In 1957, the American Bar Association erected this memorial to Magna Carta on the site where the proclamation was signed in 1215. Magna Carta was taken to America by British jurists in the late 17th century, and has come to be regarded as an indispensable charter of liberties.
Part 1 of 2
AS the thirteenth century opened, King John of England was losing the support of his noblemen, the barons. High taxes, unsuccessful military campaigns in France, and persistent disagreements with the Pope became a source of anxiety and grievance.
So the Barons met the King at Runnymede in Surrey on June 15th, 1215, and handed him a document to sign. The King must stop using foreign troops against his own people. He must stop imprisoning political opponents without trial, bribing judges, and ordering arbitrary punishments. He must not burden England’s ports and cities with taxes and regulations, and the English Church must be free from interference.
This was the ‘great charter’, in Latin, Magna Carta.* John signed it, but within months it was a dead letter. Safe at home in Windsor Castle, the King repudiated it; Pope Innocent III declared it void. The Barons called on the French and the Scots to oust John, but were saved the trouble when he died the following year.
Read the whole text in modern English, at The British Library.
Précis
King John’s high-handed government so offended his barons that in 1215 they presented him with a charter of liberties to sign. No sooner had he done so than he went back on his promises, plunging the country into revolt. A year later he died, and the charter, broken, and now having outlived its key signatory, was all but forgotten. (58 / 60 words)
Part Two
The British Government presented the Magna Carta Memorial in Canberra to the Australian people in 1997, 700 years after King Edward I reconfirmed the charter. A copy made in that same year, 1297, resides nearby in the Parliament building.
THE Charter remained on the statute books - Edward I reaffirmed it in 1297 - but it was not until the 1680s, when James II suspended Parliament, set his troops on his own people, and leant on Judge Jeffreys to pervert the courts, that English jurists began to see the Great Charter in a new light. Through John, they argued, all English Kings and their ministers had signed a contract binding them not to exploit the nation for their own convenience.
James fled in 1688, and under William and Mary a new ‘constitutional monarchy’ was established in which the power of the Crown, the executive branch of government, was strictly limited by law. William Penn was one of several English-born lawmakers of the time who took Magna Carta as a model for American colonies, and the American Constitution of 1788, as well as the Bill of Rights of 1791, borrow freely from the language of the Great Charter.
The Great Charter was not a dead letter now.
Précis
The charter of liberties signed by King John was largely forgotten until the 17th century, when it was brought forward as evidence that England’s monarchs had long ago signed away their right to absolute power, limiting the powers of the Crown. The revival was complete when Magna Carta became one of the chief influences on the US Constitution of 1788. (59 / 60 words)
