The Magna Carta that wasn't and the Greatest Knight who was.

 

 History is a compendium of stories, many of which melt into the mist on closer inspection. Magna Carta or the Great Charter, agreed between King John and his Batons at Runnymede in  June 1215, is cited ad nauseam as a foundation and guarantee of the rights of the individual against authority in the English-speaking world. Some claim, even the more  ambitiously, that it was a triumph in the fight between democracy and European feudalism.

In fact, it was neither of those things. The Charter was just one in a long series of accommodations between the Crown and the Barons. But the events that soon followed were indeed pivotal in our history. 

It is partly a tale of myth-making and derring-do. And this is a narrative, as all histories are, and other narratives are available. I have tried hard to rescue it from dry lists of Kings and dates. I have tried hard to rescue it from dry lists of Kings and dates. I know the illustrations are sub-standard. Frankly, they are sometimes just there to break up scrolling text and there were no  paparazzi photographers around at the time. The contemporary drawings are mostly from the chronicler Matthew Paris but others are down to my amusement at what can be dredged up in an AI image search.  

 

As recounted in my childhood, 'once upon a time', in this case about 900 years ago, both England and France were ruled by a procession of Kings from a small number of fractious clans. They often relied on the support of fickle and powerful Barons. If you watched 'Game of Thrones' you will recognise the scene. 

You might recall King John as the malevolent ruler whose baronial henchman, the Sheriff of Nottingham, was outwitted by Robin Hood, a stout yeoman archer whose crime was helping himself to the natural riches of the 'Royal Forests’. 

King John : National Portrait Gallery, London

Context first. We are familiar with the independent nation-state with a government that is notionally committed to its wellbeing. Medieval Europe wasn't like that. National states as we understand them now did not exist and boundaries were fluid and ill-defined. The Barons held sway in their own fiefdoms. As a comparison, think of the warlords dominating the Eastern Congo today. 

A postcard from the DRC. 

In this case, thanks to inheritance, conquest and marriage, the Angevin dynasty (John) controlled what is now England, which was still emerging from the long shadow of the Norman Conquest 150 years earlier, together with most of Western France, while the Capet dynasty (King Philip), who controlled Eastern France, claimed the whole lot.  

John's Inherited Empire

 Among other things, the Norman Conquest changed the land law. Up until then both the powerful families and better-off folk in England could own land, but were obliged to contribute to the common weal when called upon to do so. In contrast, William the Conqueror, (or William the Bastard as he was known then), declared that he owned the land and could do what he wanted with it. Because ne needed to keep his Barons onside, he gave them large chunks to use, lease and tax as they saw fit.

Scroll forward a century. King John and King Philip were constantly crossing swords, and John had been the loser.  He wasn’t unpopular just because he was unlikeable, but also because what he had lost included most of the Angevin lands in France as well as a huge sum of money and manpower spent in the failed attempt to defend them. 

A lot of that land, money and manpower were his Barons, They weren't in thrall to him, regarding him as the first among equals rather than an absolute overlord, so they were understandably unimpressed with the turn of events.

To cap it all, rumours came from across the Channel that King Philip was thinking of enforcing his dubious claim to England by invading it. This terrified John, more his own sake than for England’s. Some of his Barons were not only miffed, but openly sympathetic to Philip who was, by all accounts, a decent bloke as unaccountable Kings go. 

The Barons were Anglo-Normans, usually descended from people who had arrived with William the Conqueror. In today's world they would be Oligarchs. Most were born in England and could speak English, but were culturally French, spoke that as their main language, and had family as well as land across the Channel. It was all quite incestuous. Self-interest guided the events that followed, patriotism didn’t come into it.

The Barons used John’s vulnerabilities to coerce him into signing a Charter which limited his power to tax and restrain them and introduced new rights, nominally for all ‘free’ Englishmen, but primarily for themselves. Quite simply, they hated John and didn't want him demanding extortionate sums of money, outlawing them or nabbing their castles and land on a whim.

The Barons 'Bus Tour' Team Photo 

The legal and political rights of the oiks were not uppermost in the minds of anyone of importance, but they  weren’t too happy either. Generally, the Normans had chosen not to interfere with the ‘Ancient Customs’ and Common Laws of the English as long as these didn’t get in their way. So the penalty for nabbing your neighbour's chicken or tipping the scales when he purchased turnips, went unchanged.

