[MUSIC] Well we're now down on the meadow of Runnymede itself. Let's get into some more details about the document. I mean Magna Carta's a pretty long document, isn't it? Are there any big ideas within it? >> Yes, it is indeed a long document. All 63 clauses of it in the modern numbering. Runs to about 4,500 words. And when you read it clause by clause, you can see it's a document which offers specific remedies to specific grievances. It's a bit of a rag-bag, really, with some pretty obscure stuff in it. And there are no great ringing Jeffersonian phrases, there's nothing in it about, we hold these truths to be self-evident, nothing like that. But I think there are some big ideas that inform it. And I suppose the clue is afforded by the famous clause 39. No free man shall be taken or imprisoned or deprived of his lands except by lawful judgement of his peers or by the law of the land. And what that tells us is that the big idea behind the Charter was making sure that the king obeyed the law just like everyone else did. In other words the issue that they were addressing was the relationship between the king and the law. Now, why was that a matter of debate? In the late 12th, early 13th centuries there were really two views, two answers to the question, what was the relationship between the King and the law? One view, the Royalists' view, it would have been the view of King John himself, was that the King is above the law. He publishes the law. He enforces it, but he's not actually bound by it himself. Because he's answerable only to God. That view was the King derives his authority to rule from God, in the coronation ceremony he's set apart from ordinary mortals. He's answerable only to God, not to his subjects. Therefore, he is above the law. That was the Royalists' view. The rival view was that the king is under the law, just like everyone else. According to this view, law was what in this period they call natural law, divine law. It was God's law. And we're all under God's law, aren't we? The King and everybody else. So that was the, the other view, that the King was under the law. The problem was there was a big, grey area. Even if you wanted to accept that the King is under God's law. The problem in England in the early 13th century was that there was lots of man-made law. We go back to the point I was making earlier, that in constitutional terms, England was actually quite an advanced state. John's father, Henry II, had published lots of laws, was the King bound by them as well? The answer given in Magna Carta, specifically in clause 39, was that the King is under the law. The King is under man-made law. You obey it, I obey it, the King obeys it as well. In the following reign, the reign of King Henry III, the lawyer Brackton said this. He said, the King in England is under God and under the law. That summed up the achievement of Magna Carta. >> It sounds as if the Charter was a real assault on royal authority. Did John go along with it? >> Magna Carta was indeed quite an assault on royal authority. And I think many people at the time would have regarded it as quite an extreme document. John went along with it on the day, because he had no choice. He was in the losing end of a civil war. He was buying time. He wanted to overturn it as quickly as possible, but he had to accept it for the moment. Now the barons of course, they knew their man. They knew he was a slippery customer. They knew perfectly well that he would not abide by it for any longer than he absolutely had to, and they catered for that possibility. Famously, in clause 61, they set up an enforcement committee. Committee of 25 barons who were the overseers. They were there to make sure that the king stuck by the Charter. So what happened after they all went their separate ways on the 19th of June? John wanted to tear up the Charter. The way you did that in the 13th century was by going to the Pope, to ask the Pope to release you from the oath to uphold it. Well, Innocent, Pope Innocent went along with this. Because he wanted King John to join him on a crusade. In September, letters arrived in England releasing King John from his oath to uphold the Charter. That was the trigger for the renewal of war. By the Autumn, the 25 barons were at war again with the King. So we can say Magna Carta, in it's original form that we're marking the anniversary of, had a shelf life of just three months. By September, England was at war again. This was the War of Magna Carta and it was still raging when King John died at Newark Castle in October 1216.
