“Invoke Clause 61 of the Magna Carta,” declared the petition. “The right to lawful rebellion.” Tabled earlier this year on Parliament’s website, the author went on to explain that this ancient legal text specifies that when Parliament has betrayed the people, the people can lawfully storm Parliament.
Now, my medieval Latin is no great shakes, but unless I’m missing something, this nameless petitioner is wrong on a number of counts. First, as any constitutional pedant will tell you, it isn’t the Magna Carta, just Magna Carta, because Latin doesn’t use articles like the and a. Second, the document doesn’t actually have any clauses — in its original form, it was just continuous text.
The clauses have been added on in later versions to make it more comprehensible. And finally, rather importantly, Magna Carta says nothing at all about storming Parliament, which didn’t exist yet, and didn’t have its own building — rather a prerequisite for being stormed — for another 300 years.
In fact, the words usually referred to as Clause 61 set out how 25 Barons may confiscate the property of the king if he defies them (with a special exemption for the Queen and the royal children, who retained the dubious privilege of remaining the King’s property whatever he did).
And yet I understand why this petitioner made his mistakes. He has soared to the Premier League of our national pastime of misremembering Magna Carta: what it was for, what it achieved, and what it means today.
Magna Carta, a treaty signed at Runnymede by King John in 1215 at the behest of his barons, is part of our national myth. Salisbury Cathedral (which owns one of the four original copies from that year) describes it as a “symbol of justice, fairness and human rights”. Lord Denning, a respected judge from the olden days when judges were respected, called it “the greatest constitutional document of all times — the foundation of the freedom of the individual against the arbitrary authority of the despot.”
Oh how charming, and comfortable it is, to imagine that Britain invented human rights and freedom from tyranny. It fits with such a delightful story about England, the Mother of Parliaments and the champion of democracy. It’s the tale told in that ghastly standard historical text of the post-war era, Our Island Story, recently republished after a campaign by a bunch of people who believe the sole purpose of our school system should be indoctrinating every child in the fantasy of English exceptionalism.
But Magna Carta is not the foundation stone of freedom. It was a peace treaty on victor’s terms, establishing an oligarchy of the barons, satisfying their narrow interests and protecting their property from an overbearing king. Read through the text and you won’t find any uplifting prose about the value of humanity: no “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”; no “all men are created equal.”
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
Subscribe