- Magna Carta emerged in 1215 as a symbol of resistance to King John’s rule.
- There are four surviving original copies of the 1215 Magna Carta.
- Many principles of Magna Carta influenced the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights.
The Magna Carta, also known as the Great Charter, is a historical landmark in the limitation of constitutional rights and monarchical power and has a sacred place in the history of law. Magna Carta emerged against the background of political conflicts in 13th-century England. King John’s biased rule and high taxation practices had caused anger among his barons and subjects. In this context, Magna Carta emerged as a symbol of resistance and a demand for accountability from the monarchy.
The birth of Magna Carta dates back to 1215, when a coalition of barons, clergy, and nobles came together to voice their grievances with King John’s rule. During this meeting at Runnymede, a meadow on the banks of the River Thames, the basic principles of the charter were negotiated and agreed upon. The document itself was drafted as a result of these negotiations, its content reflecting the demands and concerns of the time.
Four original copies of the 1215 Magna Carta still exist. They are housed in the British Library, Salisbury Cathedral, Lincoln Cathedral, and Hereford Cathedral. Additionally, there are later versions and reissues of the Magna Carta.
Magna Carta represents a collective struggle to impose restrictions on the king’s authority and to protect the rights and privileges of the barons and, by extension, the wider populace. It is rooted in the need for a legal framework to ensure justice, equity, and the rule of law in a medieval society where imbalances of power and abuses of authority were normalized.
The Road to the Magna Carta of 1215
On the morning of June 15, 1215, several barons, representing the most powerful landowners and dignitaries in England, gathered in the morning mist on the great meadow of Runnymede on the banks of the Thames. King John had agreed to meet his opponents here and listen to their demands. The demands were that the king should rule within the law and respect the rights and liberties of his people.
The rebels, on the other hand, waited with some trepidation, while the king’s servants and armored cavalry were a few meters away. Armed rebellion against the king’s throne was the most unpardonable of crimes, and if the rebels could not persuade the king to accept their demands, civil war was inevitable.
More than an hour passed. Then, through the mist, the barons saw the king and his retinue approaching. King John was accompanied by the papal legate, the archbishop of Canterbury and Stephen Langton, who had helped draft many of the provisions in the charter that contained the rebels’ demands.
The Magna Carta had a profound impact on the American legal system. Many of its principles, such as due process, trial by jury, and the protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, were incorporated into the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights.
Dispute Between King John and Pope Innocent III
King John knew how humiliating his situation was. This charter was being forced upon him by the great barons. The barons were angry at the heavy taxes the king had imposed to reclaim their dominions on the continent after successive defeats. John had also engaged in a six-year feud with the Papacy, as a result of which Pope Innocent III had ostracized England and the Church was unable to function.
The king’s opponents accused him of being unfair, of not listening to their grievances and of not recognizing the long-standing freedoms of the free-born English. Only a few weeks earlier, the king had dismissed the barons and their proposals for reform by saying, “Why don’t you ask me directly for my kingship? Take this nonsense away and don’t bother me any more.” John’s stubborn resistance began to strengthen the resolve of his opponents in the north and east of England.
In fact, there were initially only 40 barons who came forward in open rebellion against their kingdom. They chose as their leader one of the charismatic dissidents, Robert Fitzwalter, Lord of Dunmow in Essex. As an opponent of the king since 1212, it was Fitzwalter who spread the rumors that put King John in a difficult position—stories of his cruelty and deceit. In 1215, he was given the coveted title of “Marshal of the Army of God and of the Holy Church”.
In 1213, several northern barons refused to send their troops for the campaign in France. Then, in 1214, the defeat of the French at the Battle of Bouvines led to more knights and barons joining the rebel side. Many of these groups refused to accept the tax that the monarchy collected to pay the soldiers. It was precisely from among them that Fitzwalter recruited his rebellious army in the spring of 1215. They first gathered in squares in Lincolnshire and Northamptonshire and marched south.
Clauses of Magna Carta
In its two best-known Clauses, the Magna Carta promises that no man shall be imprisoned, declared an outlaw, exiled, or deprived of his property, except by a judgment of his equals or in accordance with the law of the land. This provision led to the Habeas Corpus Act of 1679, which established the right of an arrested person to demand to be brought before a court and not to be unlawfully deprived of his liberty. Some key clauses of the Magna Carta include:
- Clause 12: No scutage or aid (tax) shall be imposed without the consent of the kingdom.
- Clause 39: No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land.
- Clause 40: To no one will we sell, to no one will we deny or delay right or justice.
- Clause 45: We will appoint as justices, constables, sheriffs, or other officials, only men that know the law of the realm and are minded to keep it well.
- Clause 35: There shall be standard measures of wine, ale, and corn (the London quarter), throughout the kingdom. There shall also be a standard width of dyed cloth, russet, and haberject, namely two ells within the selvedges. Weights are to be standardised similarly.
The Fall of London
The uprising started badly for the rebels. After a 15-day siege, they were forced to abandon their attempt to attack the royal palace in Northampton and, almost out of desperation, decided to march on London. The king sent troops to defend the city—French mercenaries under the Earl of Salisbury—but they were too late.
On Sunday morning, May 17, while Londoners loyal to King John were praying in church, the dissidents opened the city gates to the rebels and London fell to them without resistance. The loss of London changed the fate of the fight between the king and his barons. Neutrals, waiting to see which way the wind might blow, joined the rebels. In many towns, news of London’s fall acted as a signal for rebellion. John fled to Windsor Castle. There, his chief advisers, William Marshal and Hubert de Burgh, offered him concessions and tried to influence the king to make peace. John surrendered at their suggestion.
