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RAUCOUS CROWD NOISE | 0:00:02 | 0:00:04 | |
Relations between estate | 0:00:06 | 0:00:07 | |
and its people can all too easily break down, | 0:00:07 | 0:00:10 | |
from bickering to riot, from anarchy to bloody revolution. | 0:00:10 | 0:00:15 | |
The rulers, whether they call themselves kings and emperors | 0:00:16 | 0:00:20 | |
or presidents and prime ministers, are arrogant, | 0:00:20 | 0:00:23 | |
power-grabbing and often corrupt, while we, the ruled, | 0:00:23 | 0:00:27 | |
can be disorderly, irrational and bloody-minded. | 0:00:27 | 0:00:30 | |
But, 800 years ago in England, one such crisis - | 0:00:34 | 0:00:38 | |
local, limited, particular - | 0:00:38 | 0:00:41 | |
threw up a document that has become a kind of universal model, | 0:00:41 | 0:00:45 | |
a sort of blueprint. | 0:00:45 | 0:00:47 | |
They didn't get it right first time, but constantly revisited | 0:00:49 | 0:00:54 | |
and readjusted, it has become a working constitution. | 0:00:54 | 0:00:59 | |
Its words still retain their power to quicken the blood, with ideas | 0:00:59 | 0:01:04 | |
to keep governments in check and fill autocratic regimes with fear. | 0:01:04 | 0:01:09 | |
It's called Magna Carta, and it matters as much now as then. | 0:01:10 | 0:01:17 | |
More indeed, perhaps, as we have forgotten so many of its lessons. | 0:01:17 | 0:01:22 | |
This is the River Thames, | 0:01:50 | 0:01:53 | |
and I'm travelling upstream from east to west. | 0:01:53 | 0:01:57 | |
STEAM WHISTLE BLOWS | 0:01:57 | 0:02:00 | |
I'm on this lovely pleasure steamer, and nowadays, indeed, | 0:02:03 | 0:02:07 | |
the river is largely a tourist attraction. | 0:02:07 | 0:02:10 | |
But back in the Middle Ages, it was the superhighway of England. | 0:02:13 | 0:02:19 | |
It's the summer of 1215, and England is bitterly divided about how | 0:02:21 | 0:02:28 | |
it should be governed and, indeed, who should govern it. | 0:02:28 | 0:02:31 | |
It's what we might call a constitutional crisis. | 0:02:31 | 0:02:35 | |
But it has gone beyond words to the very brink of civil war. | 0:02:35 | 0:02:40 | |
Back there, some 20 miles downstream, | 0:02:40 | 0:02:43 | |
is the barons' main camp in London. | 0:02:43 | 0:02:47 | |
And over there, some five miles upstream, is the King's camp | 0:02:47 | 0:02:53 | |
in the magnificent, almost impregnable fortress | 0:02:53 | 0:02:57 | |
of Windsor Castle. | 0:02:57 | 0:02:58 | |
And here is Runnymede. | 0:03:01 | 0:03:04 | |
"A new state of things has begun in England, | 0:03:15 | 0:03:18 | |
"such a strange affair as had never before been heard, | 0:03:18 | 0:03:22 | |
"for the body wished to rule the head | 0:03:22 | 0:03:25 | |
"and the people desired to be masters over the King." | 0:03:25 | 0:03:30 | |
So wrote a monk who witnessed the tense confrontations on these | 0:03:30 | 0:03:34 | |
watery meadows between King John and his rebellious barons. | 0:03:34 | 0:03:39 | |
This stand-off is the very stuff of school history lessons. | 0:03:39 | 0:03:44 | |
In fact, it was just the midpoint of a bitter power struggle that | 0:03:44 | 0:03:48 | |
would threaten to tear England apart | 0:03:48 | 0:03:51 | |
and one that had started several years earlier. | 0:03:51 | 0:03:54 | |
England in the 13th century. | 0:04:00 | 0:04:03 | |
Contrary to our popular perception, this is not some dark age - | 0:04:03 | 0:04:08 | |
quite the reverse. | 0:04:08 | 0:04:09 | |
England is ruled by tiny strips of parchment with | 0:04:11 | 0:04:15 | |
a government of writing and sealing. | 0:04:15 | 0:04:17 | |
It has seen an enormous explosion in sophisticated law, offering | 0:04:19 | 0:04:24 | |
justice, settling disputes, dealing with an increasingly complex world. | 0:04:24 | 0:04:30 | |
But it is this almost insatiable demand for a fairer society | 0:04:30 | 0:04:36 | |
that will bring people to conflict with their monarch, King John. | 0:04:36 | 0:04:40 | |
To offer justice is one of the fundamental | 0:04:42 | 0:04:44 | |
responsibilities of kingship. | 0:04:44 | 0:04:47 | |
And it was one that John, | 0:04:47 | 0:04:49 | |
whose tutor had been a leading judge, found especially congenial. | 0:04:49 | 0:04:54 | |
It was also something that people wanted. | 0:04:54 | 0:04:57 | |
However, law and justice are a two-edged sword. | 0:04:57 | 0:05:02 | |
They're a vital necessity. | 0:05:02 | 0:05:04 | |
On the other hand, they can be so easily perverted into a means | 0:05:04 | 0:05:09 | |
for the King to exercise excessive and arbitrary power | 0:05:09 | 0:05:14 | |
and to delve excessively into his subjects' pockets. | 0:05:14 | 0:05:18 | |
And King John certainly knew how to abuse power. | 0:05:22 | 0:05:26 | |
A ruthless megalomaniac, he was accused of murdering his nephew | 0:05:26 | 0:05:31 | |
and dishonouring his noblemen's wives. | 0:05:31 | 0:05:35 | |
By all accounts, he was a bad king. | 0:05:35 | 0:05:38 | |
For most monastic chroniclers, | 0:05:38 | 0:05:40 | |
John was the very measure of human depravity. | 0:05:40 | 0:05:45 | |
"Foul as it is," one declared, | 0:05:45 | 0:05:48 | |
"hell itself was defiled by the foulness of John." | 0:05:48 | 0:05:53 | |
John's many defects of character - his violent rages, his lusts | 0:06:04 | 0:06:10 | |
and his shifty unreliability - also damaged relations with his barons. | 0:06:10 | 0:06:15 | |
But their principal grievance was to be financial. | 0:06:16 | 0:06:20 | |
John wanted to regain a great continental empire | 0:06:20 | 0:06:24 | |
he had inherited but lost. | 0:06:24 | 0:06:27 | |
The expenditure needed would be enormous. | 0:06:27 | 0:06:31 | |
From 1206, and following the loss of most of his lands in France, | 0:06:31 | 0:06:37 | |
John concentrated on England and on raising and hoarding cash. | 0:06:37 | 0:06:43 | |
He targeted everybody - nobles and townsmen, Jews and the Church - | 0:06:43 | 0:06:49 | |
and he used any and every means. | 0:06:49 | 0:06:52 | |
He was astonishingly successful. | 0:06:52 | 0:06:55 | |
He doubled royal revenue and more, | 0:06:55 | 0:06:58 | |
and by 1212, he had accumulated a gigantic cash hoard | 0:06:58 | 0:07:03 | |
of at least £132,000 in coin, in castle treasuries. | 0:07:03 | 0:07:10 | |
And then he blew the lot. | 0:07:10 | 0:07:13 | |
In the summer of 1212, John lodged an ambitious counterattack | 0:07:17 | 0:07:22 | |
against King Philip Augustus to recapture his lands in France. | 0:07:22 | 0:07:27 | |
But it ended in disaster. | 0:07:28 | 0:07:30 | |
HORSE WHINNIES | 0:07:33 | 0:07:35 | |
At Bouvines, north of Paris, in the summer of 1214, | 0:07:37 | 0:07:42 | |
John's allies were comprehensively put to flight by the French king. | 0:07:42 | 0:07:46 | |
Very few medieval battles resulted in complete rout, | 0:07:48 | 0:07:52 | |
but this was one of them. | 0:07:52 | 0:07:54 | |
A weakened and impoverished King John returned home | 0:07:58 | 0:08:01 | |
to find his realm in disarray, his angry barons now in open revolt. | 0:08:01 | 0:08:08 | |
This is where the real novelty of 1215 began. | 0:08:09 | 0:08:14 | |
There had been plenty of earlier revolts against royal misgovernment, | 0:08:14 | 0:08:18 | |
but they had taken the form of rebellions in favour | 0:08:18 | 0:08:21 | |
of rival claimants to the throne. | 0:08:21 | 0:08:23 | |
