June 14, 2018
Happy 803rd Birthday, Magna Carta.
Tomorrow, June 15, the Magna Carta (aka The Great Charter) will celebrate its 803rd birthday. The Charter was of course imposed by feudal barons on King John at the banks of the Thames near Windsor, England, on June 15, 1215. By limiting the king's absolute power, and protecting the rights of at least some of his subjects, the document wisely signed that day by King John became a critical building block in both English and American constitutional law.
The Magna Carta did two groundbreaking things. It acknowledged that punishment of citizens must be under the law of the land. More generally, it also gave rise to a settled notion, and expectation, that a monarch should not and cannot act on a completely arbitrary basis. What spurred the barons to confront King John? Answer: Taxes, mainly, without notice, over and over again, to pay for John's lackluster military campaigns on the continent.
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A reprinting in London in 1600s.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:29 PM | Comments (0)