David Starkey's Magna Carta


David Starkey's Magna Carta

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RAUCOUS CROWD NOISE

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Relations between estate

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and its people can all too easily break down,

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from bickering to riot, from anarchy to bloody revolution.

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The rulers, whether they call themselves kings and emperors

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or presidents and prime ministers, are arrogant,

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power-grabbing and often corrupt, while we, the ruled,

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can be disorderly, irrational and bloody-minded.

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But, 800 years ago in England, one such crisis -

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local, limited, particular -

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threw up a document that has become a kind of universal model,

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a sort of blueprint.

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They didn't get it right first time, but constantly revisited

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and readjusted, it has become a working constitution.

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Its words still retain their power to quicken the blood, with ideas

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to keep governments in check and fill autocratic regimes with fear.

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It's called Magna Carta, and it matters as much now as then.

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More indeed, perhaps, as we have forgotten so many of its lessons.

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This is the River Thames,

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and I'm travelling upstream from east to west.

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STEAM WHISTLE BLOWS

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I'm on this lovely pleasure steamer, and nowadays, indeed,

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the river is largely a tourist attraction.

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But back in the Middle Ages, it was the superhighway of England.

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It's the summer of 1215, and England is bitterly divided about how

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it should be governed and, indeed, who should govern it.

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It's what we might call a constitutional crisis.

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But it has gone beyond words to the very brink of civil war.

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Back there, some 20 miles downstream,

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is the barons' main camp in London.

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And over there, some five miles upstream, is the King's camp

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in the magnificent, almost impregnable fortress

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of Windsor Castle.

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And here is Runnymede.

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"A new state of things has begun in England,

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"such a strange affair as had never before been heard,

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"for the body wished to rule the head

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"and the people desired to be masters over the King."

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So wrote a monk who witnessed the tense confrontations on these

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watery meadows between King John and his rebellious barons.

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This stand-off is the very stuff of school history lessons.

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In fact, it was just the midpoint of a bitter power struggle that

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would threaten to tear England apart

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and one that had started several years earlier.

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England in the 13th century.

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Contrary to our popular perception, this is not some dark age -

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quite the reverse.

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England is ruled by tiny strips of parchment with

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a government of writing and sealing.

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It has seen an enormous explosion in sophisticated law, offering

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justice, settling disputes, dealing with an increasingly complex world.

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But it is this almost insatiable demand for a fairer society

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that will bring people to conflict with their monarch, King John.

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To offer justice is one of the fundamental

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responsibilities of kingship.

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And it was one that John,

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whose tutor had been a leading judge, found especially congenial.

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It was also something that people wanted.

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However, law and justice are a two-edged sword.

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They're a vital necessity.

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On the other hand, they can be so easily perverted into a means

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for the King to exercise excessive and arbitrary power

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and to delve excessively into his subjects' pockets.

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And King John certainly knew how to abuse power.

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A ruthless megalomaniac, he was accused of murdering his nephew

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and dishonouring his noblemen's wives.

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By all accounts, he was a bad king.

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For most monastic chroniclers,

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John was the very measure of human depravity.

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"Foul as it is," one declared,

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"hell itself was defiled by the foulness of John."

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John's many defects of character - his violent rages, his lusts

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and his shifty unreliability - also damaged relations with his barons.

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But their principal grievance was to be financial.

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John wanted to regain a great continental empire

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he had inherited but lost.

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The expenditure needed would be enormous.

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From 1206, and following the loss of most of his lands in France,

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John concentrated on England and on raising and hoarding cash.

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He targeted everybody - nobles and townsmen, Jews and the Church -

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and he used any and every means.

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He was astonishingly successful.

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He doubled royal revenue and more,

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and by 1212, he had accumulated a gigantic cash hoard

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of at least £132,000 in coin, in castle treasuries.

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And then he blew the lot.

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In the summer of 1212, John lodged an ambitious counterattack

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against King Philip Augustus to recapture his lands in France.

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But it ended in disaster.

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HORSE WHINNIES

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At Bouvines, north of Paris, in the summer of 1214,

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John's allies were comprehensively put to flight by the French king.

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Very few medieval battles resulted in complete rout,

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but this was one of them.

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A weakened and impoverished King John returned home

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to find his realm in disarray, his angry barons now in open revolt.

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This is where the real novelty of 1215 began.

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There had been plenty of earlier revolts against royal misgovernment,

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but they had taken the form of rebellions in favour

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of rival claimants to the throne.

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In this winter of 1214-15, however, there were no such rival claimants,

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and John's opponents risked being rebels without a cause.

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Instead, they took the revolutionary step of rebelling

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not in the name of a person, but of an idea.

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Led by Robert Fitzwalter,

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the self-styled Marshal of the Army of God, the barons decided

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they would demand the King restore their ancient rights and liberties.

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There were precedents, and talk turned to the

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Charter of Liberties granted by Henry I over 100 years previously.

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It seemed the perfect solution.

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Armed and ready for war, in early January 1215, the barons went to

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confront John about their grievances at the Temple Church in London.

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John was there under the protection of the immensely rich,

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immensely powerful crusading order of the Knights Templar.

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The barons entered and demanded John agree to Henry I's

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Charter of Liberties and reaffirm by oath their ancient freedoms.

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He refused.

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According to one chronicler, he angrily declared he would

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never grant them liberties that would render him their slave.

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John countered with an oath of his own, by requiring his barons to

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reswear their traditional oath of allegiance,

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but with an extra clause -

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to follow him not only against all men, but also against the Charter.

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The two sides were now further apart than ever.

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Both now manoeuvred for advantage.

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John appealed to Rome, the barons hit back.

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They renounced their allegiance to the throne on the 5th of May.