In this winter of 1214-15, however, there were no such rival claimants, | 0:08:23 | 0:08:29 | |
and John's opponents risked being rebels without a cause. | 0:08:29 | 0:08:34 | |
Instead, they took the revolutionary step of rebelling | 0:08:36 | 0:08:41 | |
not in the name of a person, but of an idea. | 0:08:41 | 0:08:45 | |
Led by Robert Fitzwalter, | 0:08:48 | 0:08:50 | |
the self-styled Marshal of the Army of God, the barons decided | 0:08:50 | 0:08:55 | |
they would demand the King restore their ancient rights and liberties. | 0:08:55 | 0:09:00 | |
There were precedents, and talk turned to the | 0:09:00 | 0:09:04 | |
Charter of Liberties granted by Henry I over 100 years previously. | 0:09:04 | 0:09:10 | |
It seemed the perfect solution. | 0:09:10 | 0:09:13 | |
Armed and ready for war, in early January 1215, the barons went to | 0:09:17 | 0:09:22 | |
confront John about their grievances at the Temple Church in London. | 0:09:22 | 0:09:26 | |
John was there under the protection of the immensely rich, | 0:09:28 | 0:09:31 | |
immensely powerful crusading order of the Knights Templar. | 0:09:31 | 0:09:36 | |
The barons entered and demanded John agree to Henry I's | 0:09:38 | 0:09:42 | |
Charter of Liberties and reaffirm by oath their ancient freedoms. | 0:09:42 | 0:09:46 | |
He refused. | 0:09:48 | 0:09:49 | |
According to one chronicler, he angrily declared he would | 0:09:49 | 0:09:52 | |
never grant them liberties that would render him their slave. | 0:09:52 | 0:09:56 | |
John countered with an oath of his own, by requiring his barons to | 0:09:58 | 0:10:02 | |
reswear their traditional oath of allegiance, | 0:10:02 | 0:10:05 | |
but with an extra clause - | 0:10:05 | 0:10:07 | |
to follow him not only against all men, but also against the Charter. | 0:10:07 | 0:10:14 | |
The two sides were now further apart than ever. | 0:10:14 | 0:10:17 | |
Both now manoeuvred for advantage. | 0:10:21 | 0:10:24 | |
John appealed to Rome, the barons hit back. | 0:10:24 | 0:10:28 | |
They renounced their allegiance to the throne on the 5th of May. | 0:10:28 | 0:10:32 | |
And 12 days later, their forces took London. This was decisive. | 0:10:32 | 0:10:38 | |
The loss of his capital forced John into serious negotiation... | 0:10:38 | 0:10:43 | |
and to Runnymede. | 0:10:43 | 0:10:45 | |
The watery meadows were a convenient midway point | 0:10:46 | 0:10:50 | |
between the two rival forces. | 0:10:50 | 0:10:52 | |
But places between two armed camps, | 0:10:54 | 0:10:57 | |
each bitterly hostile to the other, risked becoming battlefields. | 0:10:57 | 0:11:02 | |
Runnymede was chosen precisely because it couldn't, | 0:11:02 | 0:11:06 | |
as the surrounding land was and, indeed, still... Damn! | 0:11:06 | 0:11:10 | |
..is too wet and too boggy. | 0:11:10 | 0:11:14 | |
HORSE NEIGHS | 0:11:16 | 0:11:18 | |
There wasn't just one meeting at Runnymede, | 0:11:21 | 0:11:24 | |
but several, as the two sides negotiated terms. | 0:11:24 | 0:11:28 | |
By 10th June, a draft document, not yet Magna Carta | 0:11:30 | 0:11:34 | |
but an outline settlement, was drawn up. | 0:11:34 | 0:11:37 | |
The King then confirmed the settlement, known as the | 0:11:40 | 0:11:44 | |
Articles of the Barons, by ordering his Great Seal to be fixed to it. | 0:11:44 | 0:11:49 | |
And here it is - the very document. | 0:11:56 | 0:12:00 | |
It is headed, "These are the articles which the barons seek | 0:12:00 | 0:12:04 | |
"and the King agrees." | 0:12:04 | 0:12:07 | |
And to show, indeed, to guarantee that the King had agreed to it, | 0:12:07 | 0:12:11 | |
here is his Great Seal, with the King sitting in majesty. | 0:12:11 | 0:12:16 | |
Now, most of the articles are arranged like a shopping list. | 0:12:16 | 0:12:21 | |
They are written very tersely, like a telegram or a tweet, | 0:12:21 | 0:12:25 | |
so that the lines are only half a dozen or a dozen words long. | 0:12:25 | 0:12:29 | |
Now, the barons' demands are very prominent, | 0:12:29 | 0:12:33 | |
but equally, these articles show just how much further the barons | 0:12:33 | 0:12:37 | |
had had to go in appealing outside their own ranks, | 0:12:37 | 0:12:41 | |
promising justice not only to the barons but to all free men. | 0:12:41 | 0:12:46 | |
Well, there's an article that deals with that. | 0:12:46 | 0:12:49 | |
In other words, even in this sort of sketch form, | 0:12:49 | 0:12:53 | |
this series of notes of a committee, | 0:12:53 | 0:12:55 | |
the embryo of Magna Carta shows us that it is so much more | 0:12:55 | 0:12:59 | |
than just an appeal to narrow, aristocratic self-interest. | 0:12:59 | 0:13:04 | |
So what actually did happen on that famous day of 15th June 1215? | 0:13:09 | 0:13:15 | |
It's the date that textbooks celebrate as the signing | 0:13:15 | 0:13:19 | |
of Magna Carta. | 0:13:19 | 0:13:21 | |
Except that it wasn't. | 0:13:21 | 0:13:23 | |
John didn't sign the Charter. | 0:13:24 | 0:13:26 | |
There is no evidence that the King could write, | 0:13:26 | 0:13:29 | |
and, in any case, royal documents weren't authenticated with | 0:13:29 | 0:13:33 | |
the King's signature, but with his seal. | 0:13:33 | 0:13:37 | |
Probably, indeed, to complete the demolition | 0:13:37 | 0:13:39 | |
of the traditional picture, on 15th June 1215, | 0:13:39 | 0:13:44 | |
there wasn't even a charter to sign. | 0:13:44 | 0:13:47 | |
No original sealed copy of Magna Carta survives | 0:13:47 | 0:13:52 | |
and there is no evidence that one ever existed. | 0:13:52 | 0:13:55 | |
Instead, what happened on 15th June was a binding agreement, | 0:13:55 | 0:14:00 | |
solemn on both sides between the King and the barons, that the King | 0:14:00 | 0:14:05 | |
would issue Magna Carta and that the barons would swear fealty in return. | 0:14:05 | 0:14:10 | |
The Articles of the Barons were then quickly transformed | 0:14:19 | 0:14:23 | |
from a rough shopping list into a smooth, continuous, | 0:14:23 | 0:14:27 | |
unambiguous legal form to become... | 0:14:27 | 0:14:30 | |
..Magna Carta, the Great Charter. | 0:14:32 | 0:14:34 | |
In a dense, almost impenetrable Latin text, | 0:14:38 | 0:14:42 | |
some 4,000 words were squeezed just onto one membrane of parchment | 0:14:42 | 0:14:48 | |
made from dried and smoothed sheepskin. | 0:14:48 | 0:14:51 | |
13 copies were produced to be circulated across the realm. | 0:14:53 | 0:14:58 | |
For the barons, the clauses that really mattered in Magna Carta | 0:15:00 | 0:15:04 | |
dealt with the inheritance, marriages and ownership of land. | 0:15:04 | 0:15:09 | |
These may seem remote now, but they established what | 0:15:09 | 0:15:13 | |
half the world, from Russia to China, still lacks - | 0:15:13 | 0:15:17 | |
that the state can't help itself to private property at will. | 0:15:17 | 0:15:22 | |
And then there are the famous clauses which best have come | 0:15:23 | 0:15:27 | |
to symbolise the universal freedoms promised by Magna Carta - | 0:15:27 | 0:15:32 | |
clauses 39 and 40. | 0:15:32 | 0:15:35 | |
"No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, | 0:15:48 | 0:15:51 | |
"or stripped of his rights or possessions, | 0:15:51 | 0:15:54 | |
"or outlawed or exiled or deprived of his standing in any other way, | 0:15:54 | 0:15:59 | |
"nor will we proceed with force against him or send others to do so, | 0:15:59 | 0:16:04 | |
