NOBODY IS ABOVE THE LAW - NOT EVEN THE KING OR QUEEN OF ENGLAND

Magna Carta originated as an unsuccessful attempt to achieve peace between royalist and rebel factions in 1215, as part of the events leading to the outbreak of the First Barons' War.

England was ruled by King John, the third of the Angevin kings. Although the kingdom had a robust administrative system, the nature of government under the Angevin monarchs was ill-defined and uncertain. Much as the British system tends to deny justice to victims of local authority abuses.

John and his predecessors had ruled using the principle of vis et voluntas, or "force and will", taking executive and sometimes arbitrary decisions, often justified on the basis that a king was above the law.

Many contemporary writers believed that monarchs should rule in accordance with the custom and the law, with the counsel of the leading members of the realm, but there was no model for what should happen if a king refused to do so.

MEANING OF MAGNA CARTA

Magna Carta is Latin for ‘great charter’ and the term was first used in 1217 to distinguish it from the Charter of the Forest, a document that also set out limits on the king’s administration, this time of the royal forest, areas of the country set aside for royal hunting and subject to much harsher laws and restrictions.

Both charters set out what the king could and could not do. In other words, Magna Carta set out the laws which the king and everyone else had to follow for the first time.

Copies of Magna Carta were sent out to be read out in each county of England so that everyone knew of its existence.

CLAUSES REMAINING IN ENGLISH LAW

Only three clauses of Magna Carta still remain on statute in England and Wales. These clauses concern 

1) the freedom of the English Church,

2) the "ancient liberties" of the City of London (clause 13 in the 1215 charter, clause 9 in the 1297 statute), and 

3) a right to due legal process (clauses 39 and 40 in the 1215 charter, clause 29 in the 1297 statute).

In detail, these clauses (using the numbering system from the 1297 statute) state that:

I. FIRST, We have granted to God, and by this our present Charter have confirmed, for Us and our Heirs for ever, that the Church of England shall be free, and shall have all her whole Rights and Liberties inviolable. We have granted also, and given to all the Freemen of our Realm, for Us and our Heirs for ever, these Liberties under-written, to have and to hold to them and their Heirs, of Us and our Heirs for ever.

IX. THE City of London shall have all the old Liberties and Customs which it hath been used to have. Moreover We will and grant, that all other Cities, Boroughs, Towns, and the Barons of the Five Ports, as with all other Ports, shall have all their Liberties and free Customs.

XXIX. NO Freeman shall be taken or imprisoned, or be disseised of his Freehold, or Liberties, or free Customs, or be outlawed, or exiled, or any other wise destroyed; nor will We not pass upon him, nor condemn him, but by lawful judgment of his Peers, or by the Law of the land. We will sell to no man, we will not deny or defer to any man either Justice or Right.

Of clause 29 (XXIX) the policy makers have been whittling this down so much in recent years that little remains of Article 6 and the right to a Level Playing Field, also known as Equality At Arms. 

GREAT CHARTER OF 1215

GREAT CHARTER OF 1216

GREAT CHARTER OF 1217

GREAT CHARTER OF 1225

GREAT CHARTER OF 1297

Magna Carta became increasingly embedded into English political life during Henry III's minority. As the King grew older, his government slowly began to recover from the civil war, regaining control of the counties and beginning to raise revenue once again, taking care not to overstep the terms of the charters. Henry remained a minor and his government's legal ability to make permanently binding decisions on his behalf was limited. In 1223, the tensions over the status of the charters became clear in the royal court, when Henry's government attempted to reassert its rights over its properties and revenues in the counties, facing resistance from many communities that argued—if sometimes incorrectly—that the charters protected the new arrangements. This resistance resulted in an argument between Archbishop Langton and William Brewer over whether the King had any duty to fulfil the terms of the charters, given that he had been forced to agree to them. On this occasion, Henry gave oral assurances that he considered himself bound by the charters, enabling a royal inquiry into the situation in the counties to progress.

Two years later, the question of Henry's commitment to the charters re-emerged, when Louis VIII of France invaded Henry's remaining provinces in France, Poitou and Gascony. Henry's army in Poitou was under-resourced, and the province quickly fell. It became clear that Gascony would also fall unless reinforcements were sent from England. In early 1225, a great council approved a tax of £40,000 to dispatch an army, which quickly retook Gascony. In exchange for agreeing to support Henry, the barons demanded that the King reissue Magna Carta and the Charter of the Forest. The content was almost identical to the 1217 versions, but in the new versions, the King declared that the charters were issued of his own "spontaneous and free will" and confirmed them with the royal seal, giving the new Great Charter and the Charter of the Forest of 1225 much more authority than the previous versions.

The barons anticipated that the King would act in accordance with these charters, subject to the law and moderated by the advice of the nobility. Uncertainty continued, and in 1227, when he was declared of age and able to rule independently, Henry announced that future charters had to be issued under his own seal. This brought into question the validity of the previous charters issued during his minority, and Henry actively threatened to overturn the Charter of the Forest unless the taxes promised in return for it were actually paid. In 1253, Henry confirmed the charters once again in exchange for taxation.

Henry placed a symbolic emphasis on rebuilding royal authority, but his rule was relatively circumscribed by Magna Carta. He generally acted within the terms of the charters, which prevented the Crown from taking extrajudicial action against the barons, including the fines and expropriations that had been common under his father, John. The charters did not address the sensitive issues of the appointment of royal advisers and the distribution of patronage, and they lacked any means of enforcement if the King chose to ignore them. The inconsistency with which he applied the charters over the course of his rule alienated many barons, even those within his own faction.

Despite the various charters, the provision of royal justice was inconsistent and driven by the needs of immediate politics: sometimes action would be taken to address a legitimate baronial complaint, while on other occasions the problem would simply be ignored. The royal courts, which toured the country to provide justice at the local level, typically for lesser barons and the gentry claiming grievances against major lords, had little power, allowing the major barons to dominate the local justice system. Henry's rule became lax and careless, resulting in a reduction in royal authority in the provinces and, ultimately, the collapse of his authority at court.

In 1258, a group of barons seized power from Henry in a coup d'état, citing the need to strictly enforce Magna Carta and the Charter of the Forest, creating a new baronial-led government to advance reform through the Provisions of Oxford. The barons were not militarily powerful enough to win a decisive victory, and instead appealed to Louis IX of France in 1263–1264 to arbitrate on their proposed reforms. The reformist barons argued their case based on Magna Carta, suggesting that it was inviolable under English law and that the King had broken its terms.

Louis came down firmly in favour of Henry, but the French arbitration failed to achieve peace as the rebellious barons refused to accept the verdict. England slipped back into the Second Barons' War, which was won by Henry's son, the Lord Edward. Edward also invoked Magna Carta in advancing his cause, arguing that the reformers had taken matters too far and were themselves acting against Magna Carta. In a conciliatory gesture after the barons had been defeated, in 1267 Henry issued the Statute of Marlborough, which included a fresh commitment to observe the terms of Magna Carta.

GREAT CHARTER OF 1297

LINKS & REFERENCE

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Magna-Carta

https://www.parliament.uk/magnacarta

https://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/medieval-england/magna-carta/

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