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History of the Charter - Preface The following translation of Magna
Carta was made for the use of my pupils and is here published in response
to a suggestion that it may be of use to others. The Charter bristles with
technical legal terms and its Latin is often ambiguous since the language of
the day had failed to keep pace with the growing richness and complexity of
English life after the Conquest; not infrequently a word has a general sense
and one or more particular ones, only the context showing which is being
employed. My principle aim has been to provide an English version which shall
be easily intelligible to the general reader. For this reason I have largely
abandoned English legal terms which tend to be as meaningless to the modern
student as the original Latin ones. Considerations of space have severely
limited the number of footnotes and made it necessary to make the translation
as nearly as possible self-explanatory. For help on points of detail I am
indebted to Mr. C. Johnson, Mr. E. Miller, Mr. F.J. West and Professor J.G.
Edwards. Introduction - The New
King On Friday, 26 March 1199, King Richard of England
was besieging the castle of Chalus not far from Limoges. In the afternoon he
started a tour of inspection of the walls, unarmed save for a helmet and
shield. Understandably the King excited the attention of a daring defender, a
cross bowman who had been firing most of the day using a frying pan as his
sole means of defence. His bolt hit Richard, glancing off his left shoulder
into his side. The wound festered and on Tuesday, 6 April the King
died. He left behind him a great mass of possessions (notably England,
Ireland, Normandy, Anjou and Aquitaine) and also a difficult succession
question. The rule of the succession to the throne was not yet fixed or
uniform in Western Europe, but the two obvious candidates were Arthur of
Brittany (the son of Henry II's third son Geoffrey) and John (the forth and
youngest son of Henry II). Arthur, however, was only twelve years old when
Richard died and the barons of Normandy and Aquitaine were solidly in favor
of John. Richard had probably considered John his heir and in the event he
was quickly recognized in almost all the lands of the late King. The
task to which he succeeded was a heavy one. In an age when communications
were slow, dangerous and expensive and the civil service only rudimentary, it
was no easy thing to hold together the great miscellany of lands which
constituted the Angevin empire. The problem had been made more difficult of
late by a rapid rise in prices which had greatly increased the expenses of
the Crown without proportionately raising its revenues, and by the obvious
intention of the new French King -- the astute Philip Augustus (1180-1226)
— to attack John's French
possessions. In England the steadily growing effectiveness of the royal
government, particularly notable under Henry II and Richard I, had for some
time caused discontent among an often turbulent baronage, who, in their day,
felt that the power of the Crown "has increased, is increasing and ought
to be diminished." Although historians are by no means agreed
about the new King's character it is clear that he lacked many of the
qualities necessary in this difficult and delicate situation. Like most of
his family he had an undisciplined nature, and was prone to furious outbursts
of temper which, at times, verged on the maniacal. His perpetual, morbid
suspicions of even his closest followers at least hint at mental instability
as does that streak of cruelty in his character which shocked even a rough
age. He had none of the military capacity which had made Richard I so popular
and he was almost untouched by the religious idealism which permeated so much
of contemporary life-" at the best his attitude towards the Church and
its clergy was coldly practical, at the worst it was almost insanely
ferocious", writes a modern historian.1 But
John, though unstable, was by no means devoid of ability. He was genuinely
interested in governmental problems and brought to them a fresh and ingenious
mind, whilst he could show considerable skill in a crisis. Our concern here
with the trouble that culminated in the great revolt must but blind us to
less controversial aspects of his reign. A modern authority has claimed that
"no medieval king before or since his time dealt more successfully with
the Welsh, the Scots or the Irish" and that "it was largely to the
King's personal interest and activity in judicial matters that the great
development of English law during this period was due."2
The complicated details of his reign cannot be here considered, but it is
essential to notice briefly the major problems with which he was faced.
