with outlasting strength forever, we give and grant the barons the following security. The barons shall select 25 of their number to keep and cause to be preserved with all their might, the peace and liberties granted and confirmed to them by this charter.” Not only has John been pulled back, he’s been pulled back, absolutely thrown back. He’s up against the wall because the barons are the ones going to decide whether this is kept to or not. And that it ends in that beautiful words. “Given by our hands in the meadow that is called Runnymede between Windsor and Staines on the 15th day of June in the 17th year of our reign, the new regnal year of 1215.” Perhaps it would all have come to nothing. They were back at war shortly afterwards, and John dies whilst campaigning in war against his barons in 1216, died of dysentery. But subsequent kings resigned this document, and it never died.

And a book called “Radical History of Britain” by Edward Vallance, which I’ll put on my blog, I think it’s an excellent book. Now Vallance writes in this way. “Were they alive today, King John and his barons would doubtless have been surprised by the historic veneration of Magna Carta as the founding stone of British freedom,” to which I can add and American freedom. “The 1215 Magna Carta was after all a document forged as England stood on the brink of civil war. And after a mere 10 weeks, it was a political dead letter.” Because the king and the barons fought again. So in a sense, both parties tore it up. Magna Carta, not worth, not worth the paper, we might say that it’s written on. It’s written on parchment, of course, not worth the paper it’s written on. And yet it has a life. It has a life of its own. And I do find that a quite extraordinary. Let me go forward and tell a story, one story. I could tell you lots of stories about the use of Magna Carta in the modern day and how important it is. In the 1960s, the Islanders living on the Chagos C-H-A-G-O-S Islands were simply moved by the British government to slums on the island of Mauritius. Moved because we handed over the Chagos Islands to our allies in the Cold War, the Americans, who established a military base at Diego Garcia. At the time, and this is the 1960s, an official in the British Foreign Office actually wrote this, I can’t believe it myself.

He’s talking about the islands. “Unfortunately,” he writes, “along with the birds, go some few tarzans or men Fridays whose origins are obscure and who are being hopefully wished onto Mauritius, et cetera. When this has been done, I agree we must be very tough.” It’s appalling. It was an appalling thing to do. In 2000, a British lawyer called Richard Gifford, G-I-double F-O-R-D, representing the Chagos Islanders cited Magna Carta in the high court here in England. And Gifford says this, and again, I’m using Vallance’s book. “The issue was revived by the revelation. Though the Islanders lacked any homeland, they retained dual British Mauritian citizenship. The Islanders’ English lawyer Richard Gifford, considered that if they had a right to live on the islands, that right must originate in the same right that UK citizens had to abide in the United Kingdom. That right confirmed in the 1971 Immigration Act originated from Magna Carta section 29, especially the provisions that no freeman shall be outlawed or exiled, but by lawful judgement of his peers or by the law of the land.” Now, he both sadly won, but sadly lost the case at high court. The judge agreed that Charter, Magna Carta’s liberties extended to the colonies. But these liberties confirmed only a procedure, not a right.

My point is not what happened in that case, but that a British lawyer cited Magna Carta, and a judge in the high court regarded it as a proper argument to use. Now let me stop there. If this was a play, the curtain comes across, end of Act one. Curtain opens, Act two, North America. Magna Carta reaches the United States. Let me read you from the Virginian Declaration of Rights written and published in 1776. This is the Virginian Declaration of Rights 1776. And we read what this is about, “That in all capital or criminal prosecutions, a man hath a right to demand the cause and nature of his accusation, to be confronted with the accusers of witnesses, to call for evidence in his favour, and to a speedy trial by an impartial jury of 12 men of his vicinage,” of his neighbourhood. “Without whose unanimous consent, he cannot be found guilty, nor can he be compelled to give evidence against himself. That no man be deprived of his liberty except by the law of the land or the judgment of his peers.” That’s almost pure Magna Carta written in 18th century language, that’s Virginia. Now we turn to the United States as a whole. A United States academic, John Kaminski, who is the director of the Centre for the Study of the American Constitution at the University of Wisconsin, has written, “For early Americans, Magna Carta and the Declaration of Independence were verbal representations of what liberty was and what government should be.