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And 12 days later, their forces took London. This was decisive.

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The loss of his capital forced John into serious negotiation...

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and to Runnymede.

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The watery meadows were a convenient midway point

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between the two rival forces.

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But places between two armed camps,

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each bitterly hostile to the other, risked becoming battlefields.

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Runnymede was chosen precisely because it couldn't,

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as the surrounding land was and, indeed, still... Damn!

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..is too wet and too boggy.

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HORSE NEIGHS

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There wasn't just one meeting at Runnymede,

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but several, as the two sides negotiated terms.

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By 10th June, a draft document, not yet Magna Carta

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but an outline settlement, was drawn up.

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The King then confirmed the settlement, known as the

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Articles of the Barons, by ordering his Great Seal to be fixed to it.

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And here it is - the very document.

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It is headed, "These are the articles which the barons seek

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"and the King agrees."

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And to show, indeed, to guarantee that the King had agreed to it,

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here is his Great Seal, with the King sitting in majesty.

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Now, most of the articles are arranged like a shopping list.

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They are written very tersely, like a telegram or a tweet,

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so that the lines are only half a dozen or a dozen words long.

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Now, the barons' demands are very prominent,

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but equally, these articles show just how much further the barons

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had had to go in appealing outside their own ranks,

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promising justice not only to the barons but to all free men.

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Well, there's an article that deals with that.

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In other words, even in this sort of sketch form,

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this series of notes of a committee,

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the embryo of Magna Carta shows us that it is so much more

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than just an appeal to narrow, aristocratic self-interest.

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So what actually did happen on that famous day of 15th June 1215?

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It's the date that textbooks celebrate as the signing

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of Magna Carta.

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Except that it wasn't.

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John didn't sign the Charter.

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There is no evidence that the King could write,

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and, in any case, royal documents weren't authenticated with

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the King's signature, but with his seal.

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Probably, indeed, to complete the demolition

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of the traditional picture, on 15th June 1215,

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there wasn't even a charter to sign.

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No original sealed copy of Magna Carta survives

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and there is no evidence that one ever existed.

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Instead, what happened on 15th June was a binding agreement,

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solemn on both sides between the King and the barons, that the King

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would issue Magna Carta and that the barons would swear fealty in return.

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The Articles of the Barons were then quickly transformed

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from a rough shopping list into a smooth, continuous,

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unambiguous legal form to become...

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..Magna Carta, the Great Charter.

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In a dense, almost impenetrable Latin text,

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some 4,000 words were squeezed just onto one membrane of parchment

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made from dried and smoothed sheepskin.

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13 copies were produced to be circulated across the realm.

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For the barons, the clauses that really mattered in Magna Carta

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dealt with the inheritance, marriages and ownership of land.

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These may seem remote now, but they established what

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half the world, from Russia to China, still lacks -

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that the state can't help itself to private property at will.

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And then there are the famous clauses which best have come

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to symbolise the universal freedoms promised by Magna Carta -

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clauses 39 and 40.

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"No free man shall be seized or imprisoned,

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"or stripped of his rights or possessions,

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"or outlawed or exiled or deprived of his standing in any other way,

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"nor will we proceed with force against him or send others to do so,

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"except by the lawful judgment of his equals

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"or by the law of the land.

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"To no-one will we sell, to no-one deny or delay right or justice."

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There was, indeed, there is, something here that really matters.

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The sense that Magna Carta protects

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and defines those three key fundamental freedoms of the

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Anglo-Saxon world - life, liberty and property - is spot on.

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With the 800th anniversary, the British Library is mounting

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a special Magna Carta exhibition.

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The centrepiece - one of the original 1215 copies,

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of which only four still survive.

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This is a document which is in Latin, a language which,

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nowadays, very, very few people can read readily.

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Do you think this has an irretrievable

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effect of distancing, of separating and making it feel remote?

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Well, it is written in medieval Latin

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and it is written in medieval handwriting as well, of course.

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Which is even worse, yes!

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And here it is on this parchment made from sheepskin

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-and it isn't the most...

-In fact, it is an actual sheep, isn't it?

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We should see the head there, we should see the legs

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-on either side and the tail sticking out there.

-Absolutely.

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And nobody could say that it is the most beautiful collection item

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that we have, but I never fail to be amazed

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by the impression that it makes on visitors to the library

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and how much people value the opportunity to be in proximity to this incredibly...

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The sacred text, yes!

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..incredibly famous document.

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And people do almost treat it with the sort of reverence that you

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might expect of a sacred text.

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But, back in 1215,

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Magna Carta came close to becoming an obscure footnote in history.

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Publicly, John had accepted Magna Carta

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and reconciled himself with his subjects.

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Privately, he burned with resentment and threw a characteristic

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fit of rage, gnashing his teeth, as a chronicler reports,

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scowling with his eyes and gnawing on the very twigs and branches.

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He would not keep his word a second longer than he had to.

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John immediately appealed to Rome

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and to Pope Innocent III to have Magna Carta annulled.

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One clause in particular was difficult for John to stomach.

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Clause 61 set out how Magna Carta was to be enforced.

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It set up a committee of 25 barons to hold John to every last jot

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and tittle by any and every means, including the levying of war.

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Now, the idea was seductive but it proved to be disastrous,

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because it tried to protect Magna Carta by effectively

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destroying royal sovereignty.

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And no king, least of all John, could possibly agree to that.

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Pope Innocent responded swiftly to John's request to have

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Magna Carta quashed.

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He immediately spotted the threat it posed to all autocrats,

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himself included.

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He sent a firm reply in a papal bull.

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Magna Carta, the bull says, had been "extorted by force

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"and violence, such as would've affrighted the most courageous man.

