History · Medieval

Magna Carta

15 June 1215

King John and the baronial revolt

A charter of liberties forced on an English king by rebellious barons in a Thames-side meadow, limiting royal power over taxation, the church and justice. Annulled by the Pope within ten weeks, it was reissued repeatedly after John's death and became, by the seventeenth century, the founding text of English constitutional liberty.

How to spot them

▸Clue patterns: a meadow by the Thames near Windsor, 1215, barons in arms, a papal annulment
▸Four copies of the original survive; two are in the British Library
▸Clauses 39 and 40 are the famous ones; only three clauses remain law
▸The name simply means 'great charter', to distinguish it from a smaller one about forests

What happened

Sealed in a meadow by the Thames between Windsor and Staines

Runnymede, Surrey, on 15 June 1215.

Annulled by Pope Innocent III within ten weeks as 'shameful and demeaning'

The bull Etsi carissimus, 24 August 1215; war followed at once.

'To no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay, right or justice'

Clause 40; clause 39 guarantees lawful judgement by peers or the law of the land.

Four original 1215 exemplifications survive — two in one London library, one each at Lincoln and Salisbury

The British Library holds two; Lincoln and Salisbury cathedrals one each.

Sealed, not signed — the king almost certainly could not write

It was authenticated with the great seal.

A companion document of 1217 about royal forests, which is why this one is called 'great'

The Charter of the Forest.

A lawn at Runnymede given to the United States in 1965 for a memorial to a murdered president

The John F. Kennedy Memorial; the American Bar Association memorial is also on the site.

Quick-fire facts

•Magna Carta was sealed by King John at Runnymede, beside the Thames near Windsor, on 15 June 1215.
•It was negotiated with rebel barons, with Archbishop of Canterbury Stephen Langton as mediator.
•Pope Innocent III annulled it in August 1215, precipitating the First Barons' War.
•It was reissued in 1216, 1217 and 1225; the 1297 confirmation by Edward I is the version on the English statute book.
•Four original 1215 exemplifications survive: two at the British Library, one at Lincoln Cathedral, one at Salisbury Cathedral.
•Clause 39 promises no free man shall be imprisoned or dispossessed except by lawful judgement of his peers or the law of the land; clause 40 promises justice will not be sold, denied or delayed.
•Only three clauses remain in force in English law, including the liberties of the English Church and of the City of London.
•The name distinguishes it from the shorter Charter of the Forest of 1217.
•Clause 61, the 'security clause' creating a council of 25 barons to enforce it, was dropped in later reissues.
•Sir Edward Coke revived it in the seventeenth century as a weapon against the Stuarts; it shaped the US Bill of Rights.

Drill it — 10 cards

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Sources

Dan Jones — Magna Carta: The Making and Legacy of the Great Charter
David Carpenter — Magna Carta
Encyclopaedia Britannica — Magna Carta