Protecting people rather than oppressing them. Much in the same way that for the past 100 years, the Statue of Liberty has been a visual representation of freedom, liberty, prosperity, and welcoming. When the first Continental Congress met in 1774 to draught the Declaration of Rights against King George III, they said that the rights of the English colonists to life, liberty and property are guaranteed by the principles of the English Constitution, otherwise known as Magna Carta. And on the very title page of the 1774 American document, ‘Journal of the Proceedings of the Continental Congress,’ there’s a picture of 12 colonist’s arms,” American arms, we could say, grasping our ordinary arms, my arms, “grasping a column. And the base of the column simply says Magna Carta.” It has crossed with the English to North America, and it is the centre, the core argument of the American colonists as they break with Britain. It establishes the rule of law, the process of law, and the freedom of the individual under the law. Kaminski wrote, “Magna Carta’s dominance was so great that its phraseology by the law of the land was used in all American documents prior to the Constitution. Not until James Madison introduced the phrase due process at a national level in 1789, was it included in the Fifth Amendment, and later in the 14th Amendment. In the ‘Federalist Papers,’ James Madison explicitly referenced the 40th clause of Magna Carta when Madison wrote, ‘justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been and ever will be pursued until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit.’” It’s Magna Carta.

As important now on two sides of the Atlantic. The Declaration of Independence used Magna Carta as a model. “For free men deposing a despotic government to exert their God-given rights.” The Puritans were definitely upset, “God-given rights, of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” And Kaminski says, very importantly, a point I think lost on both sides of the Atlantic. Kaminski says, “The Americans saw themselves as very conservative rebels. They were trying to preserve their constitutional rights, not to overthrow a government.” Let me put that, let me add one word to that. The Americans were trying to preserve their English constitutional rights, not to overthrow a government. We must remember that the American colonists were English. And when they talk about their constitutional rights, they mean mine as well as yours listening, wherever you’re listening in the States. This just from this document signed in a meadow, abandoned after 10 days in England. Kaminski said of Magna Carta, “They knew exactly what they were doing in America. They didn’t know if it would succeed or if it would last for centuries, but they were doing the best they could.” While it has lasted. It’s lasted 800 years here, well, it’s lasted since the 18th century in America. But there’s one part of the story yet to tell, and this is arguably the most extraordinary part of the story at all. Americans will remember that FDR’s wife, Eleanor Roosevelt, was chairing the United Nation subcommittee to establish after the Second World War in 1948, the Universal Declaration of Rights.

And in 1948 she was invited to travel to Paris and to make a argument for this incredible document. And as she went, she was asked by the United Nation, she was making it to the United Nations General Assembly. And she was asked by the President, Harry Truman, and the Secretary of State, George Marshall, that she was to give the address as the centrality of human freedom to world peace. And in that long speech, a lot of it incidentally drafted by Marshall for Eleanor. But Eleanor’s voice is clear. I cannot tell you whether it was Marshall or Eleanor Roosevelt who wrote this sentence, “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights.” She told the General Assembly of the United Nations, “This Universal Declaration of Human Rights may well become the international Magna Carta of all men, everywhere, of all men.” From Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury in 1250 to Eleanor Roosevelt in 1948, the widow of FDR, Magna Carta has been carried in triumph by the British, by the Dominions, and by America. It is at the very core of what all of us believe is democracy. And I find that, well, I just find it quite staggering, absolutely staggering, that such a small document has had such an impact right across. Now I’ve been awfully serious today, and I don’t know whether anyone outside England and my age will know of a British comic called Tony Hancock, long departed.

Tony Hancock did sort of, they did a episode each week in which he played a different part. It was a different story each week. And in this story, it was on television. It was called “Hancock’s Half Hours,” half hour comedy show. And in this one he was a member of a jury, and he got cross with his other jury members. It was characteristic, Hancock, whatever part he played to get cross with those around him. And this is something that he said when he’s disagreeing with them. And he said, I mean, it’s quite amazing, really. He objected strongly to them, and he simply argued, if I find the right page, I was going to read it to you, he turned to the other members of jury and said, “My fellow members of the jury, does Magna Carta mean nothing to you? Did she die in vain?” Well, many people may not know about Magna Carta, but it is for all of us, it guarantees our freedom against arbitrary government. Three cheers for Stephen Langton. Three cheers for Eleanor Roosevelt.

Thanks so much for listening. Can we see if there’s anybody asking? Oh, there seems to be quite a lot of comments.

Q&A and Comments:

There isn’t any difference between signing, they simply sealed. It’s only that it’s often written as signing. And for those of us who are picky, it’s actually wrong. It wasn’t signed.

No king ever adopted the name John. No, they did not. As no member of the royal family has ever been called Oliver because of Cromwell. Although there was a son of George V and Queen Mary called John, who sadly had disabilities and died young, and the royal family behaved appallingly to him.

Q: Why did William Marshall stay loyal to John?

A: Very good question. I think the answer is that he believed in, he was a conservative who, a small c, who believed in the right order of things. And to William Marshall, he’d taken an oath to John, and he would not break his oath. William Marshall is the most interesting man. When I come to do a thing on my blog tomorrow morning with lists of books and things, I’ll give you a book about William Marshall.

Oh, sorry, when I said John wasn’t Christian. No, no, sorry, I didn’t mean to say he was anything else. I meant to say that he wasn’t religious. I perhaps expressed that badly. He wasn’t religious at all. There’s no evidence that he was religious. And so, I don’t know, if you’d call him an atheist or an agnostic today. There was of course one time, when he fell out with the Pope and was excommunicated by the Pope, he threatened to become Islamic, and that’s true. But of course he didn’t.

Q: Why are copies held in cathedrals?

A: Because all copies in the Middle Ages were normally taken to places like that because that’s where they were safe and would be guarded properly. You couldn’t sort of, there is, you couldn’t, today what would we do? Send them to a town hall in America or in Britain? They simply weren’t there. You would put them in a cathedral for safety’s sake. Yes, there were Irish barons, of course, somebody says what?

I’m surprised one of the secrets of the Archbishop of Dublin. No, it’s the same Catholic church, Ireland is part. John, in that piece I read out at the beginning of Magna Carta is Lord of Ireland as well as King of England.

No, Ireland is part of the kingdom at the time. Canada and the Magna Carta, I can’t answer, my knowledge doesn’t extend that far except to say, of course, that Canadian laws and constitutions come from that of Britain, and it’s there. And all I’ve said about freedom and rule of law applies equally in Canada. Why I mentioned America is because America was quite separate from Britain. America had rebelled against Britain, and yet it had Magna Carta as its core. And in the 21st century, America still represents, despite what we might feel, and we won’t get into that argument about Trump and Biden, still represents the standard bearer of liberal democracy. And through Eleanor Roosevelt, it’s there in that United Nations Human Rights Statement. And that’s all Magna Carta. So that’s why I mentioned America.

Q: And who were the bankers, if not the Jews?

A: The Knight’s Templar were one, and there were other people. That was a talk I gave a few weeks ago about mediaeval banking.

Oh, so now, oh, this is, oh, bless you. Betty has put, this is wonderful. When my husband and I got married in Montreal, Quebec in 1968, we had to get married, quote, “Separate as to property” unquote. as opposed to the French system of law and Napoleonic law, which was quote “in community of property.” In which the woman’s inheritance and monies went to her husband. All this has changed now for a long time, but still in 1968, a woman could not buy a home in her own name. Betty. That’s fantastic. I shall use that if I ever talk about this again. I shall use your piece of information. 1968 we’re talking about here.

I’m not sure Susan, that I’ve got what you mean. I’m thinking it’s not come out right.

Q: Were only landed white men allowed to vote as in the US Constitution?

A: I’m not sure what that means. No, I’m not going into the fact of how the Americans twisted the idea of free men so that we get into the whole business of not having votes for Indigenous Americans who were thought to be savages in the 18th century, or indeed for Black Americans, that’s a whole new game. It is an extraordinary thing, but it’s an American thing. And you are of course, right, but I think something’s got missed, I think autocorrect come in somewhere, and it’s made it nonsense.

Q: How intelligent was King John?

A: Oh, well, oh, goodness me. Gosh. You do ask, who’s that asking a difficult question? Arlene, you could think of an easier question for me. I suppose the answer is we really don’t know. He would’ve been as educated as the lords of the time were, which isn’t very educated. Now being well educated, oh, sorry, you said intelligent. Yeah, educated is one thing, intelligence is another. It’s difficult. I’m not. I really don’t know that I can answer that. I’m going to recommend a book when I put the list up tomorrow morning about King John. And if you are really interested, read that.

Yes, so, oh, that’s a, I love it when people get a family there. Joanna said, I have family in Lubeck, not just marzipan, but it was an important trading port. Of course it was because it’s part of the Hanseatic League. Another and you’ve added that, yeah. Now the Hanseatic League’s another fascinating story. No, Scotland was not covered by Magna Carta because Scotland does not become united with England until the Union of the Crowns in 1603, and the Union of the Nations in 1707. So Scotland has gone terribly backward. Gosh, there’ll be some Scots, I should get lots of emails out in Scots. No, they didn’t.

Q: Where does the saying “born within the sound of Bow Bells” come from.

A: Oh, that’s another difficult question. That I think, that defines you as a cockney, which isn’t anything to do with the city of London, and I think it’s, I’m not going to, I’m not going to even say well, I will, I think it’s a 19th century thing, but it’s how you identify a cockney. Later articles of Magna Carta were lifted from Bible. Of course they were because, sorry, I didn’t, of course, they were, because Stephen Langton is a cleric, and the clerics were rooted in the Bible. And so the Bible becomes central to their thinking and their way of writing, so yes, absolutely.

Yeah, torture to get a confession continued for centuries. That’s interesting, Warren, because technically in mediaeval England, torture was forbidden. Now torture was meant not to happen. When the Templars were dissolved by the Pope in the early 14th century, Edward II of England did not use torture on them, and took the high ground. Oh, we don’t use torture in England. Oh, dreadful, no, we leave that to Continentals. Of course, the truth is that torture was used, but we have the same difficulties in the 21st century, both in America and in Britain, with former servicemen being accused of torture in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. So torture can be forbidden, but doesn’t necessarily mean it doesn’t go on.

Q: What happened in 1290 to the Jews.

A: That is a quite different story. The Jewish expulsion in 1290 is a, well, it’s a religio-political decision with heightened antisemitism caused by the crusades. And it got, it was hysteria. Which led to the appalling pogrom against Jews in England in 1290, and their expulsion. No one thought at the time of, it’s a very good question, very good question, Rose. But no one thought at the time of, well, no Jew thought at the time of arguing for Magna Carta, this was a pogrom, this was outside of the law. I should perhaps emphasise that just because I put a position on the importance of Carta as a lawyer. And you’d expect me to, it does not mean that it isn’t breached.

It’s breached even today when in Britain, when our government is slow to bring people to justice, our justice system now is way behind in terms of the length of time to bring someone to court. The argument is COVID, but that is not entirely the reason. Ask any British lawyer. And part of the reason is the cut in numbers of courts, et cetera. So our present government’s hands are not clean in terms of Magna Carta.

Q: Yes, was Magna Carta informed, was there a well-developed system in court?

A: Yes, there was. And it was free from the influence of nobility or clergy. Now, the nobility had their own courts, and there were ecclesiastical courts, excepted, but the main courts are the king’s courts, and the same justice ruled in Exeter, in Devon, or in Carlisle, in Cumberland. It’s the same. And the judges go on circuit, meaning they travel round. And so you get the same justice in Devon, as you get in Cumberland, exactly the same justice. And what is extraordinary, when I did my law degree at Oxford, I chose to do mediaeval law, and it was fascinating. And it was fascinating to look not at criminal law particularly, but at contract law. Because there were contracts, and some people who were, I’m not sure how you would describe them, sort of lower middle class businessmen, would go to court and they could win. There was a well-developed system of courts.

Is there documentary evidence showing that the American writers, I’ve always assumed there is. Well, somebody’s given a number. I hope you are not. I hope 89751 980 7118Q isn’t sending this from prison. ‘Cause he doesn’t give his name. No, that’s wonderful. I don’t know the answer to that. I’ve always assumed that there was, but I’m not that much of an expert on American history to answer that without doing some research.

Oh, and someone’s given me the opportunity to read that wonderful poem, “John, John, bad King John, shamed the throne he sat upon. Not a scruple, not a straw cared the monarch for the law. Promises he daily broke, no one could trust a word he spoke. So the barons brought a deed down to rusty Runnymede. Magna Carter was its knight, charter of the people’s right.” Yes, interestingly, I’m also a folklorist. And in English folklore, John often appears as a good bloke. And I’ve always found that quite strange, perhaps ordinary people saw him different than the nobility.

Q: Wonderful, but wasn’t it all presaged in the Torah?

A: Well, of course, the Torah is part of the Christian Bible as well. So it’s all based upon Judeo-Christianity. That’s where our concepts of freedom and of right and of justice. It all stems in liberal democracy from Judeo-Christianity and our interpretations, absolutely right. Yep, and yeah, your quotation of Deuteronomy would’ve been well known to Stephen Langton. “You shall not show favouritism in judgement . Small and great alike you shall hear.” Absolutely, it’s totally based in Judeo-Christianity. If I use that term, it embraces as I intend it to, the whole lot.

Q: Did Henry VIII not go against the Magna Carta by creating Protestantism and get rid of Catholicism?

A: Actually, Henry VIII did not create Protestantism. I think I’m going to have an opportunity of talking about that at a subsequent meeting. Henry VIII died a good Catholic boy, well, a bad Catholic boy. Protestantism came about through the universities, particularly Cambridge. It came about through the clergy. It came about through those who converted to Protestantism. And it is nothing to do with Magna Carta as such at all. And Catholicism was simply replaced here by Protestantism. The interesting about Protestantism, it’s a nationalistic religion. And the Church of England is really a very odd body. It’s an entirely political construct. in the 29 articles, 39 articles, which are the basis of the governance of the Church of England, its sort of statement, if you like. The Church of England is described as Catholic, but reformed. Reformed another word for Protestant. And so it was a very much a political solution to a problem of division within the Christian Church.

I can’t answer the question about Jews other than I have done in that they simply wasn’t, the issue wasn’t raised. Yeah. Thank you, thank you very much, Irv. In Canada, the Constitution is a combination of the unwritten constitution, the British North America Act of 1867, and the Canada Act of 1982, which included the Charter of Rights and Freedoms effectively all arising from Magna Carta. Bless you for that, 'cause that’s exactly what I said without giving the detail. Yes, no.

Q: Does Magna Carta hold the force of law?

A: Some sections do hold the force of law, and others clearly do not. But the key sections, 38, 39, 40 certainly do. Unless they’ve been incorporated in subsequent legislation. Magna Carta guarantees rights and freedoms, tell that to today’s actors who think they can make it up as they go along.

I don’t know whether Ellie is British or American, it doesn’t really matter, because it applies in both countries, and it implies in all countries. That is a difficult, very difficult issue. I read law at Oxford, as I think you know, and in lectures I attended on constitutional law, which were given by an, well to me, an elderly man. I guess he was younger than I am now. And this was the early mid-1960s. An man called Professor Wade, who was a great constitutional lawyer, he said he never liked talking about justice before World War II. After World War II, he had no difficulty. Justice, justice trumps the law. And the example is Nazi Germany. So if a country like Nazi Germany, any country, introduces legislation, for example, the anti-Semitic legislation of Nazi Germany, justice demands that you reject the law. Now that’s Wade’s argument, that justice trumps the law. Now we would always like to think, and so would lawyers, both sides of the Atlantic, Canada, Australia, all of us, that we would like justice always to trump the law. That is difficult. If lawyers in any of the countries I’ve mentioned, Australia, Britain, America, Canada, if any judge there says, well, justice demands that I come down on the side of the defendant, then the Parliament or Congress can introduce a law. And unfortunately that trumps, oh, sorry, that’s an unfortunate word used. That law can override the view of the justices. Now, at the moment in Britain, the relationship between the executive, that is to say in our constitution, the government, the cabinet, prime minister and cabinet. At the moment, there are issues between the executive and the judiciary. The high court of justice.

Now in America, it’s set up slightly differently, and to English eyes, slightly worryingly, as members of the Supreme Court are appointed politically. But the point still stands that we actually believe in the separation of powers. The judiciary, the executive. And the judiciary and executive need to be kept apart. And that is something that lawyers in all four of the countries I’ve mentioned will ever be vigilant on. And at the moment, that’s an issue in Britain. America set it up differently. And so the arguments are slightly different. But ask an American lawyer, and they will say the same as I’m saying.

Q: Oh, how was it revived if it was abandoned after 10 days?

A: Because subsequent, Henry III, the successor of John, his son, was a boy. And so the barons said, you’ve got to sign this, lad. And so he signs or seals, and so it goes on. Edward I, see, now that’s interesting actually. 'Cause Edward I sealed it, another edition if you like, of Magna Carta, but it was under Edward I that the Jews were thrown out. So yeah.

To think, had King John been successful in his attempt to route the French and his opposition to the church, we may not have had Magna Carta. Oh dear. That’s a difficult one. I think we would’ve got there in England one way or the other. And if we hadn’t got there in the 13th century, we would’ve got there in the 17th century with those challenging the King. Edward Coke, spelled coke, C-O-K-E, but pronounced cook, C-O-O-K, is perhaps one of the greatest of all common lawyers. And he stood against Charles. He died before the war came, the Civil War came, but it was he that basically got the Petition of Right to the king drafted. And that was based on Magna Carta. And Coke wrote a commentary on Magna Carta. We would’ve got there, and it wouldn’t have mattered in terms of America because Coke was pre the large emigration from England to America. And they would’ve taken Coke’s views with them. And indeed, lawyers in America, in colonial America, and indeed post-colonial America, would’ve had a copy of Coke’s books on their shelves.

Q: Do I think Putin is aware?

A: I don’t know. What? For those staggeringly good questions? I can’t answer. I don’t know. If anybody meets Putin, perhaps they could ask for us.

Oh, Irene, Irene’s a friend of mine, Irene, has put on working as I did for the support organisation of the UN, and particularly in the field of human rights, when I had a daughter, I named her Eleanor after Eleanor Roosevelt. I didn’t know that. I think I’m thinking I’m getting down to people who are just being polite at the end rather than asking question. I think I’ve probably, I think I’ve probably come to the end of those questions. Wendy?

• [Judi] Thank you William. Sorry.

• Thank you very much, I’m here, William. Thanks a million for an excellent presentation.

• You’re welcome.

• Thank you. Thank you. I’m going to call you in about five minutes, William.

• Okay. I’ll be here, yeah,

• All right, very good. Thank you for a brilliant presentation, Magna Carta, astonishing.

• I’m pleased to have talked about it. I’m always pleased to talk about Magna Carta.

• Thank you very much.

• [William] My pleasure.

• Thanks. Bye-bye. Bye-bye everybody. Thanks for joining.

• Bye-bye, everyone. Bye-bye.

• [Wendy] Bye-bye, bi-bi, bye-bye.

• Keep safe.