1 S. Painter, The Reign of King
John, 152 2 A. L. Poole, From Domesday
Book to Magna Carta, 426, 429
At the opening of his reign Philip Augustus
had direct control of only a very small part of France, incomparably the most
important barrier to his effective rule of the country being the great
Angevin Empire of Henry II which stretched from the Pyrenees almost to the
Somme. The military ability of Richard I and other circumstances had delayed
any effective French attack on this, but now the time for it was ripe. It was
problem to be solved by force and John, unfortunately, lacked his brother's
interest in military matters.
On Richard's death Philip backed the barons of Anjou who had declared in
favor of Arthur of Brittany. But trouble with the Pope handicapped the King
and he soon recognized John's title in return for some small but valuable
pieces of territory and a large sum of money. At this point the English King,
whose undue interest in the fair sex was to become only too obvious, put
himself seriously in the wrong by marrying Isabel of Angouleme, an heiress who
was already betrothed to one of his vassals. This was a gross breach of
feudal law and Isabel's affianced appealed to the court of the king of France
for redress. John refused to appear for trial and was condemned to forfeit
all his French lands. The inevitable war began in May 1202, with
the French King aiming to capture Normandy and to replace John by Arthur in
the other continental lands of the Anglo-Norman Empire. By a brilliant stroke
John captured Arthur and a number of his supporters. But he never held the
confidence of his continental barons and steadily lost ground, notably
through the cruelty he showed to his foes culminating in April 1203 in
the murder of Arthur, a deed probably done by the King himself in a fit of
drunken fury. Baronial support in France rapidly drained away and Arthur's
death led to a revolt in Brittany. The lands round the Loire were quickly
lost and Philip launched a heavy attack on the great Duchy of Normandy.
Richard I had foreseen such a move and made elaborate preparations for
defence. The situation was far from hopeless. But John moved aimlessly
around, showing neither ability nor determination, and thus rapidly forfeited
the support of the local barons, who could scarcely be expected to help a
King who would not help himself. With the capture of the mighty fortress of
Chateau Gaillard on 18 March 1204, after a six months' siege,
effective resistance ended and all the Norman inheritance save the Channel
Isles passed to the King of France. John had no intention of leaving Philip
in undisturbed possession, but for some years serious internal problems
prevented any effective action. The loss of Normandy was perhaps the major
catastrophe of John's reign. Financially it meant the loss of important
resources and the need for considerable extra revenues, if the lost ground
was to be recovered. Psychologically, its revelation of John's military
incapacity further embittered his sensitive, brooding nature. John and The Church Soon after the Norman fiasco the king
became seriously embroiled with the ecclesiastical authorities. The trouble
began over the election of a new Archbishop of Canterbury to succeed Hubert
Walter, who died on 13 July 1205. It had long been generally accepted
that the King of England should have a major part in the appointment of
English bishops, but he was expected to choose reasonably suitable candidates
and to respect the canon law of the Church in the process of election.
Unfortunately those concerned in the election, rightly or wrongly, did not
trust a King who showed few signs of religious interests—" apart from the giving of
comparatively small sums in alms one can find no evidence of any acts of
piety on John's part," writes Professor Painter. The election problem
was further complicated by the old dispute between the monks of Canterbury
and the bishops of the southern province as to whether the latter were
entitled to take part in the election of a new archbishop. On Hubert's death, the bishops sent a
delegation to Rome to plead their cause. Hurriedly the monks of
Canterbury elected one of their number, Reginald, as archbishop upon rather
obscure conditions, and sent him with a delegation to Rome to state their
case. This precipitate action was illegal, since royal permission to proceed
to an election had not been secured. The King, in fury, forced the monks and
bishops to elect his nominee John de Gray, bishop of Norwich, and to withdraw
their appeals to the Pope. Pope Innocent III, himself a lawyer investigated the tangle carefully with the aid of new
delegations summoned from England and settled the minor issue by a judgment
that the southern bishops had no right to participate in election. Neither
John nor the monks would withdraw their candidates for the see. Innocent
declared that both had been in validly elected and got the Canterbury monks
to choose as archbishop Stephen Langton, an eminent English scholar then
studying abroad. Though Stephen was an admirable choice, Innocent's complete
disregard of the customary right of the English Crown to have a voice in
important elections of this kind would have infuriated less choleric kings
than John, and might well stand as a formidable precedent on future
occasions. Then, as ever, Church and State could not live happily together
without a mutual understanding which at this time was clearly lacking. John inevitably refused to recognize
Stephen as archbishop. He expelled the Canterbury monks from the country and
took over their estates; English benefices held by Italians were seized and
papal delegates forbidden to hear cases in England. Innocent threatened to
put England under an interdict, and, when various fruitless negotiations
broke down the interdict was published (23 March 1208). With a few
necessary exceptions this aimed at stopping public worship in England; parish
churches were to be closed and the administration of the sacraments largely
suspended. It is unfortunately by no means clear as to how far this state of
things prevailed in practice and it is likely that fear of royal wrath
mitigated the extreme demands of canon law. At this stage the King showed
commendable moderation; although he seized the property of all ecclesiastics
who supported the Pope, nearly all of it was evidently returned on payment of
a fine. The Pope could not let the situation
drift. After further unsuccessful negotiations Innocent put into operation
his threatened excommunication of the King (November 1209). This was a
much more serious matter as the faithful were, in effect, obliged to treat
John as an outcast from the Church, and as far as possible had to avoid contact
with him. By the end of the year almost all the bishops had deserted the
King, apart from two who were his close friends. The King used the situation
to relieve his serious financial situation. Enormous sums were extorted from
churches and monasteries and when bishoprics fell vacant they were left
empty, in the ancient manner, so that the King could pocket their surplus
revenue. Neither side wanted to prolong the struggle but neither would give
way. By 1212, however, the papal position had improved. John was
becoming increasingly unpopular at home, there was considerable unrest in
Scotland and Wales, and the Pope was in alliance with the powerful King of
France. The King decided to break up this formidable opposition by coming to
terms with the Pope, and, lane in 1212, he sent an embassy to Rome.
Before his envoys arrived the Pope either deposed John and called on the King
of France to take over his lands or threatened to do so, but withdrew the
sentence when he learnt of the King's readiness to negotiate. As the King of
France was threatening to invade England on his own account John gave way and
on 13 May 1213 agreed to accept Stephen Langton as Archbishop, to
compensate the Church for his exactions and to reinstate the ecclesiastics he
had expelled. Two days later John resigned his kingdoms of England and
Ireland to the Pope, receiving them back as a vassal in return for promising
tribute of 1,000 marks a year. The exiles returned, but, by various skillful
maneuvers, John managed to avoid disgorging more than a small part of the
money he had extracted from the clergy. The Pope now took John under his
special protection, absolving his ecclesiastical supporters in the recent
troubles and approving the election of John's nominees to some vacant
bishoprics. By this time there were clear signs of
the movement which was to culminate in the granting of the Great Charter, but
before considering this it is necessary to look at the setting of this
memorable struggle. The Background of the Baronial Revolt The early medieval baronage normally led
a life little hampered by royal supervision, holding their own courts and
raising their own taxation and their own feudal levies. But in England the
Norman kings from the first established a control over local life almost
unparalleled in Western Europe. As the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle noted, the iron
hand of the Conqueror was such that "any man who was himself aught might
travel over the kingdom with a bosom full of gold unmolested". This good
order was maintained by the Conqueror's immediate successors, except in the
short and restricted "anarchy of Stephen", and was enormously
expanded under Henry II when something like an efficient, professional civil
service is for the first time visible. The strength of Henry's system was
strikingly manifested in the reign of Richard (1189-99) when
England was largely and successfully governed by civil servants in the
absence of a King who spent only a few months of his reign in this country.
