Royal family at Runnymede
KING JOHN and the barons who agreed Magna Carta at Runnymede in 1215 would have been “bemused”, suggested Lord Dyson, that thousands of people would gather 800 years on in the same muddy field to celebrate its existence.
Their Great Charter lasted only 10 weeks before it was annulled and war ensued, but as the Master of the Rolls told the international audience gathered together yesterday, it contained the seed of democracy and civil liberty for which it remains revered around the world.
Loretta Lynch, the US Attorney General, who flew in from a country not even officially discovered in 1215, was among the guests paying homage to a document that has echoed down the ages, notably in the words of the US Constitution.
The authors of Magna Carta, or the Articles of the Barons as it was known when it was sealed, may have pondered whether the monarchy would one day fail, but it might not have occurred to them that it was vital to the survival of the Royal family, a fact not lost on the Queen and other members attending the ceremony. By setting out such vital principles as the rule of law, the right to jury trial and the end of the sovereign’s absolute power, it held off revolution and formed the basis of the successful constitutional monarchy we still have today.
It was appropriate that the Princess Royal should, in a speech, point out that “no person is above the law” thanks to Magna Carta. Her various court appearances for driving offences and for failing to control her dogs are illustrations of what the document ultimately achieved.
Lord Dyson told the audience of invited guests: “King John and the barons would have been bemused that thousands of people from all over the world were willing to set off at the crack of dawn to come here today, in order to stand for several hours in a field without shelter and uncertain of the elements. All this to mark what they did in 1215.
“They would surely have been astonished to learn that over time Magna Carta came to be regarded as one of the most important constitutional documents in our history and that it continues to be so regarded 800 years after it was sealed on this very spot.
“They would not have believed that the barons’ list of demands would become a symbol of democracy, justice, human rights and perhaps above all the rule of law for the whole world. But that is exactly what has happened.”
He said its words still had a “thrilling majesty” even today, and quoted his predecessor, Lord Denning, who described Magna Carta as “the greatest constitutional document of all time”.
David Cameron, the Prime Minister, said: “We talk about the law of the land, and this is the very land where that law – and the rights that flow from it – took root. Magna Carta is something every person in Britain should be proud of. Its remaining copies may be faded, but its principles shine as brightly as ever, in every courtroom and every classroom, from palace to Parliament to parish church.
“Liberty, justice, democracy, the rule of law – we hold these things dear, and we should hold them even dearer for the fact that they took shape right here, on the banks of the Thames.”
No one knows for certain why Runnymede was chosen for the sealing of Magna Carta, or exactly where on the site the deed was carried out. The most likely explanation is that it was halfway between Windsor Castle and Staines, where the barons were camped when they demanded their rights under threat of civil war.
The Queen unveiled a plaque to commemorate the 800th anniversary and met members of the large American contingent who perhaps cherish Magna Carta more than the British do.
It was the American Bar Association that paid for the only significant memorial to Magna Carta on the site, a rotunda installed in 1957, which was rededicated in the presence of the Princess Royal yesterday. Earlier, the Duke of Cambridge unveiled an artwork commissioned for the occasion called The Jurors, in the form of 12 bronze chairs representing the jury system, which grew out of Magna Carta.
The chairs feature 24 stories relating to justice, including those of Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi and Oscar Wilde’s The Ballad of Reading Gaol.
The Duke sat in one of the chairs as the artist, Hew Locke, and 10 members of the public filled the others to form the first gathering at a place where Mr Locke hopes people will sit to contemplate and discuss the principles of justice.
He said: “The Duke was quite fascinated by it. My impression was when we started talking about the Mandela chair he got interested in that.” As well as being the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta, 2015 is also the 750th anniversary of the first modern parliament, called by Simon de Montfort, leader of the rebellion against Henry III, when ordinary citizens from the shires and boroughs came together in the forerunner of the House of Commons.
Once the formalities were over, packed lunches were handed out to the guests, who turned Runnymede into a giant picnic site. After the grandiose speeches that talked of history, it was the ability to enjoy this most simple of British pleasures on this particular spot that perhaps best summed up how we are still benefiting from the freedoms enshrined in Magna Carta.