At Runnymede, beside the Thames, King John on 15 June, 1215 met
aggrieved English barons who had backed his failed war with the French. What resulted was Magna Carta, a document that
established a new relationship between a king and his subjects.
Its clause “to no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay right or justice” remains a touchstone for civil liberties that emerged later.
This year the British will hold the Magna Carta Show which will hold celebrations throughout Britain. One of the stars of the show will be the Melrose Chronicle, a poem written in Latin by Cistercian monks almost 800 years ago. It is the earliest independent account of the events at Runnymede.
It begins: “A new state of things begun in England; such a strange affair as had never been heard; for the body wishes to rule the head, and the people desired to be masters over the king.” It goes on to explain the anger at King John. “The king, it is true, had perverted the excellent institutions of the realm, and had mismanaged its laws and customs, and misgoverned his subjects. His inclination became his law; he oppressed his own subjects; he placed over them foreign mercenary soldiers, and he put to death the lawful heirs, of whom he had obtained possession as his hostages, while an alien seized their lands.”
I took a MOOC on Magna Carta prepared and delivered by members of the History Department at Royal Holloway, a college of the University of London, and will try to summarize it in the next week.
Its clause “to no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay right or justice” remains a touchstone for civil liberties that emerged later.
This year the British will hold the Magna Carta Show which will hold celebrations throughout Britain. One of the stars of the show will be the Melrose Chronicle, a poem written in Latin by Cistercian monks almost 800 years ago. It is the earliest independent account of the events at Runnymede.
It begins: “A new state of things begun in England; such a strange affair as had never been heard; for the body wishes to rule the head, and the people desired to be masters over the king.” It goes on to explain the anger at King John. “The king, it is true, had perverted the excellent institutions of the realm, and had mismanaged its laws and customs, and misgoverned his subjects. His inclination became his law; he oppressed his own subjects; he placed over them foreign mercenary soldiers, and he put to death the lawful heirs, of whom he had obtained possession as his hostages, while an alien seized their lands.”
I took a MOOC on Magna Carta prepared and delivered by members of the History Department at Royal Holloway, a college of the University of London, and will try to summarize it in the next week.
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