Dan Snow's History Hit - Magna Carta

Episode Date: September 30, 2025

Dan and leading medieval historians explain everything you need to know about Magna Carta...and the story is more dramatic than you might think. Magna Carta sprang from an England on the brink of civil war; the feeble king John left grappling for control after a disastrous defeat in France in the early 13th century and a baron's rebellion in England. It was forged at a standoff on the banks of the Thames in 1215 and still provides the basis of law for most of the English-speaking world today.With thanks to Dr Michael Livingston, Dan Jones and Dr Jess Nelson.This episode was produced by Mariana Des Forges and edited by Dougal Patmore with additional production from Mark Edger.Click here to listen to Dan's explainer on William the MarshalClick here to listen to Dan's explainer on Richard the LionheartYou can sign up to watch Dan and Dr Michael Livingston's documentary series on Magna Carta on https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.We'd love to hear your feedback - you can take part in our podcast survey here: https://insights.historyhit.com/history-hit-podcast-always-on.You can also email the podcast directly at [e-mail]. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello folks, Dan Snow here. I am throwing a party to celebrate 10 years of Dan Snow's history hit. I'd love for you to be there. Join me for a very special live recording of the podcast in London, in England on the 12th of September to celebrate the 10 years. You can find out more about it and get tickets with the link in the show notes. Look forward to seeing you there. We counted the sets of security doors as we passed through them, reinforced, pass key protected. In the end, we worked out that were at least four layers of security of one of the most important documents in history.

As we got through the final set of doors, We entered the strong room. There were manuscript boxes and tubes lying the shelves. In the middle, there was a down lamp that was sending a splash of light onto one particular box that had been laid out there, like a patient on a surgical table. Behind us, a climate control unit hummed

and rumbled, they ended up working rather harder than usual to maintain the humidity levels as we all piled into the room. With a nod, the careful curators lifted the top off the box. They removed a further protective sheet and unveiled the manuscript that lay beneath. We were now in the presence of Magna Carta.

It might be the most famous medieval manuscript, but it's certainly not the prettiest. There are no illustrations in the margins or fancy calligraphy. The copy that we were looking at had sat in a provincial library for centuries. It had got wet there, it rotted a little bit, so there were a few holes, now expertly patched up by the team at the National Archives. It looks like one solid mass of text. At the bottom, it has faded 13th century ribbons that are

still attached, and they used to support a large wax seal, one on which the image of the king himself was stamped. This Magna Carta was issued by the king. But in the presence of the great men of the realm, a who's who of the powerful political elite of the 13th century. It's a very frail thing, showing its age at 800 years old. But it's also evidence of just how mighty the humble pen can be. The words formed by that pen. The words that make up Magna Carta.

They are a thing of remarkable strength. But the strength doesn't lie in the physicality of that manuscript. It's a strength that we give it. We endow it with strength by believing in those words. If we stop caring, if we stop believing in it, then it's just a scrap of ancient charter. And there are plenty more of those in this building. Magna Carta matters, I think,

because generation after generation of us have chosen to make it matter. Magna Carta is one of our foundations. We have made it so. We've made it a cornerstone of a world in which we believe that even the sovereign is subject to the law. In the world that we've built, you can fight the government in a court and you can win. You can demand due process. You can expect that your property, your money, your family, they're all going to be free from arbitrary seizure. But that's as a result of a process that stretches back to the earliest moments of our species

as soon as we had voices to remonstrate with the leader of the pack. And that's the story, it's a battle that remains unfinished today. Magna Carta is something that people return to again and again. Opponents of Henry 3rd, of Emma the 2nd, of Richard the 2nd, opponents of Charles I, the punits of George II, the American revolutionaries. They were all influenced by Magna Carta. In fact, those American founding fathers specifically incorporated its spirit

as they put pen to paper in Philadelphia 250 years ago. Gandhi asked the British for the protections of Magna Carta. Mandela cited it when he was on trial for murder. Its spirit infused those who drafted the UN Declaration of Universal Human Rights. And the story of how all that came to be is as dramatic as any I've ever told on this podcast. It's a story that springs from an England on the brink of civil war, of a feeble king disastrous defeat in France,

a man whose desperation to prove himself on the battlefield turned his nobles against him in a fierce rebellion, of a capital city seized and a monarch left grappling for control, and a standoff on the banks of the Thames that forged. the path of our histories. It's an essential story. It's the story of how we normies, how we little people,

hold our leaders to account, how we persuade our rulers to exercise restraint, ideally even to regard themselves as bound by law and traditional practices, to treat us with justice. And indeed, it's in Magna Carta that you read the famous line, to no one will refuse or refuse,

delay, right, or justice. Those are the words. That's the idea that people fought and died for 800 years ago. And they still do today. You're listening to Dan Snow's history, and this is the incredible story of Magna Carta. In the decades before Magna Carta, at the end of the 12th century. Western Europe, well, there was a lot of chaos around.

