Happy Magna Carta Day!
“Given by our hand in the meadow that is called Runnymede, between Windsor and Staines, on the fifteenth day of June in the seventeenth year of our reign [AD 1215],”
Granted, much of the document asserts the right of the barons, rather than the King, to oppress the people. But the beginning of Anglo-Saxon freedoms can be seen in some of the clauses, like these:
(39) No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgement of his equals or by the law of the land.
(40) To no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay right or justice.
In 1989, when the French were celebrating the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution, Margaret Thatcher pointed out to François Mitterrand, “We, of course, had the Magna Carta.” Quite right. (ht: Volokh Conspiracy)
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Oct '10
Re: Happy Magna Carta Day!
Liberty by law!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_zks9fmDjc
May '10
Re: Happy Magna Carta Day!
Just this past month at the Palace of the Legion of Honor Museum in San Francisco, was displayed an original of the Magna Carta - one belonging to the Bodleian Library at Oxford and one of the four surviving manuscripts of the revised 1217 issue.
Hand-lettered Latin script on parchment, it doesn't look like much but it was a big attraction at the museum. It was good to see its significance still appreciated.
Jun '11
Re: Happy Magna Carta Day!
I enjoyed the recent Robin Hood movie, but the semi-historical presentation of the Magna Carta was laughable. It does take time to develop liberty and respect for individual rights: a perspective the MSM seems to be lacking in regards to the Middle East.
Aug '10
Re: Happy Magna Carta Day!
Huzzah!
Jan '11
Re: Happy Magna Carta Day!
We really should thank Sir Edward Coke and other Ancient Constitutionalists for making Magna Carta a foundational document of Anglo-American liberties that it is. It was Coke and others who espoused the theory of the Norman Yoke that really made Magna Carta and its provisions for due process so important.
Re: Happy Magna Carta Day!
A great place to see one of the originals is Salisbury Cathedral -- just a glorious setting.
Re: Happy Magna Carta Day!
As Midge says: Huzzah!
Aug '10
Re: Happy Magna Carta Day!
A solemn and important day it is. Never has the idea of individual value and rights been more threatened.
Jul '10
Re: Happy Magna Carta Day!
One quibble, Adam. The Magna Carta was a step toward the restoration of Saxon freedoms lost 149 years earlier with the arrival of William the Conqueror. It is that egalitarian tradition, severed owing to the catastrophe at Hastings, that underlies the British Common Law, the rights of Englishmen, and inspired the Founders to study republicanism in the first place.
But we no longer study the Saxon system of government by Wittens, either.