History of England 1-6

The manoeuvre did not succeed. On 5 May the barons renounced their fealty to the king and, under the leadership of Robert Fitzwalter, opened hostilities. They besieged Northampton Castle, a royal stronghold, and on 17 May occupied London. This was in itself a notable achievement, and tilted the balance of military power clearly in favour of the barons. More of them declared against the king.

John decided to procrastinate in the well-known form of conducting negotiations. He asked Stephen Langton to arrange a truce, so that some form of settlement might be reached. It is clear enough, however, that he never had any intention of honouring any such agreement. He believed himself to be upholding the rights of a sovereign king against rebellious subjects. In this belief, he was joined by the pope. The barons, however, accepted his invitation. Let the day be the fifteenth of June, they replied. Let the place be Runnemead. Runnemede, or Runnymede, is a meadow on the Surrey side of the river Thames near Windsor; there is a small island or eyot in the middle of the river, where the bargain was supposed to be sealed. A yew tree that was growing there in 1215 still stands.

Some informal notes survive that appear to have been taken down at the time of preliminary negotiations; they may reflect the words the king actually used. Early on it is declared that ‘King John concedes that he will not take a man without judgment nor accept anything for justice, nor do injustice’. The barons wished to readjust the balance of power in their favour. They wanted to be secure in their lands and castles, unmolested by the king or the king’s men. They also wished to be freed from the financial exactions imposed by John.

Various meetings were held between the opposing parties, with Stephen Langton acting as mediator. A preliminary document was then drawn up, by a chancery clerk, known as the ‘Articles of the Barons’. The Magna Carta, or Great Charter, emerged from the baronial articles. It was called great because of its length, not because of its importance. Yet it was the work of highly intelligent and experienced administrators who in an almost literal sense stood at the king’s side to urge compromise and restraint. They were also instrumental in persuading the barons to come to terms wider than their own private interests. By 19 June the agreement had been reached. The barons gave their king the kiss of peace, and then he granted the charter.

Over the next five days several copies were made and sent over the kingdom; four of them can still be seen. One of those, preserved in the Cottonian Library of the British Library, contains some eighty-six lines (with additions) written on a skin of parchment, measuring 14½ inches (36.8 centimetres) in breadth by 20½ inches (52 centimetres) in length. It is much shrivelled and mutilated, and has survived at least one fire that reduced the seal to pulp. It is said to have been purchased by Sir Robert Cotton at the beginning of the seventeenth century, for the sum of fourpence, from a tailor who was about to cut it up for his own purposes. Once the copies had been completed by the clerks, they were proclaimed by the sheriffs in their various county courts.

But this was not a new code of law. It was not even a summary of the great principles of legislation. It was essentially an attempt by the barons to return to the state of affairs before the dominance of the Angevin kings. It did not represent some spirit of ‘progress’ or ‘development’ in human affairs. None of the participants would have known what those words meant. It was in part a reactionary document. Villeins and slaves, the most numerous portion of the kingdom, were never mentioned. The unfree were of no consequence. Their ‘progress’ over the centuries was slow and uncertain. This was a charter for the liber homo or free man.

Many specific measures were adopted within its sixty-three clauses. The old liberties of the Church were to be respected. Taxes, known as scutages or aids, should not be levied on the nation without the approval of the common council; some have seen this as the emergence of the principle of ‘no taxation without representation’, but the common council consisted only of archbishops, bishops, earls, barons and tenants-in-chief. They were not ‘the people’ of a self-governing kingdom.