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"It was unjust, illegal, harmful to royal rights

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"and shameful to the English people."

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So, a mere ten weeks after those heady June days at Runnymede,

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Magna Carta had been declared null and void and of non-effect

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by the highest earthly authority known to medieval man.

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And, do you know, it made not a jot of difference

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to the behaviour of anybody involved.

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Both sides now prepared for civil war.

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John recruited mercenaries, whilst the barons resorted

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to the traditional tactic of backing

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an alternative claimant to the throne.

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In a measure of their desperation,

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they offered the crown to a Frenchman, Prince Louis.

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Louis had a vague hereditary claim

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but his real strength was that he was the anybody-but-John candidate.

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In the invasion we rarely talk about,

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Louis arrived in London with 7,000 French troops.

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Whilst John travelled north to places like here at Headingley,

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to recapture the castles of his rebellious barons.

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The fate of Magna Carta now hung in the balance

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and it was fate that would deal the decisive blow.

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THUNDERCLAP

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On 19 October 1216, during a violent storm,

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John died unexpectedly.

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THUNDERCLAP

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At Newark Castle in Nottinghamshire -

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his enemies alleged from a surfeit of peaches.

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BIRDSONG

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His nine-year-old son was crowned Henry III.

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As he was underage, the real power lay

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with his regent, William the Marshal, himself a baron.

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He immediately re-issued Magna Carta, but with a difference.

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This is the tomb of William the Marshal, Earl of Pembroke.

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He was the most successful jouster of the age

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and arguably the man who, as regent for the boy king Henry,

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saved England, the Plantagenet dynasty and Magna Carta itself.

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William the Marshal wisely saw the clause for a committee of barons to

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enforce Magna Carta was dangerously unworkable and stripped it out.

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The result was an astonishing reversal of fortune.

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Henry, burdened with none of his father's political baggage,

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proved to be a much more attractive king than John.

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Whilst Magna Carta,

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hitherto discredited as the occasion of civil war, factional strife

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and foreign intervention, was suddenly transformed

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into the squeaky-clean manifesto of an optimistic new regime.

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Not all the barons were convinced by the regime change

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and some fought on.

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STEEL CLASHES

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But Marshal, famed not only for his political acumen but also

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for his prowess in combat, routed them at the Battle of Lincoln Fair.

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Louis and his troops fled back to the safety of France.

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Peace and stability were restored to the realm.

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Then, in 1225, when Henry III was old enough to assume

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full executive power, Magna Carta was reissued it its definitive form.

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This time, the charter emphasised that it was granted

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by the king's full and free consent.

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The taint of war and coercion

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which had dogged the first Magna Carta was gone.

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The charter had achieved something truly revolutionary

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and almost by accident.

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The great charter, despite its name,

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contained no great general statement of principle.

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However, its multitude of detailed clauses did imply one -

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that the king, however great his power,

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however much the law was his law,

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was, finally, UNDER the law.

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Not surprisingly, kings, the good ones as well as the bad ones,

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found the idea difficult to accept

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and it would be disputed for centuries in peace and war.

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However, Magna Carta quietly,

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but with enormous cumulative effect, laid the foundations

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of the two key institutions

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that in time would bridle the English monarchy.

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They were both based here in the heart of royal England,

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Westminster.

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Colloquially, we call this building here the Houses of Parliament.

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Actually, it's the Palace of Westminster.

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But it was the principal and indeed the only palace

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properly so-called of the medieval kings of England.

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How it becomes a seat of Parliament is a very long story.

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But the story, like so much of our political structure,

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begins with Magna Carta.

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The demands of the great charter led to an assembly of bishops

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and barons who met to approve taxation

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and sanction its collection.

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This assembly was the embryo of the modern Parliament,

0:25:550:25:59

with its two houses of lords and commoners.

0:25:590:26:03

The precedent of this relatively painless way of raising taxation

0:26:030:26:07

was irresistible for revenue-hungry kings

0:26:070:26:10

like Edward I and Edward III,

0:26:100:26:13

with their perpetual endless wars

0:26:130:26:16

against the Welsh, the Scots and the French.

0:26:160:26:20

Parliament used the grant of taxation

0:26:200:26:23

to extort concessions from the Crown.

0:26:230:26:26

Kings didn't like it, but if they wanted the money -

0:26:260:26:31

and they almost always did - they had to lump it.

0:26:310:26:34

Monarchs also found themselves grappling with the new idea

0:26:360:26:40

of a legal system whose first home was Westminster Hall here.

0:26:400:26:45

Magna Carta called for professional judges

0:26:460:26:49

and a fixed place for the law courts.

0:26:490:26:53

Before, kings administered justice themselves

0:26:530:26:56

and the courts moved with the king. Magna Carta changed that.

0:26:560:27:01

The king's law was becoming the common law of England.

0:27:010:27:05

For hundreds of years, Magna Carta determined the rules of engagement

0:27:080:27:12

between the king and his subjects, but it was not to last.

0:27:120:27:19

FIERCE CRIES

0:27:190:27:20

Four centuries on from the meeting at Runnymede, England found herself

0:27:220:27:27

in another crisis more bloody and more protracted

0:27:270:27:31

than even the confrontation with King John.

0:27:310:27:35

On the throne was Charles I.

0:27:350:27:38

The second king of the house of Stuart, his reign began in 1625,

0:27:380:27:44

but it's hard to imagine two more different men.

0:27:440:27:47

John, lecherous, murderous and systematically dishonest,

0:27:480:27:53

was a pantomime villain, whilst Charles,

0:27:530:27:56

dignified and devoted to his family, was the very model of a good man.

0:27:560:28:00

All of which raises some awkward questions -

0:28:020:28:04

why was such a good man such a bad king?