A famous exception in involved the so-called 'Royal Forests' where, in the interests of keeping their larder stocked and good hunting, the nobility had curtailed the right to farm, forage and hunt in some areas. John in particular had greedily and dramatically increased the extent of these, hence Robin Hood's decision to ignore the rules. (Most of these forests weren't actually wooded, you need to ensure you can see the deer you are hunting. And notice that hunting on horseback remains popular amongst gentry. That isn't a coincidence!) 

Eventually the storm broke and twenty-five of the most powerful Barons said ‘enough is enough’. If John wanted their financial and military backing to forestall an invasion and protect his crown, he would have to mends his overbearing habits and give something, a big something, in return.

Arguably, the most powerful, respected and feared of them was William the Marshall, the Earl of Pembroke and the hero of my tale. He was born a comparatively lowly member of the Anglo-French aristocracy but rose to become the ‘Greatest Knight in Christendom’. Not my words, but the judgement of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Stephen Langton. You can't argue with an Archbishop. At a time when 'keeping your head' was less of an admonition than an aspiration, he had served and survived five squabbling kings, added a talent for diplomacy to his formidable martial reputation and generally scaled the aristocratic ladder.  The connecting thread here was his loyalty to the Crown and whoever legitimately wore it. 

William had suffered parenting that wouldn’t pass muster with Social Services nowadays.  When a boy of around five, during internecine fighting over the Crown within the preceding Blois dynasty, the King abducted William to use as a hostage to force his Dad, who supported Mrs King, to surrender a chunky castle at Newbury, Failing which, he kindly offered to return him, but less kindly said he would do it with a siege catapult. Dad dismissed the threat, reputedly by standing on the battlements and waving his wedding tackle at the besiegers. There were plenty more sons where that one came from! Reputedly the King relented after his brother, a Bishop,  suggested that child-hurling wasn't woke. 

Medieval Siege Trebuchet

William was reared as a knight, mostly in France, and did the things that an armoured Ronaldo of the knightly world should do, going on Crusades, winning hundreds of tournaments and doing lots of smoting and smiting. Not being wealthy, he served as a mercenary for a while and, during one of the seemingly never-ending spats between claimants to the English throne, became allegedly the first person to beat Richard the Lionheart in a straight fight.

Richard was John’s brother and preceded him as King. William spared him, which wasn’t forgotten, and ended up serving as a bodyguard to Richard and John's Mum, Eleanor of Aquitaine, earning her thanks for saving her from a kidnapping. 

William’s relationship with John proved tricky but it survived, mainly because he was an almost essential ally. It helped that he now had some aristocratic standing and resources, having inherited the title of Marshal of England, an administrative rather than military role, and acquired the lucrative Earldom of Pembroke through marriage. 

Earl William at Pembroke Castle

The upshot was that he was sufficiently trusted by John and feared enough by everyone else to play a key role in persuading John to accept that, if he wanted to remain King in the face of the Baron's anger, he would need to accept the terms of an agreement. These were embodied in the Charter, drafted by Langton who, as Archbishop, was nominally disinterested. John agreed to its terms, even though he probably had his fingers crossed. In short, without William, there would probably never have been the Charter that is now (erringly- I’ll come to that) referred to as the Magna Carta.

Runnymede Today. Don't go. 

Thus to Runnymede, a place convenient for those involved. I don’t suggest you visit. These days, it would be a nice enough Thameside spot if it wasn't bisected by a very busy road. Anyway,  no one is quite sure of just where the Charter was signed. It is unlikely to have been where (if you look carefully) you can find the scruffy old marker stone, and almost certainly wasn’t on the site of the more recent and classically pompous memorial, commissioned by American lawyers. My bet is that it was held on a nearby island in the Thames, simply because it is known that this was used for a Royal Parley in 1217. 

The Memorial. Tasteless. 

I want to do three things here. Firstly, to look at what it actually said and did, because I just love to debunk some of the stuff we were taught as kids. Secondly, to pay tribute to the remarkable iron-gloved hero who played an outsize role in creating this wobbly stepping stone on England's political journey. 

Script Extract from Magna Carta

As you can see from the pic above, this iconic ‘English’ document, which was negotiated in French, is written in a Latin shorthand. You can find an English translation online if you look hard enough. The references to rights for 'freemen' are often taken as referring to all men and maybe even women. That is misleading. 'Freemen' were landowners and the vast majority of the common folk were serfs and villeins who did not own any land.

