800 YEARS OF HISTORY IN 20 PLACES
Celebrating a document sealed over 800 years ago might not seem like a big deal, especially when the event is viewed from a 21st century perspective. However, Magna Carta or the Great Charter is a notable exception.
This cornerstone of English democracy which established the principle that everyone, including a king is subject to the law while enshrining the rights of “free men” to justice and a fair trial, has inspired generations of political activists including Oliver Cromwell, Mahatma Ghandi, and Nelson Mandela. Magna Carta can also be counted as one of Britain’s most successful exports. It has guided America’s courts in over 900 legal cases, including the 1994 sexual harassment suit filed by Paula Jones against the former US president Bill Clinton!
So, what is it about this document, forced on King John in 1215 by a group of disgruntled barons, that gets academics worked up while inciting levels of admiration that can on occasion seem embarrassingly reverential? The answer is clear from the opening chapter of Derek Taylor’s delightfully written Magna Carta in 20 Places. Taylor, a former ITN foreign correspondent, traces the charter’s story via the twenty places associated with its beginnings and subsequent history including the Welsh Marches, Angeloume France, Runnymede Surrey (where the charter was famously sealed), and the northern Israeli city of Acre. Taylor writes with a lightness of touch that gives the subject an easy accessibility without diminishing the quality of his research.
His journey starts in the City of London’s Royal Exchange (near the Bank of England), where one of 24 murals on its mezzanine level depicts a slightly sentimentalised version of the ground breaking events that took place in Runnymede. It’s no coincidence the picture is in that location since “Magna Carta itself, back in 1215, was a business deal”. Yet as Taylor wittily points out there are moments in the Charter’s story when myth obstructs the accuracy of history. Take the spot where Magna Carta was reputedly sealed. Jerome K Jerome (of Three Men in a Boat fame), claimed it happened on an island in the Thames across from the meadow at Runnymede, something which Taylor disputes:
“Nothing – not the thinnest sliver of evidence – supports the idea that John and the barons assembled on any island.”
Furthermore, given the lack of trust between the king and the barons and the need to find a location where both sides could feel safe, the Charter might not have been sealed in the area marked by the official memorial. A less glamorous explanation is that John and the barons made their deal in the area near “the roundabouts, bridges, underpasses and slip roads by the M25”.
In some respects, it doesn’t matter where in Runnymede Magna Carta was negotiated – the fact that it happened in the first place is what counts! This little corner of Surrey was the magnificent springboard from which a unique article of medieval history would go on to shape the world. The architects of the 1948 UN Declaration of Human Rights cited Magna Carta’s influence, as did those responsible for drawing up the 1791 US Bill of Rights. That may have been bad news for Bill Clinton but as the spirit of the Great Charter shows, even the Commander in Chief of a global superpower is accountable to his subjects!
Reviewed by Juliette Foster
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