Magna Carta

1. Background

Philip and Arthur started the conflict by attacking John’s French territories. Arthur was captured while attempting to take the castle of Mirabeau (where his grandmother Eleanor was staying.) John imprisoned him, Rouen Castle, where he died, probably murdered by John. Philip was furious and with the extra energy of hatred took all English lands in France with the exception of the extreme western part on the Atlantic coast north of Spain and south of the river Loire. (approx 300 miles north-south by 50 miles. Or Bordeaux and the west of Gascony. The land lost included Normandy, perhaps still the emotional home of the English Kings, and its loss caused John and the Barons (who had also lost much land) to consider England as their home (or perhaps their only safe home) for the first time.

-1205: the power of a Medieval Pope. A religious upheaval was commenced by the death of the Archbishop of Canterbury. John and his elder monks voted for John de Grey Bishop of Norwich but the younger monks chose a Reginald. John sent to Rome for an adjudication. Pope Innocent 3rd ignored both local preferences and appointed Stephen Langton who King John rejected.

-1208: the Pope was furious and set out to punish John and England as follows.

 The Pope pronounced an interdict which forbade any religious service to be held other than for the baptism of infants. The purpose was to set the people of England against John. For 4 years nobody could be buried in Church land and no “Mass” was allowed which eliminated the chance of the people “confessing” or the dead being prayed for to move them through purgatory. To the God-fearing mind of the superstitious medievals, this was frightening.

 John still refused to budge so the Pope excommunicated him which meant John would believe he had no chance of going to heaven. John reacted by seizing the property of the clergy and bishops.

 Finally the Pope declared that John was no longer King of England and appointed the French King Phillip to the throne and told Philip to attack England.

-1213: After 5 years religious persecution by the Pope, John and the Barons were in no mood to fight a war with Philip and John agreed to the Pope’s demands and, accept Langton as Archbishop, returned the church property and paid an annual tribute of 1000 marks to Rome. The Pope ordered Philip to stand down. But Philip was so incensed that he turned his assembled French army on Flanders.

-1214: Flanders was a major trading partner for English sheep’s wool so John had little difficulty in persuading the Barons to produce an army to defend Flanders. Unfortunately Philip was too good a soldier and at the battle of Bouvines, King John’s army under the Earl of Salisbury, supported by the Count of Flanders and Otto Emperor of Germany were defeated. Philip 2nd Augustus is sometimes called the creator of modern France

2. The Charter

If the Battle of Bouvines created modern France it certainly created modern England. The English Barons, as well as King John, had lost all their land in France and so for the first time had to concentrate on making England their only home. There was no real need for them to be bilingual French/English. Most of them had indeed spoken English poorly. They were fed up with the King who they felt must no longer be allowed to be a loose cannon and should now be brought under the rule of law, the same as everybody else.

-1213: The Pope’s Archbishop of Canterbury Stephen Langton supported the Barons “uprising” as it developed firstly in Northumbria where the Barons were not old French blood but new self-made men of Anglo stock. Langton presented the demands of the northern barons to the others at a meeting at St Paul’s based on the coronation charter of Henry I.

-1214: At Bury St Edmunds the Barons took an oath to compel King John to sign a charter detailing agreed rights and liberties or they would take up arms against him.

-1215: the Barons rode into the walled city of London with their charter and were well received by the populace and the King saw that he had the whole country against him. Hence the first bill of rights and responsibilities signed under oath by any king anywhere in the world. King John appealed to the Pope who backed John and suspended Archbishop Langton. John immediately recruited an army of mercenaries marched to and sacked Northumbria. The Barons then recruited none other than the son of King Philip of France Prince Louis who on arriving in London found himself the new uncrowned popular King of England. John still in the north hurried towards London and en-route took a short cut over the Wash with his army and all his wealth including the crown of Edward the Confessor. (Also more importantly all the jewellery of his mother Eleanor of Aquitaine who was the richest woman in the world at the time.) He lost the lot as it sank into the quicksands helped by the rapid incoming tide. A daily occurrence was well known to the locals but not the King.

-1216: With nothing left to pay his army John fled to Swinestead Abbey in Newark where he fell ill or perhaps he was poisoned and died aged 49.When King John’s son Henry was made King the Barons and the people dropped the Frenchman, Prince Louis.

3. The Birth of Parliament

In 1215 the barons refused to pay the scutage, conspired to resist the King who raised the taxes, they also occupied London and made King John sign the Magna Carta. This important document consisted of promising freedoms to all people; protecting the rights of ordinary people; giving England the basis of a legal system; promising to have good and fair laws, and preventing any freeman from being punished without a proper trial. In many ways, Magna Carta only protected the rights and privileges of nobles. However, as time passed, the English people came to regard it as one of the foundations of their rights and liberties.

King Edward I and the Model Parliament

From the earliest times, the kings of England had assembled nobles and other important subjects in the witan, or council, to advise them. The transition from the king’s council to Parliament was gradual. In 1295 the meeting of king Edward I's council, King John's grandson,  was known as ‘The Model Parliament’, England’s first Parliament.  King Edward I took a major step by calling together a governing body that included commoners and lower-ranking clergy, as well as high-level Church officials and nobles. The Impact of Political Developments in England These political changes contributed to the decline of feudalism in two ways. Some of the changes strengthened royal authority at the expense of the nobles. Others eventually shifted some power to the common people. According to Smithson "Magna Carta established the idea of rights and liberties that even a monarch cannot violate. This document also affirmed that monarchs should rule with the advice of the governed. Henry II's legal reforms strengthened English common law and the role of judges and juries". We deduce that Edward I's Model Parliament gave a voice in government to common people, as well as to nobles. All these ideas formed the basis for the development of modern democratic institutions.