John does not seem to have added many new ways of extending royal power but certainly
made very full use of existing ones. By no means all royal innovation were
unacceptable to the baronage and some of them were necessary for the
efficient development of the kingdom. But by the end of John's reign there
certainly existed a profound distrust of what a chronicler terms "evil
customs which the King's father and brother had created to the detriment of
church and realm, together with those abuses which the King himself had
added." In the nineteenth century it was often
held that these novel extensions of royal power were primarily inspired by
constitutional motives, but it is now clear that economic forces were very
much more important than had been realised, a fact which, incidentally,
largely exonerates John at least from the charges of avarice and extortion
brought against him by a long line of critics who did not appreciate the
harsh financial conditions of his time. It is now established that the latter
half of the twelfth century saw a rise in national prosperity which may reasonably
be compared with the much better know ones in the reigns of Elizabeth I and Victoria.
The new prosperity was largely based on agriculture (though town life was
also expanding) and was accompanied by a rise in prices which crested for the
royal official a problem that verged on the insoluble. Crown expenditure shot
up enormously, so that, for example, whereas Henry II could hire mercenary
soldiers for 8d. A day John had to pay as much as 2s. Nowadays it would not
be thought unreasonable for the government to raise its revenue to keep pace
with the rising cost of ruling, but this was not so in Johns day, when the
economics of the age were different and when any form of change was difficult
because of the undue fascination which precedent exerted on the medieval
mind. Thus an important part of John's
revenue came from sources which could not be raised to meet the increased
costs because they were hereditary. "John may well have felt that
everyone in his realm was growing richer except himself," writes Professor
Painter. At this time, also, the loss of Normandy removed a useful fount of
revenue and demanded heavy additional expenditure if it was to be recovered.
The heavy financial demands which John had thus to make were the more
unwelcome in that they followed immediately on that expensive episode the
reign of Richard I, when the King's crusading activities and the ransoming of
him from captivity had led to exceptionally heavy taxation. The financial problem which faced John
had existed on a smaller scale under his two immediate predecessors and they
had developed most of the main expedients to meet it which he used. (It is
always to be remembered that the condemnation of these practices in the Great
Charter does not mean that they were either novel or unreasonable.) An
ancient part of Crown revenue came from infractions of the Forest Law, which
post- Conquest kings gradually extended to cover al large part of English
soil, its severe regulations being easily broken and strictly punished. This excited
so much opposition that the brief concessions of the Great Charter regarding
the Forest Law were expanded into a special Charter of the Forest, issued in 1217
soon after John's death. The king's rights as feudal overlord brought him
various financial perquisites which cannot be considered in detail here,
though mostly detailed in the Great Charter. These were vigorously utilised
by John and his officials. The rights were not all very clearly defined and
his officials undoubtedly pushed their claims further than was reasonable.
The Great Charter defined these rights in considerable detail and in somewhat
reactionary terms. Scutage was an important source of revenue levied on
tenants holding by military service. John took advantage of the lack of any detailed
rule as to how often it could be raised or what was the standard rate. In his
seventeen years' reign he raised eleven scutages, against eight in
thirty-four years by Henry II and three in ten years by Richard; he also
raised some at an increased rate, the last two scutages being at double the
rate of those of his immediate predecessors. Under the new economic
conditions a tax on movable property was coming to be seen as amongst the
most effective ways of tapping the wealth of the community. In 1207
John levied a tax of a thirteenth on income and movable property which
brought in 60,000, an enormous sum by the standards of the time, it
being twice the total revenue of any of the early years of his reign. But
this tax, being novel, unpopular and difficult to assess and to collect, was
not imposed again. To these financial resources may be added lesser ones such
as customs duties (in the arrangement of which John showed much imitative),
the usual extortions from Jews (the only official moneylenders of the day),
and the sums extracted from ecclesiastical bodies during the Interdict which
he succeeded in retaining. What influence religious feeling has on
the society of an age is never easy to access, but it is certain that John
offended it at a time when it was singularly unwise to do so. There is much