0:28:040:28:09

And why does Magna Carta wake from slumber to play

0:28:090:28:13

a key role in these tragic events?

0:28:130:28:16

Those great creations of Magna Carta, Parliament

0:28:190:28:23

and the common law courts still flourished,

0:28:230:28:26

but the real locus of royal government had moved to

0:28:260:28:30

different institutions, to the court, the council and the church.

0:28:300:28:35

And to a different place, the Palace of Whitehall.

0:28:350:28:38

This splendid interior now known as the Banqueting House,

0:28:430:28:48

was the principal reception room of Charles's Palace of Whitehall.

0:28:480:28:53

In the very latest classical style, it's designed by Inigo Jones,

0:28:530:28:58

the most fashionable architect of the day.

0:28:580:29:01

Whilst the ceiling is painted by Sir Peter Paul Rubens,

0:29:010:29:06

the most famous contemporary artist.

0:29:060:29:08

But Rubens' ceiling is more than lavish decoration,

0:29:100:29:14

it also has a powerful political message.

0:29:140:29:18

The central oval represents the ascent to heaven

0:29:180:29:21

of Charles I's father, James I.

0:29:210:29:24

James declared that

0:29:240:29:26

"the state of monarchy is the most supremest thing on Earth,

0:29:260:29:30

"even by God himself."

0:29:300:29:33

Kings are called gods.

0:29:330:29:35

Ruben's genius transmutes James's words into soaring,

0:29:360:29:40

swirling imagery in which kings not only reign by divine right

0:29:400:29:46

but are divinities themselves.

0:29:460:29:49

And in Whitehall, Charles could be forgiven

0:29:500:29:54

for thinking that Rubens' extravagant painting

0:29:540:29:58

told no more than the simple truth.

0:29:580:30:00

But only a few hundred yards away, there was another palace,

0:30:030:30:08

a very different palace - the Palace of Westminster.

0:30:080:30:12

Here, the king summoned and dissolved Parliament,

0:30:120:30:15

but without the agreement of the Lords and Commons,

0:30:150:30:18

he could do nothing.

0:30:180:30:20

So, who was the real King of England?

0:30:200:30:24

The Magna Carta limited king of Westminster or Charles,

0:30:240:30:28

absolute monarch of Whitehall?

0:30:280:30:31

Normally, the choice never needed to be made,

0:30:320:30:35

but there was one area of conflict which threatened to destabilise everything.

0:30:350:30:40

Religion.

0:30:410:30:43

The tension had been present ever since the Reformation

0:30:440:30:48

when Henry VIII made the English king head of the English Church,

0:30:480:30:53

giving the monarchy huge new powers.

0:30:530:30:56

Under Charles I, it became acute, since the King

0:30:570:31:01

and his leading subjects disagreed fundamentally about religion.

0:31:010:31:06

The King wanted a ceremonious religion,

0:31:060:31:09

that his opponents both feared and denounced as Roman Catholic.

0:31:090:31:15

His subjects, on the other hand, wanted a stripped down,

0:31:150:31:19

radical Protestantism that the King sneeringly dismissed as Puritan.

0:31:190:31:24

With the fire fanned by this underlying tension about religion,

0:31:270:31:31

relations between Charles and the House of Commons quickly broke down.

0:31:310:31:36

Parliament refused to agree to taxes

0:31:380:31:40

to pay for Charles' military adventures.

0:31:400:31:43

Charles, desperate for money, demanded customs duties

0:31:430:31:47

and forced loans and when a few brave people refused to pay,

0:31:470:31:52

he imprisoned them and imposed martial law.

0:31:520:31:54

But one man thought he had the solution to the impasse -

0:31:570:32:00

Sir Edward Coke.

0:32:000:32:03

Coke was Lord Chief Justice

0:32:030:32:04

and one of the most successful lawyers ever.

0:32:040:32:07

He was also a brutal prosecutor, leading the case

0:32:070:32:11

against Sir Walter Raleigh and the Gunpowder conspirators.

0:32:110:32:15

Coincidentally, Coke's legal practice was in the temple

0:32:170:32:21

which had become one of the Inns of Court.

0:32:210:32:23

Coke was the law.

0:32:240:32:26

Naturally, as a proud as well as principled man,

0:32:260:32:30

he thought that the law should be supreme.

0:32:300:32:34

So, just like the barons who confronted King John

0:32:340:32:37

on this very spot long ago when it was the headquarters

0:32:370:32:42

of the Knights Templar, Coke turned to Magna Carta

0:32:420:32:45

to bridle another overweening king.

0:32:450:32:48

On 17th May 1628, Sir Edward Coke rose in the House of Commons

0:32:530:32:58

and declared that Magna Carta is such a fellow,

0:32:580:33:03

that he will have no sovereign.

0:33:030:33:06

The words were deliberately, dangerously, disturbingly bold.

0:33:060:33:12

The sovereign was the king. Now Coke was declaring there was

0:33:120:33:16

another greater sovereign, Magna Carta,

0:33:160:33:19

which, as fundamental law,

0:33:190:33:21

neither Parliament nor the King himself could touch.

0:33:210:33:24

Coke took the key principles of Magna Carta

0:33:280:33:31

and tried to turn them into constitutional law,

0:33:310:33:35

into what would become known as the Petition of Right.

0:33:350:33:38

Charles resisted as vehemently as John had fought off Magna Carta.

0:33:390:33:44

But, likewise in vain.

0:33:440:33:47

Desperate for a Parliamentary grant of money,

0:33:470:33:50

Charles gave his assent to the petition on 7th June 1628,

0:33:500:33:56

though probably in as bad faith as John.

