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Magna Carta
(1215) The Great 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 made 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 mor
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 somethin 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 Richcard (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 thos eabuses
which the King himself had added."
In the nineteenth century it was
often held that these novel extensions of royal power were promarily inspired by constitutional motives, but it is
now clear that economic forces wer 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 largel
based on argiculture (though town life was also
expanding) and was accompained by a rise in prices
which crested for the royal offical a problem that
verged on the insoluble. Crown expenditure shot up enormously, so that, for
example, whereas Henry II courl 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 Profewssor 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 wich Jon had thus to make were the more unwelcome in that
they followed immediately on that expensive episode hte
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 Creat 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 beoken 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 Foprest,
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 ver clearly defined and his officials undoubtedly pushed
their claims further than was reasonahble. 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 predescessors. 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 enourmous sum by th estandards of the time, it
being twice the totl 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 arrangment
of which John showed much initative), the usual
extortions from Jews (the only official monelenders
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 influnced
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 preceeding 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 byt he liturgical prnalties of
the Interdict, the royal spoliation of church property and the obvious
indiscipline of the King's charcter.
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 bew 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 accpet
it, must not blind us to the importance of personal factors in at least acclerating the clash between old and new. If John and
James had the misfortune to bat on a bowlers' wicket, it is true and ikportant that their performances thereon do not suggest
that they would have scored heavily under easier conditions.
The primitive machinery of mediefal times made it essential that a king should win th econfidence 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,". Johns 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 tha good feelin gbetween 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 behing this untrustworthiness also let John to deeds which
shocked even an unsqueamish 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 Heny 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 fo him to convince contemporaries that his cause as their
cause. If naked idealism was out o fplace in thie 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 whin 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 premisses, 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 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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