to favour the view that the English Church influenced popular imagination
more powerfully in the twelfth century than at any time before or since. The
foundation of some five hundred monasteries in the hundred hears immediately preceding
John's death and the building of rebuilding of the great mass of our ancient
parish churches at this time are but two strong indications of the power of
contemporary religious feeling, a feeling inevitably disturbed by the
liturgical penalties of the Interdict, the royal spoliation of church
property and the obvious indiscipline of the King's character. With John as with James I, it is at
least arguable that ultimately the fault lay not in themselves but in their
stars, that both came to the throne at a time when profound be economic and
social forces had so remoulded society that some far-reaching constitutional
reform was, in the nature of things, next to inevitable. Yet, this view, if
we accept it, must not blind us to the importance of personal factors in at
least accelerating the clash between old and new. If John and James had the
misfortune to bat on a bowlers' wicket, it is true and important that their
performances thereon do not suggest that they would have scored heavily under
easier conditions. The primitive machinery of medieval
times made it essential that a king should win the confidence of the mass of
his baronage. The illiterate baronage of the time were incapable of plumbing
deep problems of political science but had, at least, a strong sense that
certain things were "not done," a sense which a wise king would
treat with respect. This John failed to do and must therefore be regarded
politically, as well as morally, as a bad king. He was above all things an
egoist and the carefully balanced medieval society with its strong corporate
sense and strict counter-poise of privilege and responsibilities had no room
for egoism. The barons may at times have been
reactionary and stupid but their final belief that their King was so
thoroughly untrustworthy that he must be tied down by the complex provisions
of the Great Charter they can be regarded as entirely justified. It was
similar distrust of royal intentions which underlay the ecclesiastical
opposition to John over the Canterbury election, and it was distrust on an
unparalleled scale which inspired what has been called "the
extraordinary combination which formed in the winter and spring of
1215,". John’s suspicion tended to reach almost pathological
proportions extending even to mercenary captains completely dependent on his
favour. No baron could ever feel secure of royal favour and the inevitable
result was a breakdown of the good feeling between King and barons which was
essential for peace. Those who followed John without question were few and
unimportant and a series of personal quarrels with the King created a small
but important extremist party. The egoism which lay behind this
untrustworthiness also let John to deeds which shocked even an un-squeamish
age. His murder of Arthur and his starving to death of Matilda de Briouse and
her son deepened the feeling that the King was impossible and further trouble
was caused by his being, as a chronicler put it, "too covetous of
pretty ladies." Most medieval kings had their brutish side, as for
example Henry I of England and Philip Augustus. But these two were recognised
as being essentially "just brutes," whereas John's indiscipline was
such as to make it impossible for him to convince contemporaries that his
cause as their cause. If naked idealism was out of place in the crude age of
early kingship so also was unbridled self-indulgence, as Philip Augustus was
shrewd enough to realize. How far John was personally responsible for his
defects of character is not a question for the historian to answer. His
peppery father and spitfire mother, and his own position as the youngest of a
singularly fractious family offer special temptations to the psychologist,
whether or no he accepts the unkind verdict of the contemporary who wrote of
the Angevins, "from the devil they came, to the devil they
go." The Crisis and the Charter From what we have seen above it is clear that the
struggle which was to culminate in the granting of the Great Charter was
predictable. Long before 1216 there were thunderclouds about
suggesting a storm to come. By the Opening of 1203 there seems to have
been a good deal of discontent which may have influenced John’s murder of
Arthur, his potential rival. Because of the factors already noted the
situation deteriorated as time passes. From 1206 John was involved in
several major quarrels with various barons, which led him inter alia to carry
out expeditions to Ireland and Scotland, in the course of which his
intractability became more and more evident, and in 1209 there were
signs of plots brewing in the north. In August 1212 he was busy
organizing a great expedition against the Welsh by a large force of
mercenaries, but abandoned it because of persistent and lurid rumors of the
imminence of a baronial revolt. Certain barons were ordered to send hostages
for their good behavior, castles were taken over and suspects hunted down.