0:33:560:33:59

In 1629, Charles did away with Parliament and the law

0:34:020:34:07

and lawyers, contrary to what Coke hoped, did nothing to stop him.

0:34:070:34:11

Matters came to a head in the summer of 1642, when Charles

0:34:140:34:19

raised his standard over Nottingham and declared war on Parliament.

0:34:190:34:23

The bloody clash followed that would tear England apart.

0:34:260:34:29

Though it would take seven years, eventually the king was beaten

0:34:320:34:36

and for the first time in history, in 1649,

0:34:360:34:40

an English king would be put on public trial

0:34:400:34:43

under the watchful eyes of Cromwell's New Model Army.

0:34:430:34:47

Charles was brought under armed guard into the Great Hall

0:34:510:34:55

at Westminster here.

0:34:550:34:57

The king was dressed entirely in black,

0:34:570:35:00

with the silver star of the Order of the Garter on his shoulder

0:35:000:35:04

and its blue ribbon round his neck.

0:35:040:35:06

He kept his hat firmly on throughout,

0:35:110:35:14

as did his judges in a sartorial stand-off of mutual contempt.

0:35:140:35:20

They, for his office of King, he, for their claim to be his judges.

0:35:200:35:26

Worse was to come.

0:35:260:35:27

As a prosecuting counsel rose, Charles tapped him on the shoulder

0:35:290:35:33

with his silver topped cane and commanded him to hold.

0:35:330:35:38

The counsel ignored him.

0:35:380:35:40

Then, as the charges were read out,

0:35:400:35:42

the top fell off Charles' cane.

0:35:420:35:47

The King looked round, expecting that somebody would pick it up.

0:35:470:35:51

Nobody did. Instead, he, the King, had to stoop to retrieve it.

0:35:510:35:59

The charge continued that he had employed a tyrannical power

0:36:030:36:08

to rule according to his will and to overthrow the rights

0:36:080:36:11

and liberties of the people.

0:36:110:36:13

Charles' response was that a monarch was not subject to

0:36:150:36:19

earthly authority and he refused to enter a plea.

0:36:190:36:24

But here in the Great Hall, legalities were soon set aside.

0:36:240:36:29

The show trial found Charles Stuart guilty.

0:36:290:36:32

He was sentenced to death for crimes against the people.

0:36:320:36:36

The place of his execution was quite deliberate,

0:36:420:36:45

outside the Banqueting House.

0:36:450:36:47

Passing under the great Rubens ceiling,

0:36:480:36:51

and his father ascending to heaven, Charles stepped from a window

0:36:510:36:55

directly onto a high scaffold at the front of the building.

0:36:550:36:59

This time, it had taken a civil war and the beheading of a king

0:37:060:37:11

to enforce the principles of Magna Carta.

0:37:110:37:13

But the resort to violence destroyed the freedom

0:37:150:37:18

it sought to protect, leading to a military dictatorship

0:37:180:37:22

under Lord Protector Cromwell,

0:37:220:37:24

who proved just as despotic as any monarch

0:37:240:37:28

and who famously denounced Magna Carta as Magna Farta.

0:37:280:37:33

The restoration of the Stuart monarchy after Cromwell's death

0:37:350:37:39

seemed a blessed relief.

0:37:390:37:41

However, religious tensions resurfaced

0:37:410:37:44

when James II secretly converted to Catholicism and then

0:37:440:37:49

married a Catholic, sparking panic among the Protestant elite.

0:37:490:37:53

It seemed as though the bad old days of the Civil War had returned.

0:37:530:37:58

But James II, in contrast with his father,

0:37:590:38:03

Charles I's iron resolve, lost his nerve and fled abroad.

0:38:030:38:09

The royal family indivisibly united in the Civil War split

0:38:090:38:15

with James' daughter, Mary, and her husband, William of Orange,

0:38:150:38:19

leading the resistance.

0:38:190:38:21

The result was a bloodless coup which opened the way to a radically

0:38:250:38:30

new political settlement, an updated version of Magna Carta called

0:38:300:38:35

The Bill of Rights in deference to Coke's Petition of Right.

0:38:350:38:40

The crown was offered to William

0:38:400:38:42

and Mary on condition that they accepted its terms.

0:38:420:38:45

On the 13th February 1689,

0:38:470:38:50

it was back to the Banqueting House for the denouement of what became

0:38:500:38:54

known as the Glorious Revolution.

0:38:540:38:57

William and Mary took their place under the canopy on the dais,

0:38:590:39:04

the Lords, to the right, and the Commons, to the left,

0:39:040:39:08

led by their respective speakers, approached the steps of the throne.

0:39:080:39:12

The clerk read out the Bill of Rights

0:39:120:39:15

and a nobleman offered William and Mary the crown.

0:39:150:39:19

William accepted it and the pair were proclaimed King

0:39:190:39:23

and Queen to the sound of trumpets.

0:39:230:39:27

Nothing would ever be quite the same again.

0:39:270:39:30

England or Great Britain as it would soon become

0:39:350:39:39

with union with Scotland, had exchanged the sovereignty of kings,

0:39:390:39:45

not, as Coke would have wished, for the sovereignty of the law,

0:39:450:39:49

but for another sovereignty, that of Parliament.

0:39:490:39:53

However, Coke's dream for Magna Carta as fundamental law didn't die.

0:40:010:40:06

It was to change its identity and move far away from its birthplace.

0:40:060:40:12

Runnymede is the most English of places

0:40:150:40:18

and Magna Carta, the most English of events.

0:40:180:40:22

But what perhaps is most English of all,

0:40:220:40:24

is that there is nothing much to mark the spot

0:40:240:40:27

of one of the most famous events in human history.

0:40:270:40:31

Nothing English, but there is this.

