The Magna Carta - what's it all about?

Here’s an introduction to the Magna Carta, the Chairman of a Royal Borough Stakeholders’ Group , and former head teacher at Slough Grammar School, Margaret Lenton.

In 1215, King John sealed the Magna Carta at Runnymede in the Parish of Wraysbury on 15^th June.

The Magna Carta was written by about 13 monks as it was different to other charters by being sent to the bishops as the sheriffs would have ignored it.

Four clauses are still part of the Law of the land. These are the two, so called, ‘Golden Clauses’:

The right to trial by one’s peers
To no one will justice be denied, delayed or sold.

The other two surviving clauses, are that the City of London will enjoy all its ancient privileges and that the Church in England will be free.

King John had roused the barons against him by losing lands in France, ruthless taxation policies, cruelty, probably killing his nephew and quarrelling with the Church.

The barons met first at St Alban’s in 1213 and then they moved on to Bury St Edmunds where they swore an oath not to separate until the King had accepted their demands. How surprised they would have been to see that Magna Carta is taken as the basis of freedom for all in this country!

King John died in 1216 and the Regent, William the Marshall, re-issued Magna Carta to secure the succession of John’s son, Henry 111. Magna Carta continued to be re-issued during the thirteenth century. Fifty years after 1215, Simon de Montfort called the first parliament.

Magna Carta’s principles were revived in the reign of James 1^st , who wanted to claim the ‘Divine Right of Kings’, namely that the King was above the Law.

Parliamentarians in the English Civil War looked to Magna Carta.

Those drafting the Constitution of the United States, after the War of Independence, acknowledged Magna Carta as important and it is regularly quoted in cases before the Supreme Court.

The Commonwealth countries, (except Mozambique) when they gained their independence from the UK, took the principles of Magna Carta as the foundation for their Constitutions.