"except by the lawful judgment of his equals | 0:16:04 | 0:16:07 | |
"or by the law of the land. | 0:16:07 | 0:16:10 | |
"To no-one will we sell, to no-one deny or delay right or justice." | 0:16:10 | 0:16:17 | |
There was, indeed, there is, something here that really matters. | 0:16:18 | 0:16:24 | |
The sense that Magna Carta protects | 0:16:24 | 0:16:28 | |
and defines those three key fundamental freedoms of the | 0:16:28 | 0:16:33 | |
Anglo-Saxon world - life, liberty and property - is spot on. | 0:16:33 | 0:16:39 | |
With the 800th anniversary, the British Library is mounting | 0:16:44 | 0:16:49 | |
a special Magna Carta exhibition. | 0:16:49 | 0:16:51 | |
The centrepiece - one of the original 1215 copies, | 0:16:51 | 0:16:54 | |
of which only four still survive. | 0:16:54 | 0:16:58 | |
This is a document which is in Latin, a language which, | 0:16:58 | 0:17:02 | |
nowadays, very, very few people can read readily. | 0:17:02 | 0:17:05 | |
Do you think this has an irretrievable | 0:17:05 | 0:17:07 | |
effect of distancing, of separating and making it feel remote? | 0:17:07 | 0:17:12 | |
Well, it is written in medieval Latin | 0:17:13 | 0:17:15 | |
and it is written in medieval handwriting as well, of course. | 0:17:15 | 0:17:18 | |
Which is even worse, yes! | 0:17:18 | 0:17:19 | |
And here it is on this parchment made from sheepskin | 0:17:19 | 0:17:22 | |
-and it isn't the most... -In fact, it is an actual sheep, isn't it? | 0:17:22 | 0:17:26 | |
We should see the head there, we should see the legs | 0:17:26 | 0:17:28 | |
-on either side and the tail sticking out there. -Absolutely. | 0:17:28 | 0:17:31 | |
And nobody could say that it is the most beautiful collection item | 0:17:31 | 0:17:34 | |
that we have, but I never fail to be amazed | 0:17:34 | 0:17:37 | |
by the impression that it makes on visitors to the library | 0:17:37 | 0:17:42 | |
and how much people value the opportunity to be in proximity to this incredibly... | 0:17:42 | 0:17:48 | |
The sacred text, yes! | 0:17:48 | 0:17:49 | |
..incredibly famous document. | 0:17:49 | 0:17:51 | |
And people do almost treat it with the sort of reverence that you | 0:17:51 | 0:17:54 | |
might expect of a sacred text. | 0:17:54 | 0:17:56 | |
But, back in 1215, | 0:17:58 | 0:18:01 | |
Magna Carta came close to becoming an obscure footnote in history. | 0:18:01 | 0:18:06 | |
Publicly, John had accepted Magna Carta | 0:18:07 | 0:18:11 | |
and reconciled himself with his subjects. | 0:18:11 | 0:18:13 | |
Privately, he burned with resentment and threw a characteristic | 0:18:13 | 0:18:18 | |
fit of rage, gnashing his teeth, as a chronicler reports, | 0:18:18 | 0:18:23 | |
scowling with his eyes and gnawing on the very twigs and branches. | 0:18:23 | 0:18:29 | |
He would not keep his word a second longer than he had to. | 0:18:29 | 0:18:33 | |
John immediately appealed to Rome | 0:18:38 | 0:18:41 | |
and to Pope Innocent III to have Magna Carta annulled. | 0:18:41 | 0:18:46 | |
One clause in particular was difficult for John to stomach. | 0:18:46 | 0:18:50 | |
Clause 61 set out how Magna Carta was to be enforced. | 0:18:50 | 0:18:56 | |
It set up a committee of 25 barons to hold John to every last jot | 0:18:56 | 0:19:02 | |
and tittle by any and every means, including the levying of war. | 0:19:02 | 0:19:07 | |
Now, the idea was seductive but it proved to be disastrous, | 0:19:08 | 0:19:13 | |
because it tried to protect Magna Carta by effectively | 0:19:13 | 0:19:17 | |
destroying royal sovereignty. | 0:19:17 | 0:19:19 | |
And no king, least of all John, could possibly agree to that. | 0:19:19 | 0:19:24 | |
Pope Innocent responded swiftly to John's request to have | 0:19:26 | 0:19:30 | |
Magna Carta quashed. | 0:19:30 | 0:19:32 | |
He immediately spotted the threat it posed to all autocrats, | 0:19:32 | 0:19:36 | |
himself included. | 0:19:36 | 0:19:37 | |
He sent a firm reply in a papal bull. | 0:19:37 | 0:19:41 | |
Magna Carta, the bull says, had been "extorted by force | 0:19:43 | 0:19:47 | |
"and violence, such as would've affrighted the most courageous man. | 0:19:47 | 0:19:52 | |
"It was unjust, illegal, harmful to royal rights | 0:19:52 | 0:19:56 | |
"and shameful to the English people." | 0:19:56 | 0:19:58 | |
So, a mere ten weeks after those heady June days at Runnymede, | 0:20:00 | 0:20:06 | |
Magna Carta had been declared null and void and of non-effect | 0:20:06 | 0:20:11 | |
by the highest earthly authority known to medieval man. | 0:20:11 | 0:20:15 | |
And, do you know, it made not a jot of difference | 0:20:15 | 0:20:20 | |
to the behaviour of anybody involved. | 0:20:20 | 0:20:23 | |
Both sides now prepared for civil war. | 0:20:25 | 0:20:28 | |
John recruited mercenaries, whilst the barons resorted | 0:20:28 | 0:20:32 | |
to the traditional tactic of backing | 0:20:32 | 0:20:34 | |
an alternative claimant to the throne. | 0:20:34 | 0:20:37 | |
In a measure of their desperation, | 0:20:38 | 0:20:40 | |
they offered the crown to a Frenchman, Prince Louis. | 0:20:40 | 0:20:44 | |
Louis had a vague hereditary claim | 0:20:44 | 0:20:47 | |
but his real strength was that he was the anybody-but-John candidate. | 0:20:47 | 0:20:54 | |
In the invasion we rarely talk about, | 0:20:56 | 0:20:59 | |
Louis arrived in London with 7,000 French troops. | 0:20:59 | 0:21:04 | |
Whilst John travelled north to places like here at Headingley, | 0:21:04 | 0:21:08 | |
to recapture the castles of his rebellious barons. | 0:21:08 | 0:21:11 | |
The fate of Magna Carta now hung in the balance | 0:21:13 | 0:21:16 | |
and it was fate that would deal the decisive blow. | 0:21:16 | 0:21:21 | |
THUNDERCLAP | 0:21:21 | 0:21:23 | |
On 19 October 1216, during a violent storm, | 0:21:26 | 0:21:31 | |
John died unexpectedly. | 0:21:31 | 0:21:34 | |
THUNDERCLAP | 0:21:34 | 0:21:35 | |
At Newark Castle in Nottinghamshire - | 0:21:35 | 0:21:38 | |
his enemies alleged from a surfeit of peaches. | 0:21:38 | 0:21:41 | |
BIRDSONG | 0:21:43 | 0:21:46 | |
His nine-year-old son was crowned Henry III. | 0:21:50 | 0:21:54 | |
As he was underage, the real power lay | 0:21:54 | 0:21:57 | |
with his regent, William the Marshal, himself a baron. | 0:21:57 | 0:22:01 | |
He immediately re-issued Magna Carta, but with a difference. | 0:22:01 | 0:22:06 | |
This is the tomb of William the Marshal, Earl of Pembroke. | 0:22:09 | 0:22:13 | |
He was the most successful jouster of the age | 0:22:13 | 0:22:17 | |
and arguably the man who, as regent for the boy king Henry, | 0:22:17 | 0:22:21 | |
saved England, the Plantagenet dynasty and Magna Carta itself. | 0:22:21 | 0:22:27 | |
William the Marshal wisely saw the clause for a committee of barons to | 0:22:29 | 0:22:35 | |
enforce Magna Carta was dangerously unworkable and stripped it out. | 0:22:35 | 0:22:40 | |
The result was an astonishing reversal of fortune. | 0:22:40 | 0:22:44 | |
Henry, burdened with none of his father's political baggage, | 0:22:45 | 0:22:49 | |
proved to be a much more attractive king than John. | 0:22:49 | 0:22:53 | |
Whilst Magna Carta, | 0:22:53 | 0:22:54 | |
hitherto discredited as the occasion of civil war, factional strife | 0:22:54 | 0:23:00 | |
and foreign intervention, was suddenly transformed | 0:23:00 | 0:23:03 | |