0:40:310:40:37

It's erected in 1957 by the American Bar Association

0:40:370:40:42

to commemorate Magna Carta, symbol of freedom under the law.

0:40:420:40:47

It's here because Magna Carta matters in America, too.

0:40:480:40:53

It's our very first English export there, because Magna Carta was

0:40:530:40:58

carried in the minds of the English colonists themselves.

0:40:580:41:02

The settlers came here to this wild

0:41:250:41:27

and untamed land for many different reasons.

0:41:270:41:31

Some were economic migrants,

0:41:310:41:34

some were escaping religious persecution back home.

0:41:340:41:38

But they all thought of themselves as English, bringing with them

0:41:380:41:44

the rights of Englishmen as they set up their Little Englands

0:41:440:41:48

across the sea.

0:41:480:41:49

From the beginning, the idea was formally written into their laws.

0:41:520:41:56

Starting with the Charter of Virginia,

0:41:560:41:58

drafted by Edward Coke himself in 1606,

0:41:580:42:03

the settlers were given the same rights as if they had been abiding

0:42:030:42:07

and born within this, our realm of England.

0:42:070:42:11

And the Ark of the Covenant of those English rights

0:42:110:42:14

was Magna Carta, which retained all its old subversive power

0:42:140:42:19

as it crossed the Atlantic Ocean.

0:42:190:42:21

But these rights were to be turned on their colonial masters

0:42:240:42:28

in one of the great upheavals in world history.

0:42:280:42:32

In 1765, the government of King George III

0:42:340:42:38

imposed a tax on the sale of paper.

0:42:380:42:41

The notorious Stamp Act produced an immediate outcry that it was

0:42:440:42:48

against Magna Carta and the natural rights of Englishmen.

0:42:480:42:52

Tensions between the governed and the governors

0:42:520:42:56

escalated into a demand for independence, soon all-out war.

0:42:560:43:02

As the conflict raged, one American patriot, George Mason wrote,

0:43:050:43:10

"We claim nothing but the Liberty and Privileges of Englishmen,

0:43:100:43:14

"in the same degree as if we continued among our brethren

0:43:140:43:18

"in Great Britain."

0:43:180:43:20

Soon it became clear to those

0:43:200:43:22

who would become known as the Founding Fathers

0:43:220:43:25

that they would have to draft their own Magna Carta.

0:43:250:43:28

This elegantly understated Georgian building,

0:43:380:43:42

built as the seat of government of Pennsylvania,

0:43:420:43:45

is America's Runnymede.

0:43:450:43:47

And it is here America's Founding Fathers, principal among them,

0:43:500:43:54

Thomas Jefferson, whose cane still rests across a desk,

0:43:540:43:58

ratified that most precious of American documents -

0:43:580:44:02

the Declaration of Independence.

0:44:020:44:05

But alongside the Declaration's thrillingly new

0:44:060:44:10

or at least newish claim,

0:44:100:44:12

that all men are created equal

0:44:120:44:15

and endowed with certain inalienable rights,

0:44:150:44:19

the declaration also uses a much older language,

0:44:190:44:22

as old, indeed, as Magna Carta which Jefferson consciously invokes.

0:44:220:44:28

Like another King John, Jefferson accused George III

0:44:310:44:34

and his government of taxing without consent,

0:44:340:44:38

interfering with freedom of trade and punishing in life,

0:44:380:44:42

limb and property without due process of law.

0:44:420:44:46

The Founding Fathers sat at these tables

0:44:470:44:50

and being 18th-century gentlemen,

0:44:500:44:52

they wore powder, wigs and knee breeches,

0:44:520:44:56

but they were also substantial landowners,

0:44:560:45:00

masters of dozens of slaves, and so,

0:45:000:45:03

like the great land-owning barons at Runnymede,

0:45:030:45:06

they saw themselves as cutting a tyrant down to size.

0:45:060:45:10

Today, Americans still take their history, and therefore ours,

0:45:140:45:19

very seriously.

0:45:190:45:20

Magna Carta was not only to provide much of the rhetoric

0:45:200:45:24

of the American Revolution,

0:45:240:45:26

the Great Charter also remains fundamental

0:45:260:45:29

to the American Constitution

0:45:290:45:32

and the everyday conduct of American government itself.

0:45:320:45:35

I'm here in the crypt of the American Capitol in Washington.

0:45:360:45:41

Above me is one of the biggest, most impressive

0:45:410:45:44

and most famous buildings in the world.

0:45:440:45:47

It's the seat of the American Congress or Parliament.

0:45:470:45:51

To one side is the Senate chamber, to the other

0:45:510:45:54

is the House of Representatives,

0:45:540:45:56

and directly above me is the central lobby or rotunda,

0:45:560:46:02

with its huge, massive dome.

0:46:020:46:05

Down here in the crypt is this - it's a golden copy of Magna Carta,

0:46:120:46:18

complete with John's seal, also in gold,

0:46:180:46:21

and it stands as a kind of intellectual foundation,

0:46:210:46:25

timeless and incorruptible

0:46:250:46:27

for the soaring structure of American government

0:46:270:46:30

and political ambition above.

0:46:300:46:32

For while the American Revolution

0:46:350:46:37

rejected English political authority,

0:46:370:46:40

it did not reject the authority of English law.

0:46:400:46:43

And to this day, Magna Carta,

0:46:430:46:46

with all its clauses, including the removal of fish-weirs on the Medway,

0:46:460:46:51

stands in full on the statute books of 17 of the 50 states.

0:46:510:46:56

The institutions of Magna Carta also took root.

0:47:000:47:04

Congress, where I've just been, is the Parliament.