The return of Langton at this time (July 1213) was a new factor of the
greatest importance, for the new Archbishop was a highly educated man of
great ability and a known defender of native rights. Though he had no
illusions about John's character he saw the importance of avoiding civil was
by securing a comprehensive, orderly settlement. It is to him, more than to
anyone else, that what so often looked like a sordid, feudal squabble
culminated in the Great Charter. John had hoped to return to his attack
on Philip as soon as he was at peace with the Church (May 1213). But
when he called the host to muster at Portsmouth in July 1213, the
barons refused—
understandably enough, since the feudal forces had already been called out
once that year already as well as in the last four years. The opposition was
led by a group of northern barons through whom the name of the "Northerners"
came to be given to the party which opposed the King. John moved against
them with his mercenaries. Langton meanwhile had held a great meeting of
magnates at St. Paul's and it is possible that it was here agreed to fight
for ancient liberties "if need be, even unto death." The Archbishop
then hurried after the King and got him to postpone action against the
Northerners. The winter John spent planning for the great attack on Philip
and in February 1214 he crossed to France. But by the beginning of
July his own effort had ignominiously collapsed and the defeat of the allies
at Bouvines at the end of the month had effectively blasted this hope of
recovering the French lands. His defeat proved the last straw. The
barons, who had, after all, been fairly heavily taxed in what now turned out
to be a lost cause, refused a fresh demand for money and at an angry meeting
in January insisted on the restoration of the "ancient and accustomed
liberties," threatening force if necessary. A truce until Easter was
finally accepted. The older and more experienced barons, led by Langton and
the wise old William Marshall, were not prepared to go to extremes, but some
of the hotheads of the day proceeded to prepare for was. When the truce
expired, they advanced south and formally renounced their allegiance to the
King. An extremist section of the London citizens admitted them to the City,
which the King had failed to lure to his side a week before by the offer of
valuable privileges. The rebels sought for French aid whilst the King put
foreign mercenaries into strategic castles. John seems to have offered
various possessions, and on 9 May proposed that the points at issue
should be submitted to the arbitration of a joint committee presided over by
the Pope. The rebels, rightly or wrongly distrusting the sincerity of the
King and the impartiality of the Pope, refused the offer and the king in fury
ordered is officials to seize their property. At this juncture the situation was
redeemed by the influence of the leaders of the large moderate party who had
not deserted the King, despite their disapproval of much that he had done.
They saw the need for a carefully balanced settlement which would satisfy
much more than individual grievances and in the days that followed, led by
Langton, they seem to have negotiated tirelessly to this end. After much
haggling between the King at Windsor and the barons at Staines, a meeting was
held in a meadow between the two places known as Runnymede on Monday 15
June 1215, and here the King sealed a draft agreement. About the 19th the
Great Charter was sealed and both parties solemnly swore to accept its terms,
and copies of it were quickly sent out to local centers so that it might be
generally known and observed. No detailed analysis of the terms of
the Charter is possible here, but one or two general points should be noted. As
McKechnie long ago pointed out, the main feature of the document is "its
solicitude to define the extent of feudal services and dues and to prevent
theses being arbitrarily increased?" But other than baronial interests
were by no means neglected and it should not be thought that the Charter is a
mere party document. Articles such as those limiting royal exactions from
tenants in chief were of real value to lower sections of society since, in
some measure, the financial burdens were passed on to them by those at the
top. The charter, indeed, "promised present help for present ills to all
the articulate classes of the day." A highly controversial and novel
feature of the Charter lay in the elaborate precautions to secure observance
of the terms (including even the right to effect this by force) contained in
the so-called Article 61. However understandable such an arrangement
was in the circumstances of the time, it was equally certainly something for
which no effective precedent could be found. Rightly or wrongly, John felt no
obligation to accept the Charter as permanent, and in this he quickly
received valuable support from the Pope. Innocent seems to have regarded the
settlement as improperly restricting John's position and as infringing papal
rights of lordship over England. While negotiations for the Charter were in
progress he had ordered Langton to excommunicate those opposed to the King
and had suspended him from office when he refused. He now condemned the Great
Charter as "not only shamefully and demeaning but also illegal and
unjust." His bull was dated 24 August, but by the time news of it
reached England in September civil was had broken out. Tempers on both sides were rising, and
the Northerners, never very tractable, had become less so after Langton had
departed to Rome to attend the approaching council and to plead for a more
realistic attitude there. But barons much less hotheaded and anarchic than
some of the Northerners might well hesitate to disarm, with so unreliable and
ferocious a King as John relieved by the Pope from the need to observe the
Great charter. With so much unreason on one side and so much unreliability of
the other the inevitable outcome was War. The Northerners, in great need of
help against royal power, called in the French, who sent large numbers of
troops under Philip's son Louis and established themselves in the great city
of London. The King's superior resources permitted him to carry out a series
of successful punitive expeditions, but he failed to prevent a French
landing. He was engaged on further operations against the recalcitrants’
when, on 10 October 1216, he fell ill following a sumptuous banquet at
King's Lynn, and nine days later died at Newark Castle. His death revolutionized the situation.