into the squeaky-clean manifesto of an optimistic new regime. | 0:23:03 | 0:23:08 | |
Not all the barons were convinced by the regime change | 0:23:11 | 0:23:15 | |
and some fought on. | 0:23:15 | 0:23:17 | |
STEEL CLASHES | 0:23:17 | 0:23:19 | |
But Marshal, famed not only for his political acumen but also | 0:23:19 | 0:23:23 | |
for his prowess in combat, routed them at the Battle of Lincoln Fair. | 0:23:23 | 0:23:28 | |
Louis and his troops fled back to the safety of France. | 0:23:30 | 0:23:35 | |
Peace and stability were restored to the realm. | 0:23:37 | 0:23:40 | |
Then, in 1225, when Henry III was old enough to assume | 0:23:40 | 0:23:46 | |
full executive power, Magna Carta was reissued it its definitive form. | 0:23:46 | 0:23:51 | |
This time, the charter emphasised that it was granted | 0:23:53 | 0:23:56 | |
by the king's full and free consent. | 0:23:56 | 0:24:00 | |
The taint of war and coercion | 0:24:00 | 0:24:02 | |
which had dogged the first Magna Carta was gone. | 0:24:02 | 0:24:05 | |
The charter had achieved something truly revolutionary | 0:24:07 | 0:24:11 | |
and almost by accident. | 0:24:11 | 0:24:14 | |
The great charter, despite its name, | 0:24:14 | 0:24:17 | |
contained no great general statement of principle. | 0:24:17 | 0:24:22 | |
However, its multitude of detailed clauses did imply one - | 0:24:22 | 0:24:28 | |
that the king, however great his power, | 0:24:28 | 0:24:31 | |
however much the law was his law, | 0:24:31 | 0:24:35 | |
was, finally, UNDER the law. | 0:24:35 | 0:24:38 | |
Not surprisingly, kings, the good ones as well as the bad ones, | 0:24:43 | 0:24:48 | |
found the idea difficult to accept | 0:24:48 | 0:24:50 | |
and it would be disputed for centuries in peace and war. | 0:24:50 | 0:24:54 | |
However, Magna Carta quietly, | 0:24:56 | 0:24:59 | |
but with enormous cumulative effect, laid the foundations | 0:24:59 | 0:25:03 | |
of the two key institutions | 0:25:03 | 0:25:05 | |
that in time would bridle the English monarchy. | 0:25:05 | 0:25:09 | |
They were both based here in the heart of royal England, | 0:25:09 | 0:25:13 | |
Westminster. | 0:25:13 | 0:25:14 | |
Colloquially, we call this building here the Houses of Parliament. | 0:25:16 | 0:25:21 | |
Actually, it's the Palace of Westminster. | 0:25:21 | 0:25:24 | |
But it was the principal and indeed the only palace | 0:25:24 | 0:25:29 | |
properly so-called of the medieval kings of England. | 0:25:29 | 0:25:32 | |
How it becomes a seat of Parliament is a very long story. | 0:25:32 | 0:25:37 | |
But the story, like so much of our political structure, | 0:25:37 | 0:25:40 | |
begins with Magna Carta. | 0:25:40 | 0:25:43 | |
The demands of the great charter led to an assembly of bishops | 0:25:46 | 0:25:50 | |
and barons who met to approve taxation | 0:25:50 | 0:25:53 | |
and sanction its collection. | 0:25:53 | 0:25:55 | |
This assembly was the embryo of the modern Parliament, | 0:25:55 | 0:25:59 | |
with its two houses of lords and commoners. | 0:25:59 | 0:26:03 | |
The precedent of this relatively painless way of raising taxation | 0:26:03 | 0:26:07 | |
was irresistible for revenue-hungry kings | 0:26:07 | 0:26:10 | |
like Edward I and Edward III, | 0:26:10 | 0:26:13 | |
with their perpetual endless wars | 0:26:13 | 0:26:16 | |
against the Welsh, the Scots and the French. | 0:26:16 | 0:26:20 | |
Parliament used the grant of taxation | 0:26:20 | 0:26:23 | |
to extort concessions from the Crown. | 0:26:23 | 0:26:26 | |
Kings didn't like it, but if they wanted the money - | 0:26:26 | 0:26:31 | |
and they almost always did - they had to lump it. | 0:26:31 | 0:26:34 | |
Monarchs also found themselves grappling with the new idea | 0:26:36 | 0:26:40 | |
of a legal system whose first home was Westminster Hall here. | 0:26:40 | 0:26:45 | |
Magna Carta called for professional judges | 0:26:46 | 0:26:49 | |
and a fixed place for the law courts. | 0:26:49 | 0:26:53 | |
Before, kings administered justice themselves | 0:26:53 | 0:26:56 | |
and the courts moved with the king. Magna Carta changed that. | 0:26:56 | 0:27:01 | |
The king's law was becoming the common law of England. | 0:27:01 | 0:27:05 | |
For hundreds of years, Magna Carta determined the rules of engagement | 0:27:08 | 0:27:12 | |
between the king and his subjects, but it was not to last. | 0:27:12 | 0:27:19 | |
FIERCE CRIES | 0:27:19 | 0:27:20 | |
Four centuries on from the meeting at Runnymede, England found herself | 0:27:22 | 0:27:27 | |
in another crisis more bloody and more protracted | 0:27:27 | 0:27:31 | |
than even the confrontation with King John. | 0:27:31 | 0:27:35 | |
On the throne was Charles I. | 0:27:35 | 0:27:38 | |
The second king of the house of Stuart, his reign began in 1625, | 0:27:38 | 0:27:44 | |
but it's hard to imagine two more different men. | 0:27:44 | 0:27:47 | |
John, lecherous, murderous and systematically dishonest, | 0:27:48 | 0:27:53 | |
was a pantomime villain, whilst Charles, | 0:27:53 | 0:27:56 | |
dignified and devoted to his family, was the very model of a good man. | 0:27:56 | 0:28:00 | |
All of which raises some awkward questions - | 0:28:02 | 0:28:04 | |
why was such a good man such a bad king? | 0:28:04 | 0:28:09 | |
And why does Magna Carta wake from slumber to play | 0:28:09 | 0:28:13 | |
a key role in these tragic events? | 0:28:13 | 0:28:16 | |
Those great creations of Magna Carta, Parliament | 0:28:19 | 0:28:23 | |
and the common law courts still flourished, | 0:28:23 | 0:28:26 | |
but the real locus of royal government had moved to | 0:28:26 | 0:28:30 | |
different institutions, to the court, the council and the church. | 0:28:30 | 0:28:35 | |
And to a different place, the Palace of Whitehall. | 0:28:35 | 0:28:38 | |
This splendid interior now known as the Banqueting House, | 0:28:43 | 0:28:48 | |
was the principal reception room of Charles's Palace of Whitehall. | 0:28:48 | 0:28:53 | |
In the very latest classical style, it's designed by Inigo Jones, | 0:28:53 | 0:28:58 | |
the most fashionable architect of the day. | 0:28:58 | 0:29:01 | |
Whilst the ceiling is painted by Sir Peter Paul Rubens, | 0:29:01 | 0:29:06 | |
the most famous contemporary artist. | 0:29:06 | 0:29:08 | |
But Rubens' ceiling is more than lavish decoration, | 0:29:10 | 0:29:14 | |
it also has a powerful political message. | 0:29:14 | 0:29:18 | |
The central oval represents the ascent to heaven | 0:29:18 | 0:29:21 | |
of Charles I's father, James I. | 0:29:21 | 0:29:24 | |
James declared that | 0:29:24 | 0:29:26 | |
"the state of monarchy is the most supremest thing on Earth, | 0:29:26 | 0:29:30 | |
"even by God himself." | 0:29:30 | 0:29:33 | |
Kings are called gods. | 0:29:33 | 0:29:35 | |
Ruben's genius transmutes James's words into soaring, | 0:29:36 | 0:29:40 | |
swirling imagery in which kings not only reign by divine right | 0:29:40 | 0:29:46 | |
but are divinities themselves. | 0:29:46 | 0:29:49 | |
And in Whitehall, Charles could be forgiven | 0:29:50 | 0:29:54 | |
for thinking that Rubens' extravagant painting | 0:29:54 | 0:29:58 | |
told no more than the simple truth. | 0:29:58 | 0:30:00 | |
But only a few hundred yards away, there was another palace, | 0:30:03 | 0:30:08 | |
a very different palace - the Palace of Westminster. | 0:30:08 | 0:30:12 | |
Here, the king summoned and dissolved Parliament, | 0:30:12 | 0:30:15 | |