When John and his entourage arrived at the spot where the barons were gathered, they dismounted without ceremony. Archbishop Langton then took charge of the situation. He had mediated in the final stages of the crisis and had a list of the barons’ demands. Langton read from the parchment on which the provisions were written the draft of the law that would later be known as the Magna Carta, or Great Charter. King John accepted the reading without hesitation. Then he kissed each of the barons and sat down at the table with them.
Finally, putting his official seal on the charter, John acknowledged that the law was on the throne. Both the charter and the manner in which it was forcibly taken from the king infuriated Pope Innocent III. In a papal bull, he threatened John with excommunication, as well as any of his subjects who might attempt to obey it. But even before this papal bull reached England, John had already decided to go back on his promise. By the fall, England was once again at civil war.
In October 1216, King John died suddenly. On November 12, two weeks after the coronation of his 9-year-old son Henry III, the revised Magna Carta was read as a royal proclamation on behalf of the new king, declaring that the king had agreed to govern the country according to the laws of England.
Barons’ Gains in Magna Carta
Magna Carta was essentially a peace treaty between the great barons of the country and the king of England. Its provisions largely represented the interests of the wealthy landowning class and settled disputes over many issues, such as marriage, guardianship, and military service.
However, as the civil war approached and the nobility sought support in the coming conflict, provisions were added to protect the rights and liberties of all free inhabitants of the country and to declare that the king must seek popular approval to impose taxes.
It was the first time an English king had to approve a written document that forced him to uphold the law. John also agreed that the great barons should choose 25 of their number to organize and implement the provisions of Magna Carta.
Later generations frequently invoked the spirit of Magna Carta. It had a great influence on the preservation of the principles of constitutional liberty in England and, centuries later, in America, and became an example and a symbol of justice for freedom-seeking peoples in many parts of the world.
Why Was King John Hated?
The historian Roger of Wendover wrote some of the unfavorable stories about King John. Roger, a monk at St. Albans, wrote his account ten years after John’s death. In it, he accuses John of treating the barons’ wives and daughters with as much disrespect as he wished, of frightening the papal guards by breaking their noses, and of ordering a Jew from Bristol to have a tooth extracted every day until he told him the location of his treasure.
According to Roger, the king was inventing very subtle tortures. From time to time, in fits of rage, his eyes would bulge out of their sockets and he would turn pale. He also claimed that John lost Normandy because he was lecherous and lazy.
Although much of Roger’s account is nonsense, it is clear that John was indeed a moralizing, suspicious, and untrustworthy man. It is also true that he imposed heavy taxes to pay for his wars on the European continent. Under John’s father, Henry II, who died in 1189, a soldier cost eight pence a day. John, however, had to find three times that, two shillings a day. In addition, John’s lack of leadership led to embarrassing defeats and losses in every battle he fought.
How John Angered the Pope?
In 1207, Pope Innocent III appointed Stephen Langton archbishop of Canterbury. At the time, Langton, a well-known churchman, was working in Rome in the “curia”, the papal court. John, who favored another candidate, initially defied Rome and did not want the new archbishop. He put pressure on the clergy and seized the Church’s lands. In 1208, the Pope retaliated by banning mass in England. This meant closing the doors of the church and forbidding all masses except the baptism of infants and the confession of the dying.
In 1209, John was excommunicated by the Pope for not returning church lands. But in 1213, when King Philippe August of France threatened to invade England, John bowed to him in the hope that the Pope could prevent Philippe. Both the excommunication and the ban were lifted. And he allowed Archbishop Langton to take office and become one of John’s representatives.
England Loses Territories in France
When King John ascended the throne of England on the death of his brother Richard the Lionheart in 1199, he inherited the vast territory in France known as the Angevin Empire. This empire included all of western France, from Normandy in the north to the Spanish border. In the meantime, Philip Augustus, the king of France, had taken advantage of the absence of Richard the Lionheart, who had participated in the Third Crusade, to seize many of the strategically important territories on the border.
Richard recaptured some of these territories with the Treaty of Louviers (1196) and decided to recapture the rest. He constructed the magnificent Château Gaillard on the Seine and close to Rouen to achieve this, but while besieging another château, an arrow struck him and killed him.
Maine and Anjou revolted against their new king, King John. King Philip of France declared that John had forfeited his rights to French territory and in 1204, he took the castle of Gaillard. By the end of the year, Philip had taken Normandy, Anjou, Maine, and most of Poitou.
In a last-ditch effort to regain the lands in Anjou, John made a pact against Philip with King Otto IV of Germany and the Flemish count. A force of Flemish, English, and imperial armies was defeated at Bouvines in northeastern France in July 1214. John the Patriot’s hopes of regaining possession of France were thus dashed. This defeat was also the final blow that made the Magna Carta inevitable.
What Was Feudalism?
Feudalism is a 19th-century name for the social and military system that dominated much of Western Europe from about the 9th to the 14th centuries. In this system, the lord at the top was the king. The big landowners (barons) were the chief tenants, who in turn gave land to knights and so on down to small farms and then to free peasants, the serfs. One of the most important features of the feudal system was military service, and some researchers even say that this is where the essence of the system lies.
Each large landowner was required to provide the king with knights, ready with all their war equipment, whenever necessary. In return, the king promised to protect the landowners under his command, and when the lord promised the same protection and justice to his vassals, they in turn worked the lord’s land and paid him tribute.
Over time, military service and land ownership became linked. It was not cheap to raise an army of armored troops with horses, so the king gave his barons large tracts of land with the necessary revenue. By the time of the adoption of the Magna Carta, the barons’ duty to provide knights had long since been transformed into a tax, the so-called “soldier’s fee”. The heavy taxes imposed by Richard and John under this name were a major source of complaint for the barons.