The French had never been popular and John's heir was a nine-year-old son,
Henry, who could not conceivably menace the settlement granted by his father.
A regency under the aged William Marshall was set up. His conciliatory policy
slowly won over the moderate elements and his successful naval and military
actions led to the withdrawal of Louis (September 1217) and the
collapse of the opposition. William had already wisely re-issued the Great
Charter albeit without some of its more radical provisions (12 November
1216). Peace having been restored, the charter was again re-issued (1217)
with certain revisions and this was accompanied by a Charter of the Forest
which remedied important grievances concerning royal forests. These issue of 1216
and 1217 had papal approval and when in 1225 the young King
issued the Charter under his own seal spontanca et bona voluntate, the
last possibility of official resistance to the settlement of Runnymede was
removed. The text of 1225 contained a few more revisions but became
the stereotyped version for later days. The Significance of the Charter Only
the ill-informed can now regard the Great Charter as important because it
originally converted into a limited monarchy one which had hitherto been
arbitrary and oppressive. Medieval conditions made despotism undesired in
theory and impossible in practice in all but a very few exceptional areas (of
which certain city states of late medieval Italy were the most important).1
The popular law of the Dark Ages knew nothing of absolute rule nor did
the Church countenance it at this time. The ceremony of coronation, if it
increased the prestige of kingship, also made allegiance to the ruler
conditional on promises of good government therein given. These premises,
inevitably short and general, might well seem inadequate when a ruler arose
who violated the spirit of compromise that inspired them. Such a one was
William Rufus, whose arbitrary and violent conduct may have led to his own
sudden death and certainly inspired a discontent which his successor, Henry
I, found it desirable to placate by the issue of a special Charter of
Liberties. This Charter, significantly, was an amplified version of the
premises contained in the coronation oath, and, equally significantly,
provided the basis of the Great Charter, when in a much more difficult and
complex age there arose another King as unregulated as Rufus. What was new,
therefore, about the Great charter was certainly not the theory which lay
behind it, but the very elaborate and forthright way in which that theory was
given concrete form. For roughly two centuries it became the authoritative
expression of the rights of the community against the Crown. As such it was
seldom far from men's minds and royal confirmation of it was demanded and
secured repeatedly. By the early fifteenth century many of its provisions had
inevitably become antiquated and the mighty problems of the sixteenth century
led men to regard royal authority as much more of a blessing than a curse;
under such conditions the Great Charter was of little significance. The
famous constitutional struggles of Stuart times saw the beginning of what has
been termed "the myth of Magna Carta," when the Charter was
re-discovered and rapturously acclaimed as "the most
majestic instrument and sacrosanct anchor of English liberties" (Spelman).
It is this conception which it falls to the modern historian to
re-assess. 1 "Both in practice and by
definition the king could not claim absolute power. As kings the Angevins’
were bound by oath to preserve and govern according to law and custom. To the
medieval thinker unbounded authority was not an attribute of kingship but of
tyranny, for while the king governed according to the law, the tyrant ruled
according to his will."—J.C. Holt,
"The Barons and the Great Charter," English Historical Review,
January 1955, p. 5. |
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