but without the agreement of the Lords and Commons, | 0:30:15 | 0:30:18 | |
he could do nothing. | 0:30:18 | 0:30:20 | |
So, who was the real King of England? | 0:30:20 | 0:30:24 | |
The Magna Carta limited king of Westminster or Charles, | 0:30:24 | 0:30:28 | |
absolute monarch of Whitehall? | 0:30:28 | 0:30:31 | |
Normally, the choice never needed to be made, | 0:30:32 | 0:30:35 | |
but there was one area of conflict which threatened to destabilise everything. | 0:30:35 | 0:30:40 | |
Religion. | 0:30:41 | 0:30:43 | |
The tension had been present ever since the Reformation | 0:30:44 | 0:30:48 | |
when Henry VIII made the English king head of the English Church, | 0:30:48 | 0:30:53 | |
giving the monarchy huge new powers. | 0:30:53 | 0:30:56 | |
Under Charles I, it became acute, since the King | 0:30:57 | 0:31:01 | |
and his leading subjects disagreed fundamentally about religion. | 0:31:01 | 0:31:06 | |
The King wanted a ceremonious religion, | 0:31:06 | 0:31:09 | |
that his opponents both feared and denounced as Roman Catholic. | 0:31:09 | 0:31:15 | |
His subjects, on the other hand, wanted a stripped down, | 0:31:15 | 0:31:19 | |
radical Protestantism that the King sneeringly dismissed as Puritan. | 0:31:19 | 0:31:24 | |
With the fire fanned by this underlying tension about religion, | 0:31:27 | 0:31:31 | |
relations between Charles and the House of Commons quickly broke down. | 0:31:31 | 0:31:36 | |
Parliament refused to agree to taxes | 0:31:38 | 0:31:40 | |
to pay for Charles' military adventures. | 0:31:40 | 0:31:43 | |
Charles, desperate for money, demanded customs duties | 0:31:43 | 0:31:47 | |
and forced loans and when a few brave people refused to pay, | 0:31:47 | 0:31:52 | |
he imprisoned them and imposed martial law. | 0:31:52 | 0:31:54 | |
But one man thought he had the solution to the impasse - | 0:31:57 | 0:32:00 | |
Sir Edward Coke. | 0:32:00 | 0:32:03 | |
Coke was Lord Chief Justice | 0:32:03 | 0:32:04 | |
and one of the most successful lawyers ever. | 0:32:04 | 0:32:07 | |
He was also a brutal prosecutor, leading the case | 0:32:07 | 0:32:11 | |
against Sir Walter Raleigh and the Gunpowder conspirators. | 0:32:11 | 0:32:15 | |
Coincidentally, Coke's legal practice was in the temple | 0:32:17 | 0:32:21 | |
which had become one of the Inns of Court. | 0:32:21 | 0:32:23 | |
Coke was the law. | 0:32:24 | 0:32:26 | |
Naturally, as a proud as well as principled man, | 0:32:26 | 0:32:30 | |
he thought that the law should be supreme. | 0:32:30 | 0:32:34 | |
So, just like the barons who confronted King John | 0:32:34 | 0:32:37 | |
on this very spot long ago when it was the headquarters | 0:32:37 | 0:32:42 | |
of the Knights Templar, Coke turned to Magna Carta | 0:32:42 | 0:32:45 | |
to bridle another overweening king. | 0:32:45 | 0:32:48 | |
On 17th May 1628, Sir Edward Coke rose in the House of Commons | 0:32:53 | 0:32:58 | |
and declared that Magna Carta is such a fellow, | 0:32:58 | 0:33:03 | |
that he will have no sovereign. | 0:33:03 | 0:33:06 | |
The words were deliberately, dangerously, disturbingly bold. | 0:33:06 | 0:33:12 | |
The sovereign was the king. Now Coke was declaring there was | 0:33:12 | 0:33:16 | |
another greater sovereign, Magna Carta, | 0:33:16 | 0:33:19 | |
which, as fundamental law, | 0:33:19 | 0:33:21 | |
neither Parliament nor the King himself could touch. | 0:33:21 | 0:33:24 | |
Coke took the key principles of Magna Carta | 0:33:28 | 0:33:31 | |
and tried to turn them into constitutional law, | 0:33:31 | 0:33:35 | |
into what would become known as the Petition of Right. | 0:33:35 | 0:33:38 | |
Charles resisted as vehemently as John had fought off Magna Carta. | 0:33:39 | 0:33:44 | |
But, likewise in vain. | 0:33:44 | 0:33:47 | |
Desperate for a Parliamentary grant of money, | 0:33:47 | 0:33:50 | |
Charles gave his assent to the petition on 7th June 1628, | 0:33:50 | 0:33:56 | |
though probably in as bad faith as John. | 0:33:56 | 0:33:59 | |
In 1629, Charles did away with Parliament and the law | 0:34:02 | 0:34:07 | |
and lawyers, contrary to what Coke hoped, did nothing to stop him. | 0:34:07 | 0:34:11 | |
Matters came to a head in the summer of 1642, when Charles | 0:34:14 | 0:34:19 | |
raised his standard over Nottingham and declared war on Parliament. | 0:34:19 | 0:34:23 | |
The bloody clash followed that would tear England apart. | 0:34:26 | 0:34:29 | |
Though it would take seven years, eventually the king was beaten | 0:34:32 | 0:34:36 | |
and for the first time in history, in 1649, | 0:34:36 | 0:34:40 | |
an English king would be put on public trial | 0:34:40 | 0:34:43 | |
under the watchful eyes of Cromwell's New Model Army. | 0:34:43 | 0:34:47 | |
Charles was brought under armed guard into the Great Hall | 0:34:51 | 0:34:55 | |
at Westminster here. | 0:34:55 | 0:34:57 | |
The king was dressed entirely in black, | 0:34:57 | 0:35:00 | |
with the silver star of the Order of the Garter on his shoulder | 0:35:00 | 0:35:04 | |
and its blue ribbon round his neck. | 0:35:04 | 0:35:06 | |
He kept his hat firmly on throughout, | 0:35:11 | 0:35:14 | |
as did his judges in a sartorial stand-off of mutual contempt. | 0:35:14 | 0:35:20 | |
They, for his office of King, he, for their claim to be his judges. | 0:35:20 | 0:35:26 | |
Worse was to come. | 0:35:26 | 0:35:27 | |
As a prosecuting counsel rose, Charles tapped him on the shoulder | 0:35:29 | 0:35:33 | |
with his silver topped cane and commanded him to hold. | 0:35:33 | 0:35:38 | |
The counsel ignored him. | 0:35:38 | 0:35:40 | |
Then, as the charges were read out, | 0:35:40 | 0:35:42 | |
the top fell off Charles' cane. | 0:35:42 | 0:35:47 | |
The King looked round, expecting that somebody would pick it up. | 0:35:47 | 0:35:51 | |
Nobody did. Instead, he, the King, had to stoop to retrieve it. | 0:35:51 | 0:35:59 | |
The charge continued that he had employed a tyrannical power | 0:36:03 | 0:36:08 | |
to rule according to his will and to overthrow the rights | 0:36:08 | 0:36:11 | |
and liberties of the people. | 0:36:11 | 0:36:13 | |
Charles' response was that a monarch was not subject to | 0:36:15 | 0:36:19 | |
earthly authority and he refused to enter a plea. | 0:36:19 | 0:36:24 | |
But here in the Great Hall, legalities were soon set aside. | 0:36:24 | 0:36:29 | |
The show trial found Charles Stuart guilty. | 0:36:29 | 0:36:32 | |
He was sentenced to death for crimes against the people. | 0:36:32 | 0:36:36 | |
The place of his execution was quite deliberate, | 0:36:42 | 0:36:45 | |
outside the Banqueting House. | 0:36:45 | 0:36:47 | |
Passing under the great Rubens ceiling, | 0:36:48 | 0:36:51 | |
and his father ascending to heaven, Charles stepped from a window | 0:36:51 | 0:36:55 | |
directly onto a high scaffold at the front of the building. | 0:36:55 | 0:36:59 | |
This time, it had taken a civil war and the beheading of a king | 0:37:06 | 0:37:11 | |
to enforce the principles of Magna Carta. | 0:37:11 | 0:37:13 | |
But the resort to violence destroyed the freedom | 0:37:15 | 0:37:18 | |
it sought to protect, leading to a military dictatorship | 0:37:18 | 0:37:22 | |
under Lord Protector Cromwell, | 0:37:22 | 0:37:24 | |
who proved just as despotic as any monarch | 0:37:24 | 0:37:28 | |