Sadly, this idea that landowners had a more tangible stake in the country and should thus enjoy political and legal rights denied to others, persisted afterwards for centuries. Beyond that, if you read it you will find that it adds little to the protections already enjoyed by the man on the Clapham omnicart before John turned up. (Dear American readers. No, I am not translating that, or any other local colloquialisms, or the Latin).

There was, however, a useful rollback on the extension of Royal Forests declared by John and other various associated ‘evil customs’. Robin Hood got his way even if by that time he was too dead to enjoy it. Beyond that, quite a bit was antithetical to the interests of the common folk, for example a ban on building weirs on the main rivers. They wanted fish, but the landowners wanted unconstrained navigation.

Nothing for Baldrick

The Charter certainly doesn’t skimp when it comes to the Barons’ vital interests, namely how their land holdings and usually ill-gotten wealth might be taxed, inherited and disposed of. However what is striking is the extent to which they weren't actually asking for new rights, but rather that the King should rule in accordance with custom and common law, and should apply the same principles to apply in his  dealings with them. 

What they did ask for an initially get, was a legal means to enforce those laws. This was a continuation of the argument that the King was as subject to the law and custom a everyone else, in marked contrast to the absolute and unchallengeable authority of the French monarchs. If you read it, see Clause 61. It effectively gives the Barons the right to confiscate the King's lands and castles if he oversteps the mark. This made John livid, but because he had a metaphorical gun at this head, he was persuaded to agree to it. The chief 'persuader' was William the Marshall. I love the AI impression below. It could be Taylor Swift in that coal scuttle, couldn't it! 

William, as imagined by AI 

 As for the right to trial, and to avoid any suggestion that I have Baronial sympathies, I will grudgingly throw John a biscuit. Under the Common Law, which they still enjoyed, people had the right to a trial, albeit not always by Jury. Justice was mostly administered locally, so the landowning Barons could manipulate it in the customary way, by intimidating witnesses, packing juries and bribing magistrates. In an attempt to remedy the more flagrant abuses, the Crown had taken on more responsibility, thus clipping the Baron's wings.  That too, the Barons now wished to reverse.

Local Court

In summary, the Charter was about protecting the Barons' rights against the King and about the property rights of people wealthy enough to own property. It was not focused on those of the common people, although it did perhaps play a role in preventing the erosion of the long-standing rights that they already enjoyed. 

In any case, it all amounted to a storm in a teacup. After a few months, John reneged on the Charter, and appealed to the ultimate authority of the pointy-headed Pope Innocent III, who promptly annulled it and excommunicated the Barons who had also signed it, a punishment that if not rescinded meant eternal fire and damnation in a place with no oiks to do the nasty work and no pubs.  

Note my referring to it here as the 'agreement' or 'Charter'. This wasn't just my usual sloppy editing. In fact, the document wasn't referred to at the time as the Magna Carta, but as the 'Articles of the Barons’ or the 'Charter of Runnymede'. And it certainly wasn't considered to be a big deal in constitutional terms, either at the time or in several centuries that followed. No bells were rung when it was signed or abandoned. Almost four centuries later, when Shakespeare wrote his play 'King John', he never mentioned it.

Pope Innocent III

John's U turn was the last straw for the infuriated Barons, who promptly cast about for an alternative and more sympathetic monarch. Their head-hunters (the job wasn't advertised) recommended King Philip, who was by all accounts a thoroughly decent chap. You might recall that John's mum was Eleanor of Aquitaine. I didn't mention then that she had previously been married to Philip and, being of a flighty disposition, had cuckolded him. So he might have been a bit miffed, but it transpired that he wasn't keen keen on the job, seeing trouble ahead and having other fish to fry. 

His son Louis had no such scruples and, fancying a crown of his own, rose to the bait, ignored paternal disapproval, and invaded England, securing most of the South East except Dover Castle, which was as dominant then as it is today. Dover held for John which inconvenienced Louis, but beyond that he quickly found himself in control of a large swathe of the country, from London to Lincoln. He was then declared (but not crowned) King, a 'title' he held for around a year.  For John, the situation was bleak.

The English are not immune to the long tradition of histories being concocted to flatter nations egos. Our history books do not dwell on these events. At school, they told us that Hastings marked the last invasion of England. They also ignored the successful Dutch invasion of 1688, of which more later. 

Prince Louis

So why did England not end up as an adjunct to the French empire of the Capets and inherit the rather different French customs and laws? One reason was that, to the dismay of almost no one, the Grim Reaper paid John a visit.