0:47:070:47:10

The Senate is the Lords

0:47:100:47:12

and the House of Representatives is the Commons.

0:47:120:47:16

Whilst the White House is the seat of the President,

0:47:180:47:22

who is King George III without his wig.

0:47:220:47:26

But this is novel and has no real English equivalent.

0:47:280:47:31

It's the Supreme Court, and its cast bronze doors have a story to tell.

0:47:310:47:38

The four panels on the left-hand door

0:47:380:47:41

deal with the origins of law in the ancient world,

0:47:410:47:44

but here, on the right-hand door, three out of the four panels

0:47:440:47:49

represent the actual origins of the Supreme Court in English law.

0:47:490:47:54

Down at the bottom, of course, we've got Magna Carta - John and a baron.

0:47:540:47:58

Here, we've got the great lawgiver English king, Edward I.

0:47:580:48:03

And up there, on the third panel,

0:48:030:48:05

we have Sir Edward Coke confronting James I,

0:48:050:48:10

and it's Coke who really matters.

0:48:100:48:13

Coke's attempt in 1628 to use the Petition of Right

0:48:130:48:18

to make Magna Carta fundamental law inviolable by Parliament

0:48:180:48:23

or by the King failed in England,

0:48:230:48:26

but it succeeded in America where the Founding Fathers

0:48:260:48:30

made the Constitution effectively untouchable,

0:48:300:48:34

fundamental law to be interpreted not by Congress,

0:48:340:48:38

still less by the President, but by the judges of the Supreme Court.

0:48:380:48:44

And it is to Magna Carta

0:48:480:48:50

that the Supreme Court judges turn again and again...

0:48:500:48:54

From 1790 to the present,

0:48:540:48:57

it has been cited an astonishing 400 times.

0:48:570:49:01

But Magna Carta is not only a mantra in the Supreme Court.

0:49:010:49:05

It is a ready-made banner, quickly raised in the political arena.

0:49:050:49:10

As was the case when another monarch -

0:49:100:49:13

only this time it was a president, Richard Nixon -

0:49:130:49:16

thought he was above the law.

0:49:160:49:19

I have been guided by the principle that the law

0:49:200:49:24

must deal fairly with every man.

0:49:240:49:27

Seven centuries have now passed

0:49:300:49:33

since the English barons proclaimed the same principle

0:49:330:49:38

by compelling King John at the point of a sword

0:49:380:49:43

to accept the great doctrine of Magna Carta.

0:49:430:49:46

In 1974, facing impeachment

0:49:470:49:51

over his involvement in the Watergate scandal,

0:49:510:49:54

Nixon resigned rather than face the wrath of Magna Carta.

0:49:540:49:58

But in more recent times, a much more threatening shadow

0:49:580:50:03

has been thrown over all our constitutional liberties.

0:50:030:50:06

SIREN BLARES

0:50:070:50:10

With the attack on the Twin Towers,

0:50:120:50:14

the Bush administration announced America was at war -

0:50:140:50:18

war on terror.

0:50:180:50:20

For the foreseeable future,

0:50:210:50:23

the security of the Western world was paramount.

0:50:230:50:26

Rights and freedoms - for which the war was ostensibly being waged -

0:50:260:50:31

would have to take a back seat.

0:50:310:50:33

Accusations of torture,

0:50:360:50:37

waterboarding and extraordinary rendition

0:50:370:50:40

hit the very heart of the United States Government.

0:50:400:50:43

But there were those who were prepared to challenge the executive

0:50:450:50:49

in the name of Magna Carta and the Constitution.

0:50:490:50:52

As suspected terrorists were interned in Guantanamo Bay,

0:50:520:50:57

lawyers, working for free,

0:50:570:50:59

brought cases against the Bush administration

0:50:590:51:02

for unlawful detention without trial.

0:51:020:51:05

One of the key lawyers, David Remes, visited the camp.

0:51:050:51:09

You were shocked by Guantanamo?

0:51:100:51:12

I was shocked, I was overwhelmed... It was...

0:51:120:51:17

The men were so abject.

0:51:170:51:18

They were in despair and the power exercised over them

0:51:180:51:22

by the prison authorities was absolute.

0:51:220:51:25

Were you ashamed?

0:51:250:51:26

No, I was outraged.

0:51:270:51:28

You know, we come here, we see those proud phrases

0:51:300:51:34

in which liberty and freedom and right and God and nature

0:51:340:51:38

are plastered over these huge marble monuments.

0:51:380:51:41

Didn't the hypocrisy stink in your nostrils?

0:51:410:51:44

Yes.

0:51:440:51:45

And what did you do?

0:51:460:51:48

I represented these men in court,

0:51:480:51:50

I fought to have them released, and...

0:51:500:51:55

I hope that the lawyers' efforts and communications

0:51:550:51:59

had an influence. I believe they did.

0:51:590:52:02

The Supreme Court DID rule

0:52:040:52:06

that detention without trial was unconstitutional,

0:52:060:52:10

repeatedly citing Magna Carta.

0:52:100:52:12

But victory was short-lived.

0:52:160:52:18

A lesser appeals court bypassed the ruling

0:52:180:52:22

by declaring that in time of war, ordinary rules do not apply.

0:52:220:52:28

The Supreme Court apparently ruled in favour of these men

0:52:320:52:35

and yet nothing has been done.

0:52:350:52:38

Guantanamo is still there.

0:52:380:52:40

The shame is still there.

0:52:400:52:42

If I'd been able to sit down with one of those judges

0:52:420:52:44

of the Court of Appeal, how would they have justified it?

0:52:440:52:48

Well, the principle would be that the courts have no function,

0:52:480:52:52

no valid role to play in executive decisions in the context of war.

