Happy 800th birthday Magna Carta! 1215-2015

[marylander1940]

Eight hundred years ago next month, on a reedy stretch of riverbank in southern England, the most important bargain in the history of the human race was struck. I realize that’s a big claim, but in this case, only superlatives will do. As Lord Denning, the most celebrated modern British jurist put it, Magna Carta was “the greatest constitutional document of all time, the foundation of the freedom of the individual against the arbitrary authority of the despot.”

 

It was at Runnymede, on June 15, 1215, that the idea of the law standing above the government first took contractual form. King John accepted that he would no longer get to make the rules up as he went along. From that acceptance flowed, ultimately, all the rights and freedoms that we now take for granted: uncensored newspapers, security of property, equality before the law, habeas corpus, regular elections, sanctity of contract, jury trials.

 

http://www.wsj.com/articles/magna-carta-eight-centuries-of-liberty-1432912022

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magna_Carta

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ee/Magna_Carta_(British_Library_Cotton_MS_Augustus_II.106).jpg/1280px-Magna_Carta_(British_Library_Cotton_MS_Augustus_II.106).jpg

 

[rvwnsd]

That's a lot of candles.

[marylander1940]

[AdamSmith]

How wartime Britain planned to give the US a copy of Magna Carta

British Library papers reveal plot to relinquish Lincoln cathedral Magna Carta to persuade America to enter second world war: ‘After all, we possess four copies’

 

...The supporting papers point out how appreciative the Americans would be. “In some respects Magna Carta has a more vivid appeal for the average American than for the average Englishman.

 

“For one thing, Americans are more conscious of their national origins than we are. England emerged out of a cloud of myth lost in antiquity. America was created in 1776 by a document; the most precious national relic they possess.”

 

The memo goes on: “The New World lacks the dimension of time; its inhabitants live almost entirely in the present and they crave tangible evidence of their early European background much as the nouveau riche crave ancestors.”...

 

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/11/wartime-britain-planned-us-copy-of-magna-carta

[+ quoththeraven]

Sure, Magna Carta was a start, but it was only a small step forward for King John to give the barons of the realm rights. It's not as though the average person -- the commons -- had any.

 

I just realized why it's such a big deal here: we're all titled!

[mike carey]

Sure, Magna Carta was a start, but it was only a small step forward for King John to give the barons of the realm rights. It's not as though the average person -- the commons -- had any.

True, it was just a start. And some of the perceived gains were rolled back by later kings and queens. Of course one of the kings had his head roll away from him. Magna Carta paved the way for the Lords and later the Commons had their power increase and the monarch's decline.

 

As a mere k-night, I still fall in the Commons, unlike my more exalted colleagues here! Still and all, this seems like a good time to toddle off to Old Parliament House and have a look at our copy of the Magna Carta (not the 1215 one, it's the 1297 version).

[McLeanspider]

Sure, Magna Carta was a start, but it was only a small step forward for King John to give the barons of the realm rights. It's not as though the average person -- the commons -- had any.

 

I just realized why it's such a big deal here: we're all titled!

 

Some (not you) even believe their tittle is for real and their world revolves about this forum.