and who famously denounced Magna Carta as Magna Farta. | 0:37:28 | 0:37:33 | |
The restoration of the Stuart monarchy after Cromwell's death | 0:37:35 | 0:37:39 | |
seemed a blessed relief. | 0:37:39 | 0:37:41 | |
However, religious tensions resurfaced | 0:37:41 | 0:37:44 | |
when James II secretly converted to Catholicism and then | 0:37:44 | 0:37:49 | |
married a Catholic, sparking panic among the Protestant elite. | 0:37:49 | 0:37:53 | |
It seemed as though the bad old days of the Civil War had returned. | 0:37:53 | 0:37:58 | |
But James II, in contrast with his father, | 0:37:59 | 0:38:03 | |
Charles I's iron resolve, lost his nerve and fled abroad. | 0:38:03 | 0:38:09 | |
The royal family indivisibly united in the Civil War split | 0:38:09 | 0:38:15 | |
with James' daughter, Mary, and her husband, William of Orange, | 0:38:15 | 0:38:19 | |
leading the resistance. | 0:38:19 | 0:38:21 | |
The result was a bloodless coup which opened the way to a radically | 0:38:25 | 0:38:30 | |
new political settlement, an updated version of Magna Carta called | 0:38:30 | 0:38:35 | |
The Bill of Rights in deference to Coke's Petition of Right. | 0:38:35 | 0:38:40 | |
The crown was offered to William | 0:38:40 | 0:38:42 | |
and Mary on condition that they accepted its terms. | 0:38:42 | 0:38:45 | |
On the 13th February 1689, | 0:38:47 | 0:38:50 | |
it was back to the Banqueting House for the denouement of what became | 0:38:50 | 0:38:54 | |
known as the Glorious Revolution. | 0:38:54 | 0:38:57 | |
William and Mary took their place under the canopy on the dais, | 0:38:59 | 0:39:04 | |
the Lords, to the right, and the Commons, to the left, | 0:39:04 | 0:39:08 | |
led by their respective speakers, approached the steps of the throne. | 0:39:08 | 0:39:12 | |
The clerk read out the Bill of Rights | 0:39:12 | 0:39:15 | |
and a nobleman offered William and Mary the crown. | 0:39:15 | 0:39:19 | |
William accepted it and the pair were proclaimed King | 0:39:19 | 0:39:23 | |
and Queen to the sound of trumpets. | 0:39:23 | 0:39:27 | |
Nothing would ever be quite the same again. | 0:39:27 | 0:39:30 | |
England or Great Britain as it would soon become | 0:39:35 | 0:39:39 | |
with union with Scotland, had exchanged the sovereignty of kings, | 0:39:39 | 0:39:45 | |
not, as Coke would have wished, for the sovereignty of the law, | 0:39:45 | 0:39:49 | |
but for another sovereignty, that of Parliament. | 0:39:49 | 0:39:53 | |
However, Coke's dream for Magna Carta as fundamental law didn't die. | 0:40:01 | 0:40:06 | |
It was to change its identity and move far away from its birthplace. | 0:40:06 | 0:40:12 | |
Runnymede is the most English of places | 0:40:15 | 0:40:18 | |
and Magna Carta, the most English of events. | 0:40:18 | 0:40:22 | |
But what perhaps is most English of all, | 0:40:22 | 0:40:24 | |
is that there is nothing much to mark the spot | 0:40:24 | 0:40:27 | |
of one of the most famous events in human history. | 0:40:27 | 0:40:31 | |
Nothing English, but there is this. | 0:40:31 | 0:40:37 | |
It's erected in 1957 by the American Bar Association | 0:40:37 | 0:40:42 | |
to commemorate Magna Carta, symbol of freedom under the law. | 0:40:42 | 0:40:47 | |
It's here because Magna Carta matters in America, too. | 0:40:48 | 0:40:53 | |
It's our very first English export there, because Magna Carta was | 0:40:53 | 0:40:58 | |
carried in the minds of the English colonists themselves. | 0:40:58 | 0:41:02 | |
The settlers came here to this wild | 0:41:25 | 0:41:27 | |
and untamed land for many different reasons. | 0:41:27 | 0:41:31 | |
Some were economic migrants, | 0:41:31 | 0:41:34 | |
some were escaping religious persecution back home. | 0:41:34 | 0:41:38 | |
But they all thought of themselves as English, bringing with them | 0:41:38 | 0:41:44 | |
the rights of Englishmen as they set up their Little Englands | 0:41:44 | 0:41:48 | |
across the sea. | 0:41:48 | 0:41:49 | |
From the beginning, the idea was formally written into their laws. | 0:41:52 | 0:41:56 | |
Starting with the Charter of Virginia, | 0:41:56 | 0:41:58 | |
drafted by Edward Coke himself in 1606, | 0:41:58 | 0:42:03 | |
the settlers were given the same rights as if they had been abiding | 0:42:03 | 0:42:07 | |
and born within this, our realm of England. | 0:42:07 | 0:42:11 | |
And the Ark of the Covenant of those English rights | 0:42:11 | 0:42:14 | |
was Magna Carta, which retained all its old subversive power | 0:42:14 | 0:42:19 | |
as it crossed the Atlantic Ocean. | 0:42:19 | 0:42:21 | |
But these rights were to be turned on their colonial masters | 0:42:24 | 0:42:28 | |
in one of the great upheavals in world history. | 0:42:28 | 0:42:32 | |
In 1765, the government of King George III | 0:42:34 | 0:42:38 | |
imposed a tax on the sale of paper. | 0:42:38 | 0:42:41 | |
The notorious Stamp Act produced an immediate outcry that it was | 0:42:44 | 0:42:48 | |
against Magna Carta and the natural rights of Englishmen. | 0:42:48 | 0:42:52 | |
Tensions between the governed and the governors | 0:42:52 | 0:42:56 | |
escalated into a demand for independence, soon all-out war. | 0:42:56 | 0:43:02 | |
As the conflict raged, one American patriot, George Mason wrote, | 0:43:05 | 0:43:10 | |
"We claim nothing but the Liberty and Privileges of Englishmen, | 0:43:10 | 0:43:14 | |
"in the same degree as if we continued among our brethren | 0:43:14 | 0:43:18 | |
"in Great Britain." | 0:43:18 | 0:43:20 | |
Soon it became clear to those | 0:43:20 | 0:43:22 | |
who would become known as the Founding Fathers | 0:43:22 | 0:43:25 | |
that they would have to draft their own Magna Carta. | 0:43:25 | 0:43:28 | |
This elegantly understated Georgian building, | 0:43:38 | 0:43:42 | |
built as the seat of government of Pennsylvania, | 0:43:42 | 0:43:45 | |
is America's Runnymede. | 0:43:45 | 0:43:47 | |
And it is here America's Founding Fathers, principal among them, | 0:43:50 | 0:43:54 | |
Thomas Jefferson, whose cane still rests across a desk, | 0:43:54 | 0:43:58 | |
ratified that most precious of American documents - | 0:43:58 | 0:44:02 | |
the Declaration of Independence. | 0:44:02 | 0:44:05 | |
But alongside the Declaration's thrillingly new | 0:44:06 | 0:44:10 | |
or at least newish claim, | 0:44:10 | 0:44:12 | |
that all men are created equal | 0:44:12 | 0:44:15 | |
and endowed with certain inalienable rights, | 0:44:15 | 0:44:19 | |
the declaration also uses a much older language, | 0:44:19 | 0:44:22 | |
as old, indeed, as Magna Carta which Jefferson consciously invokes. | 0:44:22 | 0:44:28 | |
Like another King John, Jefferson accused George III | 0:44:31 | 0:44:34 | |
and his government of taxing without consent, | 0:44:34 | 0:44:38 | |
interfering with freedom of trade and punishing in life, | 0:44:38 | 0:44:42 | |
limb and property without due process of law. | 0:44:42 | 0:44:46 | |
The Founding Fathers sat at these tables | 0:44:47 | 0:44:50 | |
and being 18th-century gentlemen, | 0:44:50 | 0:44:52 | |
they wore powder, wigs and knee breeches, | 0:44:52 | 0:44:56 | |
but they were also substantial landowners, | 0:44:56 | 0:45:00 | |
masters of dozens of slaves, and so, | 0:45:00 | 0:45:03 | |
like the great land-owning barons at Runnymede, | 0:45:03 | 0:45:06 | |
they saw themselves as cutting a tyrant down to size. | 0:45:06 | 0:45:10 | |
