1215: The Year of Magna Carta Ebook (32 page)

‘To no one will we sell, to no one will we deny or delay right or justice.’ Most people will think governments everywhere should still be reminded of the principle stated in Clause 40. The law’s delays are with us still, and it is all too clear that the wealthy have so great an advantage when brought before courts of law that to talk of ‘selling justice’ does not seem much – if at all – wide of the mark. Similarly the much misunderstood Clause 39 encapsulates a fundamental principle: ‘No free man shall be arrested or imprisoned or have their property confiscated or be outlawed or exiled or in any way ruined, nor will we take any action agaisnt him, except by the lawful judgement of his peers or by the law of the land.’ Despite a few archaic terms such as ‘outlawry’ or ‘peers’, despite the fact that it says ‘man’, not ‘person’, this remains a sweeping general statement of the individual’s rights in the face of government power.

It is striking that the sweeping statements of lofty general principle in Clauses 39 and 40 come so late in the charter; this hardly suggests that they were uppermost in the minds of those who negotiated the charter in 1215. The first ten clauses of Magna Carta are principally concerned with the property rights of earls and barons, and so, too, are many of the later clauses. At the beginning of the twentieth century it became fashionable to take a debunking view of Magna Carta, to see it as being all about the selfish interests of ‘feudal barons’. But none of this has touched the symbolic value of Magna Carta. It was the product of a society accustomed to dealing with the problems and privileges of freedom: freedom from slavery or from serfdom, the freedom of boroughs, the freedom of the Church, the freedom of trade. The charter still retains its iconic status. Anyone with a cause against the government of the day is very likely to defend his or her right to protest by referring to Magna Carta.

There is much to be said for the protesters’ view of Magna Carta. Although there is not a word in it about the right to protest, there is a sense in which Magna Carta in its entirety represents protest. It was in origin the product of direct political action, of negotiation after rebellion. As a symbol of the struggle against tyranny it will always retain its value.

John, by the grace of God, King of England, Lord of Ireland, Duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, Count of Anjou, to the archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls, barons, justiciars, foresters, sheriffs, stewards, servants and all his officials and faithful subjects greeting.

Know that we, from reverence for God and for the salvation of our soul and those of all our ancestors and heirs, for the honour of God and the exaltation of Holy Church and the reform of our realm, on the advice of our reverend fathers, Stephen, Archbishop of Canterbury, Primate of all England and Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, Henry, archbishop of Dublin, William of London, Peter of Winchester, Jocelin of Bath and Glastonbury, Hugh of Lincoln, Walter of Worcester, William of Coventry and Bendict of Rochester, bishops, Master Pandulf, subdeacon and member of the household of the lord pope, brother Aimeric, master of the knighthood of the Temple in England, and the noble men, William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke, William, Earl of Salisbury, William, Earl of Warenne, William, Earl of Arundel, Alan of Galloway, Constable of Scotland, Warin fitz Gerold, Peter fitz Herbert, Hubert de Burgh, seneschal of Poitou, Hugh de Neville, Matthew fitz Herbert, Thomas Basset, Alan Basset, Philip d’Aubigny, Robert of Ropsley, John Marshal, John fitz Hugh and others, our faithful subjects: