MAGNA CARTA BIRTHDAY PARTY

Once Upon A Time The English People Were Heard In The Magna Carta. Weren’t They?

If you could read the Magna Carta, you’d come across the part about arresting freemen for no cause.

It’s the most popular part.

By 1215 most freemen had had enough problems with King John. Now you needed a reason to take them downtown. It was the law.

As far as laws go, it didn’t go far enough.

Hands off freemen didn’t mean hands off everyone else.

Was the law against jus primae noctis (law of the first night), or droit du seigneur (the lord’s right) in the Magna Carta?

History is inconsistent as to whether King John and other royals honeymooned with newlyweds minus the husband.

If his barons were upset about too much royal power, wouldn’t you want a law forbidding the king cuddling your new wife?

Hands off freemen and their wives, but open season on everyone else?

King John’s nickname in France was ‘Soft Sword.’ Not good.

Today the Magna Carta enjoys a reputation as a leading document of democracy.

The path to the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights traces back to the old sheep skin.

All four surviving Magna Cartas will share their June 15 birthday at the British Library.

Sort of reunion, like getting the band back together.

It’s not John, Paul, George, and Ringo, but Magna Carta music still plays.

Over the last 800 years Magna Carta has had a rougher time than expected in theory and fact.

Professional restoration experts keep the documents in shape, filing condition reports regularly.

Too much sunlight, too much humidity? No one wants to be hash tagged as the one who ruins a Magna Carta.

#Magnacartadestroyer? That’s a label that would last at least 800 years.

But it happens.

One curator worked on a Magna Carta while enjoying a cup of tea. Probably had a scone, too.

Magna Carta enjoyed the tea when someone, somehow, tipped the cup over on the work table.

Who was it?

Look at the four above. One of them looks like it was peeled off a barn stall floor. All nasty looking.

One looks like a school boy had it folded in his pocket. Notice how light colored it is?

Now look at the one below.

Same Magna Carta, just darker.

What happened? Twenty years of cleaning.

It probably had a treatment the way the Sistine Chapel was cleaned to show Michelangelo’s vibrant colors.

If Kris Kristofferson had written Magna Carta it would have a line like, “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose,” which is probably the way King John’s barons felt at Runnymede.

Somehow the finer points of Biblical law eluded the King.

He didn’t find the Golden Rule in Luke 6:31 or Matthew 7:12 so his barons reminded him to do to others as you would have them do to you.

The Ten Commandments must have escaped King John. The short version covers so much so well:

1. You shall have no other gods before Me.
2. You shall not make idols.
3. You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain.
4. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
5. Honor your father and your mother.
6. You shall not murder.
7. You shall not commit adultery.
8. You shall not steal.
9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
10. You shall not covet.

Where kings ruled through divine right, and disagreeing with the king was a religious affront, the barons of King John’s time had much in common with the signers of the American Declaration of Independence.

Is there a list of barons who signed Magna Carta? Of course.

The difference between the two groups is the English barons wanted King John to ease up on the demands he put on them.

The Americans who signed the Declaration of Independence over five hundred years after Magna Carta leaned on that document when they told England where to shove it in nicer words.

From archives.gov:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Good words to live by. Do you have any you’d like to add in comments? Please do.