Today, Americans still take their history, and therefore ours, | 0:45:14 | 0:45:19 | |
very seriously. | 0:45:19 | 0:45:20 | |
Magna Carta was not only to provide much of the rhetoric | 0:45:20 | 0:45:24 | |
of the American Revolution, | 0:45:24 | 0:45:26 | |
the Great Charter also remains fundamental | 0:45:26 | 0:45:29 | |
to the American Constitution | 0:45:29 | 0:45:32 | |
and the everyday conduct of American government itself. | 0:45:32 | 0:45:35 | |
I'm here in the crypt of the American Capitol in Washington. | 0:45:36 | 0:45:41 | |
Above me is one of the biggest, most impressive | 0:45:41 | 0:45:44 | |
and most famous buildings in the world. | 0:45:44 | 0:45:47 | |
It's the seat of the American Congress or Parliament. | 0:45:47 | 0:45:51 | |
To one side is the Senate chamber, to the other | 0:45:51 | 0:45:54 | |
is the House of Representatives, | 0:45:54 | 0:45:56 | |
and directly above me is the central lobby or rotunda, | 0:45:56 | 0:46:02 | |
with its huge, massive dome. | 0:46:02 | 0:46:05 | |
Down here in the crypt is this - it's a golden copy of Magna Carta, | 0:46:12 | 0:46:18 | |
complete with John's seal, also in gold, | 0:46:18 | 0:46:21 | |
and it stands as a kind of intellectual foundation, | 0:46:21 | 0:46:25 | |
timeless and incorruptible | 0:46:25 | 0:46:27 | |
for the soaring structure of American government | 0:46:27 | 0:46:30 | |
and political ambition above. | 0:46:30 | 0:46:32 | |
For while the American Revolution | 0:46:35 | 0:46:37 | |
rejected English political authority, | 0:46:37 | 0:46:40 | |
it did not reject the authority of English law. | 0:46:40 | 0:46:43 | |
And to this day, Magna Carta, | 0:46:43 | 0:46:46 | |
with all its clauses, including the removal of fish-weirs on the Medway, | 0:46:46 | 0:46:51 | |
stands in full on the statute books of 17 of the 50 states. | 0:46:51 | 0:46:56 | |
The institutions of Magna Carta also took root. | 0:47:00 | 0:47:04 | |
Congress, where I've just been, is the Parliament. | 0:47:07 | 0:47:10 | |
The Senate is the Lords | 0:47:10 | 0:47:12 | |
and the House of Representatives is the Commons. | 0:47:12 | 0:47:16 | |
Whilst the White House is the seat of the President, | 0:47:18 | 0:47:22 | |
who is King George III without his wig. | 0:47:22 | 0:47:26 | |
But this is novel and has no real English equivalent. | 0:47:28 | 0:47:31 | |
It's the Supreme Court, and its cast bronze doors have a story to tell. | 0:47:31 | 0:47:38 | |
The four panels on the left-hand door | 0:47:38 | 0:47:41 | |
deal with the origins of law in the ancient world, | 0:47:41 | 0:47:44 | |
but here, on the right-hand door, three out of the four panels | 0:47:44 | 0:47:49 | |
represent the actual origins of the Supreme Court in English law. | 0:47:49 | 0:47:54 | |
Down at the bottom, of course, we've got Magna Carta - John and a baron. | 0:47:54 | 0:47:58 | |
Here, we've got the great lawgiver English king, Edward I. | 0:47:58 | 0:48:03 | |
And up there, on the third panel, | 0:48:03 | 0:48:05 | |
we have Sir Edward Coke confronting James I, | 0:48:05 | 0:48:10 | |
and it's Coke who really matters. | 0:48:10 | 0:48:13 | |
Coke's attempt in 1628 to use the Petition of Right | 0:48:13 | 0:48:18 | |
to make Magna Carta fundamental law inviolable by Parliament | 0:48:18 | 0:48:23 | |
or by the King failed in England, | 0:48:23 | 0:48:26 | |
but it succeeded in America where the Founding Fathers | 0:48:26 | 0:48:30 | |
made the Constitution effectively untouchable, | 0:48:30 | 0:48:34 | |
fundamental law to be interpreted not by Congress, | 0:48:34 | 0:48:38 | |
still less by the President, but by the judges of the Supreme Court. | 0:48:38 | 0:48:44 | |
And it is to Magna Carta | 0:48:48 | 0:48:50 | |
that the Supreme Court judges turn again and again... | 0:48:50 | 0:48:54 | |
From 1790 to the present, | 0:48:54 | 0:48:57 | |
it has been cited an astonishing 400 times. | 0:48:57 | 0:49:01 | |
But Magna Carta is not only a mantra in the Supreme Court. | 0:49:01 | 0:49:05 | |
It is a ready-made banner, quickly raised in the political arena. | 0:49:05 | 0:49:10 | |
As was the case when another monarch - | 0:49:10 | 0:49:13 | |
only this time it was a president, Richard Nixon - | 0:49:13 | 0:49:16 | |
thought he was above the law. | 0:49:16 | 0:49:19 | |
I have been guided by the principle that the law | 0:49:20 | 0:49:24 | |
must deal fairly with every man. | 0:49:24 | 0:49:27 | |
Seven centuries have now passed | 0:49:30 | 0:49:33 | |
since the English barons proclaimed the same principle | 0:49:33 | 0:49:38 | |
by compelling King John at the point of a sword | 0:49:38 | 0:49:43 | |
to accept the great doctrine of Magna Carta. | 0:49:43 | 0:49:46 | |
In 1974, facing impeachment | 0:49:47 | 0:49:51 | |
over his involvement in the Watergate scandal, | 0:49:51 | 0:49:54 | |
Nixon resigned rather than face the wrath of Magna Carta. | 0:49:54 | 0:49:58 | |
But in more recent times, a much more threatening shadow | 0:49:58 | 0:50:03 | |
has been thrown over all our constitutional liberties. | 0:50:03 | 0:50:06 | |
SIREN BLARES | 0:50:07 | 0:50:10 | |
With the attack on the Twin Towers, | 0:50:12 | 0:50:14 | |
the Bush administration announced America was at war - | 0:50:14 | 0:50:18 | |
war on terror. | 0:50:18 | 0:50:20 | |
For the foreseeable future, | 0:50:21 | 0:50:23 | |
the security of the Western world was paramount. | 0:50:23 | 0:50:26 | |
Rights and freedoms - for which the war was ostensibly being waged - | 0:50:26 | 0:50:31 | |
would have to take a back seat. | 0:50:31 | 0:50:33 | |
Accusations of torture, | 0:50:36 | 0:50:37 | |
waterboarding and extraordinary rendition | 0:50:37 | 0:50:40 | |
hit the very heart of the United States Government. | 0:50:40 | 0:50:43 | |
But there were those who were prepared to challenge the executive | 0:50:45 | 0:50:49 | |
in the name of Magna Carta and the Constitution. | 0:50:49 | 0:50:52 | |
As suspected terrorists were interned in Guantanamo Bay, | 0:50:52 | 0:50:57 | |
lawyers, working for free, | 0:50:57 | 0:50:59 | |
brought cases against the Bush administration | 0:50:59 | 0:51:02 | |
for unlawful detention without trial. | 0:51:02 | 0:51:05 | |
One of the key lawyers, David Remes, visited the camp. | 0:51:05 | 0:51:09 | |
You were shocked by Guantanamo? | 0:51:10 | 0:51:12 | |
I was shocked, I was overwhelmed... It was... | 0:51:12 | 0:51:17 | |
The men were so abject. | 0:51:17 | 0:51:18 | |
They were in despair and the power exercised over them | 0:51:18 | 0:51:22 | |
by the prison authorities was absolute. | 0:51:22 | 0:51:25 | |
Were you ashamed? | 0:51:25 | 0:51:26 | |
No, I was outraged. | 0:51:27 | 0:51:28 | |
You know, we come here, we see those proud phrases | 0:51:30 | 0:51:34 | |
in which liberty and freedom and right and God and nature | 0:51:34 | 0:51:38 | |
are plastered over these huge marble monuments. | 0:51:38 | 0:51:41 | |
Didn't the hypocrisy stink in your nostrils? | 0:51:41 | 0:51:44 | |
Yes. | 0:51:44 | 0:51:45 | |
And what did you do? | 0:51:46 | 0:51:48 | |
I represented these men in court, | 0:51:48 | 0:51:50 | |
I fought to have them released, and... | 0:51:50 | 0:51:55 | |
I hope that the lawyers' efforts and communications | 0:51:55 | 0:51:59 | |
had an influence. I believe they did. | 0:51:59 | 0:52:02 | |
The Supreme Court DID rule | 0:52:04 | 0:52:06 | |