 His successor was his nine year old son Henry. William, always loyal to the Crown, transferred his support to the understandably biddable child and was made Regent. Cometh the hour, cometh the Man.

William. Based on his effigy

William had three objectives. Firstly, to persuade some of the deserting Barons that they would be actually better off under the boy King born in England, and with him as ‘primus inter pares’, than as part of a French satrapy. Secondly, to beat Louis and, if he could do that, thirdly, to find a new basis of agreement between the Crown and those Barons.

Young King Henry 

 Some of the Barons did indeed change sides, their loyalties were flexible. They might reasonably conclude that rule from Paris might not be altogether jolly and hope that, in the absence of John, their rights might be restored and the lands recovered. Motives would have varied. Whatever, the forces following William and loyal to young Henry rallied and grew. A bit. 

William rallied the coalition of the willing. In the war that followed, there were two key moments.

The first was the Battle of Lincoln, a walled city with an imposing castle, so there were effectively two sets of walls. Louis' forces, led by the Count of Perche (who was William’s cousin!) were within the city walls and besieging the garrison in the castle. The Castellan was a redoubtable lady in her sixties, Nicolaa De La Haye. Maybe William was spurred on by the idea of rescuing a damsel in distress?

Lincoln Castle

Now aged 70, an age way beyond the average life expectancy at the time, he led a relief force. These were not huge armies; armour and horses were expensive and battles were very literally 'up close and personal'. Leading from the rear wasn't William's style. Some say he climbed the city walls in full armour. Respect! The image is appealing but is it credible? He certainly led from the front and fighting in full armour must have required huge strength, but beyond that it probably helps when you have a friendly biographer. 

Lincoln today

If you have ever been to Lincoln you will know that it sits atop a hill. The main access is and was up a steep and narrow road across the river and through the imposing South Gate.  

After a cunning feint, William focused his heavily outnumbered forces on the North Gate, where they breached the walls and attained the higher ground. From there, his crossbowmen could use the rooftops to fire down on the French and rebel forces clustered outside the castle and, as a bonus, get additional cover from the archers in the castle garrison. 

Matthew Paris on Lincoln 

In the ferocious close fighting that followed, Louis' army were forced down the hill on the narrow road, where their superior numbers gave them little advantage. They were routed and slaughtered. The Count of Perche was amongst the slain. 

Less gloriously, and because the locals were believed to have sided with Louis and the French,  William’s small army followed their triumph with an epic and deadly pillage and piss up, earning it the sarcastic moniker of 'The Battle of Lincoln Fair'. (It is all still there, go see. The walled castle enclave still feels thoroughly medieval, but if you want a good nights sleep, don't stay within earshot of the Cathedral bells). 

Note the team colours!

A chastened Louis scarpered back to London. At this point, he needed supplies and reinforcements. The job of ferrying those over was entrusted to a fleet led by another wonderful character, Eustace the Monk, a cross-dressing pirate and mercenary with, according to the social media of the age, a reputation for farting and blaming it on his saddle.

Eustace Defeat : Matthew Paris

This was the second pivotal point in the conflict. The English had their own fleet and in the ensuing confrontation, which apparently involved them blinding the French with lime dust, Louis lost Eustace, his fleet and his potential reinforcements. He gave up, went home, and dropped his claim to the English throne. England was freed from the threat of being ruled by a French Frenchman as opposed to an English Frenchman. 

Having achieved two of his three aims, William set to work on his third. In 1219 he arranged (and the young King Henry inherited) a reissue of what was effectively the Charter shorn of the troublesome Clause 61. It is known as the Magna Carta Liberatum and, crucially, it omitted the legal and constitutional basis for enforcing its provisions. 

Now, it was accompanied by the 'Charter of the Forest' which further responded to Robin Hood's gripes by offering new and practical (rather than political) rights to the common man, the oiks, my ancestors and maybe yours. It was a real step forward, but today few people are heard of it, probably because many of the changes that affect the lives of the ordinary punter, get short thrift in popular history textbooks which prefer to focus on battles and Kings. 

In neither document did popular sovereignty come into the reckoning. Since the Charter of the Forests was the physically smaller of the two, the main Charter was named 'Magna' Carta, probably by some junior scribe who was lost in morass of charters floating around. (Incidentally, in the UK it is just Magna Carta. The article 'The' is only added in the USA).

 

This proved to be William’s swansong as a warrior and diplomat. Not long after he retired to his castle in Caversham Park on the Thames at Reading where he died aged about 73. The Park is still there but the Castle is long gone. Now, you can find his tomb and (WW2 bomb-damaged) effigy in the Temple Church,  between the Strand and the Thames in London. Again, go see.