0:52:520:52:59

At the same time that Remes was fighting his Guantanamo cases,

0:53:020:53:07

Britain, too, was facing a parallel challenge

0:53:070:53:10

to its legal and constitutional integrity.

0:53:100:53:14

In 2008, at the height of the crisis,

0:53:140:53:17

senior politician

0:53:170:53:18

and then Shadow Home Secretary, David Davis, resigned.

0:53:180:53:22

This Sunday is the anniversary of Magna Carta.

0:53:230:53:26

The document that guarantees

0:53:260:53:27

that most fundamental of British freedoms -

0:53:270:53:31

the right not to be imprisoned by the state without charge or reason.

0:53:310:53:36

But yesterday this House decided to allow the state

0:53:360:53:38

to lock up potentially innocent citizens

0:53:380:53:41

for up to six weeks without charge.

0:53:410:53:43

The view that the then Government was eroding piece by piece

0:53:450:53:50

all sorts of our civil liberties,

0:53:500:53:52

mostly through altering the structure of the law...

0:53:520:53:55

How long you could be held without charge

0:53:550:53:58

was the issue at point there

0:53:580:54:00

and it struck me as a grotesque assault on liberties...

0:54:000:54:03

Directly on Magna Carta...

0:54:030:54:05

Directly on Magna Carta, directly on delay of justice,

0:54:050:54:08

directly on the things that we... we believe in...

0:54:080:54:10

And they're things that our country has become famous for.

0:54:100:54:12

But the impact of David Davis' own little act of jihadism,

0:54:140:54:19

of political suicide, was short-lived.

0:54:190:54:22

We have already taken a wide range of measures,

0:54:220:54:24

including stopping suspects from travelling to the region

0:54:240:54:27

by seizing passports...

0:54:270:54:29

Every passing month brings yet more infringement of personal liberties

0:54:290:54:34

in the name of the "war on terror".

0:54:340:54:36

..If we are going to deal with extremists of all sorts

0:54:360:54:38

in our society and uphold our British values, that we are able to take...

0:54:380:54:42

What does constitute suspicious activity that would warrant

0:54:420:54:45

that phone call to you?

0:54:450:54:47

Is it possible that we've become complacent

0:54:470:54:50

about our long tradition of freedom from arbitrary state authority?

0:54:500:54:54

Are we sacrificing more and more of our liberties

0:54:540:54:58

at the altar of "security",

0:54:580:55:00

and perhaps even sleepwalking towards authoritarianism?

0:55:000:55:06

Why as a nation that was once so assertive,

0:55:080:55:12

so sensitive about freedom, why have we become so casual?

0:55:120:55:17

Why are we prepared apparently to sacrifice it without question?

0:55:170:55:21

Well, it comes down to this problem that people think that security

0:55:210:55:27

is more important than freedom

0:55:270:55:29

and future historians will look back on our time

0:55:290:55:32

and say the great success of Al-Qaeda was not the people they killed,

0:55:320:55:35

it's the way they transformed the Western states,

0:55:350:55:37

turned them from being incredibly freedom-orientated societies

0:55:370:55:41

to being rather more introverted, nervous societies.

0:55:410:55:44

So, is it time to reawaken Magna Carta from its great slumber?

0:55:510:55:56

Well, on past record, perhaps not.

0:55:580:56:01

Magna Carta has often proved quite impotent.

0:56:010:56:04

Henry VIII paid scant attention to its first clause

0:56:040:56:08

to protect the freedom of the Church.

0:56:080:56:10

Nor did its ringing declaration -

0:56:110:56:13

"To no-one will we sell, delay or deny justice" -

0:56:130:56:18

stop internment in Northern Ireland or Guantanamo Bay.

0:56:180:56:22

So, in this day and age,

0:56:220:56:25

is Magna Carta really little more than a myth?

0:56:250:56:28

I spoke to one of Sir Edward Coke's professional descendants,

0:56:290:56:33

retired Chief Justice for England and Wales, Lord Judge.

0:56:330:56:38

Occasionally people will say that Magna Carta's a myth,

0:56:380:56:42

it didn't make all the provisions that people attribute to it.

0:56:420:56:46

And in that sense they're right, Magna Carta did not.

0:56:460:56:49

But when we think that what we regard as precious to us -

0:56:490:56:54

precious liberties, precious freedoms are threatened -

0:56:540:56:57

we think Magna Carta.

0:56:570:56:59

It's a banner, it summarises our belief

0:56:590:57:02

that government should be controlled.

0:57:020:57:04

It summarises our belief in equality before the law.

0:57:040:57:07

Whether that's historically accurate or not,

0:57:070:57:10

it means that Magna Carta is living,

0:57:100:57:12

and if something is living, it isn't a myth.

0:57:120:57:15

Magna Carta makes no grand, general statements

0:57:200:57:23

about liberty and freedom.

0:57:230:57:26

It's not got right first time.

0:57:260:57:28

It has to be reworked again and again.

0:57:280:57:32

And yet, the outcome of this process of trial and error

0:57:320:57:36

is a profound change of political behaviour.

0:57:360:57:40

Consultation and accommodation between ruler and ruled

0:57:400:57:44

ceased to be exceptional crisis management and have become instead

0:57:440:57:48

a matter of habit, of how we English do things.

0:57:480:57:53

But in this 800th anniversary year, Parliament,

0:57:560:58:01

our habits of political freedom

0:58:010:58:03

and the idea of England herself,

0:58:030:58:06

are all facing acute challenge...

0:58:060:58:08

..perhaps the most fundamental of modern times.

0:58:090:58:12

Will the memory of Magna Carta help to carry us through again?

0:58:120:58:18

It would be nice to think so.

0:58:190:58:21

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