that detention without trial was unconstitutional, | 0:52:06 | 0:52:10 | |
repeatedly citing Magna Carta. | 0:52:10 | 0:52:12 | |
But victory was short-lived. | 0:52:16 | 0:52:18 | |
A lesser appeals court bypassed the ruling | 0:52:18 | 0:52:22 | |
by declaring that in time of war, ordinary rules do not apply. | 0:52:22 | 0:52:28 | |
The Supreme Court apparently ruled in favour of these men | 0:52:32 | 0:52:35 | |
and yet nothing has been done. | 0:52:35 | 0:52:38 | |
Guantanamo is still there. | 0:52:38 | 0:52:40 | |
The shame is still there. | 0:52:40 | 0:52:42 | |
If I'd been able to sit down with one of those judges | 0:52:42 | 0:52:44 | |
of the Court of Appeal, how would they have justified it? | 0:52:44 | 0:52:48 | |
Well, the principle would be that the courts have no function, | 0:52:48 | 0:52:52 | |
no valid role to play in executive decisions in the context of war. | 0:52:52 | 0:52:59 | |
At the same time that Remes was fighting his Guantanamo cases, | 0:53:02 | 0:53:07 | |
Britain, too, was facing a parallel challenge | 0:53:07 | 0:53:10 | |
to its legal and constitutional integrity. | 0:53:10 | 0:53:14 | |
In 2008, at the height of the crisis, | 0:53:14 | 0:53:17 | |
senior politician | 0:53:17 | 0:53:18 | |
and then Shadow Home Secretary, David Davis, resigned. | 0:53:18 | 0:53:22 | |
This Sunday is the anniversary of Magna Carta. | 0:53:23 | 0:53:26 | |
The document that guarantees | 0:53:26 | 0:53:27 | |
that most fundamental of British freedoms - | 0:53:27 | 0:53:31 | |
the right not to be imprisoned by the state without charge or reason. | 0:53:31 | 0:53:36 | |
But yesterday this House decided to allow the state | 0:53:36 | 0:53:38 | |
to lock up potentially innocent citizens | 0:53:38 | 0:53:41 | |
for up to six weeks without charge. | 0:53:41 | 0:53:43 | |
The view that the then Government was eroding piece by piece | 0:53:45 | 0:53:50 | |
all sorts of our civil liberties, | 0:53:50 | 0:53:52 | |
mostly through altering the structure of the law... | 0:53:52 | 0:53:55 | |
How long you could be held without charge | 0:53:55 | 0:53:58 | |
was the issue at point there | 0:53:58 | 0:54:00 | |
and it struck me as a grotesque assault on liberties... | 0:54:00 | 0:54:03 | |
Directly on Magna Carta... | 0:54:03 | 0:54:05 | |
Directly on Magna Carta, directly on delay of justice, | 0:54:05 | 0:54:08 | |
directly on the things that we... we believe in... | 0:54:08 | 0:54:10 | |
And they're things that our country has become famous for. | 0:54:10 | 0:54:12 | |
But the impact of David Davis' own little act of jihadism, | 0:54:14 | 0:54:19 | |
of political suicide, was short-lived. | 0:54:19 | 0:54:22 | |
We have already taken a wide range of measures, | 0:54:22 | 0:54:24 | |
including stopping suspects from travelling to the region | 0:54:24 | 0:54:27 | |
by seizing passports... | 0:54:27 | 0:54:29 | |
Every passing month brings yet more infringement of personal liberties | 0:54:29 | 0:54:34 | |
in the name of the "war on terror". | 0:54:34 | 0:54:36 | |
..If we are going to deal with extremists of all sorts | 0:54:36 | 0:54:38 | |
in our society and uphold our British values, that we are able to take... | 0:54:38 | 0:54:42 | |
What does constitute suspicious activity that would warrant | 0:54:42 | 0:54:45 | |
that phone call to you? | 0:54:45 | 0:54:47 | |
Is it possible that we've become complacent | 0:54:47 | 0:54:50 | |
about our long tradition of freedom from arbitrary state authority? | 0:54:50 | 0:54:54 | |
Are we sacrificing more and more of our liberties | 0:54:54 | 0:54:58 | |
at the altar of "security", | 0:54:58 | 0:55:00 | |
and perhaps even sleepwalking towards authoritarianism? | 0:55:00 | 0:55:06 | |
Why as a nation that was once so assertive, | 0:55:08 | 0:55:12 | |
so sensitive about freedom, why have we become so casual? | 0:55:12 | 0:55:17 | |
Why are we prepared apparently to sacrifice it without question? | 0:55:17 | 0:55:21 | |
Well, it comes down to this problem that people think that security | 0:55:21 | 0:55:27 | |
is more important than freedom | 0:55:27 | 0:55:29 | |
and future historians will look back on our time | 0:55:29 | 0:55:32 | |
and say the great success of Al-Qaeda was not the people they killed, | 0:55:32 | 0:55:35 | |
it's the way they transformed the Western states, | 0:55:35 | 0:55:37 | |
turned them from being incredibly freedom-orientated societies | 0:55:37 | 0:55:41 | |
to being rather more introverted, nervous societies. | 0:55:41 | 0:55:44 | |
So, is it time to reawaken Magna Carta from its great slumber? | 0:55:51 | 0:55:56 | |
Well, on past record, perhaps not. | 0:55:58 | 0:56:01 | |
Magna Carta has often proved quite impotent. | 0:56:01 | 0:56:04 | |
Henry VIII paid scant attention to its first clause | 0:56:04 | 0:56:08 | |
to protect the freedom of the Church. | 0:56:08 | 0:56:10 | |
Nor did its ringing declaration - | 0:56:11 | 0:56:13 | |
"To no-one will we sell, delay or deny justice" - | 0:56:13 | 0:56:18 | |
stop internment in Northern Ireland or Guantanamo Bay. | 0:56:18 | 0:56:22 | |
So, in this day and age, | 0:56:22 | 0:56:25 | |
is Magna Carta really little more than a myth? | 0:56:25 | 0:56:28 | |
I spoke to one of Sir Edward Coke's professional descendants, | 0:56:29 | 0:56:33 | |
retired Chief Justice for England and Wales, Lord Judge. | 0:56:33 | 0:56:38 | |
Occasionally people will say that Magna Carta's a myth, | 0:56:38 | 0:56:42 | |
it didn't make all the provisions that people attribute to it. | 0:56:42 | 0:56:46 | |
And in that sense they're right, Magna Carta did not. | 0:56:46 | 0:56:49 | |
But when we think that what we regard as precious to us - | 0:56:49 | 0:56:54 | |
precious liberties, precious freedoms are threatened - | 0:56:54 | 0:56:57 | |
we think Magna Carta. | 0:56:57 | 0:56:59 | |
It's a banner, it summarises our belief | 0:56:59 | 0:57:02 | |
that government should be controlled. | 0:57:02 | 0:57:04 | |
It summarises our belief in equality before the law. | 0:57:04 | 0:57:07 | |
Whether that's historically accurate or not, | 0:57:07 | 0:57:10 | |
it means that Magna Carta is living, | 0:57:10 | 0:57:12 | |
and if something is living, it isn't a myth. | 0:57:12 | 0:57:15 | |
Magna Carta makes no grand, general statements | 0:57:20 | 0:57:23 | |
about liberty and freedom. | 0:57:23 | 0:57:26 | |
It's not got right first time. | 0:57:26 | 0:57:28 | |
It has to be reworked again and again. | 0:57:28 | 0:57:32 | |
And yet, the outcome of this process of trial and error | 0:57:32 | 0:57:36 | |
is a profound change of political behaviour. | 0:57:36 | 0:57:40 | |
Consultation and accommodation between ruler and ruled | 0:57:40 | 0:57:44 | |
ceased to be exceptional crisis management and have become instead | 0:57:44 | 0:57:48 | |
a matter of habit, of how we English do things. | 0:57:48 | 0:57:53 | |
But in this 800th anniversary year, Parliament, | 0:57:56 | 0:58:01 | |
our habits of political freedom | 0:58:01 | 0:58:03 | |
and the idea of England herself, | 0:58:03 | 0:58:06 | |
are all facing acute challenge... | 0:58:06 | 0:58:08 | |
..perhaps the most fundamental of modern times. | 0:58:09 | 0:58:12 | |
Will the memory of Magna Carta help to carry us through again? | 0:58:12 | 0:58:18 | |
It would be nice to think so. | 0:58:19 | 0:58:21 |