William the Marshall : Effigy

If ever a piece of parchment cast a shadow, this was it. But from the point of view of the common man (and I am a common man) I wonder how much difference the 1215 Charter actually made? In the short term, probably not much. 

Through the ages, Charters of this sort have been periodically amended and reissued. After William died and his regency ended, doubts were raised about the legality of both the 1215 and 1219 documents as they were seen to have been sealed under duress rather than voluntarily. So in 1225 King Henry, who was by all accounts a much more affable character than his Father, King John, reissued the Charter on his own volition, in a ceremony witnessed by a vast number of barons, clergy and others of all grades. That passed as the popular vote in those days. Without William,  I doubt that Henry would have been in a position to do any of this. 

The 1225 Charter, and not the 1215 and 2019 Charters, took the substantive step towards the political reconciliation that was subsequently regarded as a pillar of what passes in England for a constitutional settlement. Where reference is still made in legal codes to specific provisions originating from this period, they are mostly drawn from a still later (1297) re-framing of it. The King at the time was Edward 1st. He permitted it to be confirmed in Parliament so it became law so that Parliamentary consent would needed for any changes.

If you want to see it, there are copies in the 1215 Charter in the British Library in London and the the Cathedrals of Salisbury and Lincoln. The London copy is pictured shown below. It isn't always on display and at February 2025 the version shown there is version sealed by Henry in 1225.  The Salisbury copy, written in oak gall ink, is reputedly the best. Copies of the later (and I would suggest more important) issues of the Charter can be found in Durham, Oxford, Hereford and elsewhere.

The Charter of Runnymede (Magna Carta) 1215 / British Library Magna Carta 1225 / British Library

There is a problem with historical narratives insofar as they often focus on events or the tides rather than the currents of change. That is the case here. In summary, the Charter is best seen as a milestone in the long debate about the role of Kings and the relationships between the Crown, the aristocracy, the populace and eventually the colonies. This started long before the Norman invasion and has continued to this day despite the occasional need for the Monarch to be forcefully reminded of it. 

I have argued that the myths about the 1215 Charter have proved more influential than the document itself. Since then, its provisions have since been misquoted, misinterpreted and stretched beyond breaking point to justify everything from Brexit in the UK to aversion to vaccination, taxes and government generally in the USA. Only the Old Testament matches it as a dodgy source to refer to in an argument. 

Unreliable Evidence

In England, it cropped up in the justification for the Civil War. Later, it not only supported the invitation to the Dutch to invade in 1688, but shaped the conditions under which William III  reigned thereafter. Later, the Victorians used it to reinforce the myth of British exceptionalism. 

Beheading of Charles II 

And of course it has since reappeared in many places to support odd claims such as the silly attempts to circumvent restrictions during Covid. (Stand up Ms Quin of Quin Blakely Hairdressers in Bradford)

It was already a mere symbol by the time it was used to reinforce the debate about American Independence. In practical terms, what the US Constitution drew from this seems to have mainly been the rights of individuals in common law, like a right to trial and habeas corpus.

In particular, the idea that, In England, the King was subject to the law, was not new, albeit contested. The phrase 'no taxation without representation' does not appear in the 1215 Charter where the only support for the concept might be a reference to the need for the consent of the Barons and a few others to any 'scutage', which was a payment made in lieu of rendering military  service in times of war. There was no wider application to the various duties and tithes that might affect the population at large or for that matter any wider notions about constitutional liberties. In England, these had to wait for a few hundred years.

In contrast, the Battle of Lincoln and William's victory in the Barons' war reversed a current which would have carried England inexorably towards being effectively ruled from France. Thanks to William it extended the rights of ordinary people in the Charter of the Forest and won rich and powerful landowning Barons a contract of sorts with the Crown. 

At the same time, and perhaps more importantly, it moved the Anglo Norman aristocracy closer to being 'Anglo' rather than 'Norman'. In this sense, William played a huge part in creating the context within which a unique English polity could evolve and saved us from more than French rule, law, snails and smelly cheese. Also any sense of style. 

History credits Nelson with a similar job, but for me William was his equal and, in the ultimate Londoner’s accolade, a real Tasty Geezer. He deserves a column as well. Maybe he could replace the Duke of York on Carlton House Terrace. After all, he is only really remembered for starring in a nursery rhyme!