There was almost constant war and fragile alliances. The kings wore crowns on their head, but power was not guaranteed by this alone. A molecule failed to assert himself, quickly found his influence slipping into the hands of ambitious nobles or family members or local warlords. And this was particularly true in what we call the enjavan Empire, the Plantagenet Empire, the realm that spanned Ireland, England, Wales and parts of France, ruled over at its height by Henry II and his Queen Eleanor of Akritaine. There's was the empire that when it worked as it should stretch from the Scottish border to the Pyrenees, from Ireland to the Alps.

And in fact, at its height, Henry II commanded more of France than the French king himself. But even Henry had to worry about that elite class. of nobles, the barons whose stone castles dominated the skyline, the lords who within those castles could command private armies of knights. They were the men whom the king depended on for his armies, for his rule, but they were also men with a fierce streak of independence who could topple a king or undermine him if they were so inclined. And that streak of independence was exacerbated by the drama that lay at the heart of a Plantagenet family. Henry, Second's family was plagued by bitter rivalries. He had four sons that survived into adulthood.

Henry the Young King, Rich the Lionheart, and Geoffrey of Brittany, repeatedly turned against their father and some each other, and often an open rebellion, sometimes encouraged by their mother, Eleanor. John, the youngest, well, he grew up in the shadow of these larger-than-life figures in a family that was dazzling at its peak, but was often brought down by mistrust and ambition. There's a prologue to this podcast I'm doing now. Well, there's a couple really. I did one recently on Richard the Lionheart, which I've put in the show notes for you to find, but he also might want to listen to the one on William the Marshall, who played such a key role right throughout this period. But if you don't want to listen to those episodes, then I'll give you

the precy here. John took over the throne from his childless brother, Rich, in 1199, after Richard was killed or mortally wounded during a siege. He inherited an enjavan empire that was in absolute crisis. The King of France had sought any opportunity to chip away at the lands of the King of England. And it required someone of Richard the Lionheart's charisma and martial abilities to hold it together. Sadly, though, for the Plantagenet family, John was, well, he was not his brother Richard. In fact, he became known as John Lackland because he hadn't been expected to inherit anything at all from his father Henry. But really the name ended up as an appropriate royal epithet because over years of his rule, he lost a lot of land. From the moment he took the crown, things start to

unravel. And I'm joined now by Dr. Michael Livingstone. He's going to help me here explain what puts England on the road to Magna Carta. Mike Livingston, great to have you on the podcast. Thanks for having me, Dan. This is awesome. Okay, who was the worst king in English history and why was it King John? We think of John as being worse than he was, but he was still really bad. That's what It's worth. Poor guy. His dad's a bit of a hero. His mum's a bit of a hero.

Henry II, Eleanor of Aquitaine, they have carved out this giant Western European empire. His big brother, Richard, is a total baller, legendary crusader. I mean, just like a hero. And then Richard dies that as, well, tell me about John coming to the throne. How's that'll work out? You know, Richard, he dies in 1199, rather young. And there's what's sometimes called the first 100 years war,

this Angevin-Capetian conflict over like, who's in charge of all these lands in France? And the French kings, the Capetians, well, all the lands in France are ours. But all these, like more than half of the Kingdom of France, as we conceive of it, is at this point held by English. And what are those lands? Are those lands now English, or are they French lands that are being held by the English? And there's a central conflict there. And Richard dies with all of this unresolved. and who's going to be the heir?

It appears that as he's kind of going down, Richard says his brother should be the heir, John, supposedly. According to John, but John's not the only game in town. Prior to this point, the assumption really would have been that Arthur of Brittany, a young lad, he's the nephew of King Richard. So grandson of Henry II would have been the sort of designated heir. And you don't have these sort of strict rules about who comes and goes on the throne like we have now. So Arthur Brittany was a potential claimant.

Many people thought like the guy who would have been king here. And yeah, at this point, by one sort of scheme of how you designate the king, he should be the guy. Richard says it should be John. Either man is facing an amazing opponent, which is Philippe II of France. and as he has been for generations, essentially he starts playing these guys off each other. And he says, okay, John, I'm actually going to support Arthur Brittany for the throne of England. So your throne is now subject to question. And Arthur Brittany will support the fact that all these lands on the continent are really French and the English are just holding them.

And when that happens, John is in such a weak position already that he kind of doesn't have a lot of cards that he can play and he ultimately agrees to the treaty of la goulaye which is sort of not a treaty a lot of people think of but it's really important because in this treaty in 1200 john says that those lands everything except for gascony so normandy all these other lands in france are really french lands and i'm only holding them in a kind of feudal relationship with the king of france big win for philippe big win and enormous problems back home the barons are furious that he's done this. But it makes the whole Arthur Brittany thing kind of go away a little bit, but also gives Philippe more cards to play because he can now say, I don't think you're

doing what you're supposed to do in this relationship, and I can take those lands back, which he then does. So John's already on the back foot. Is he fit to be king? Does he have the temperament, the political skills, the military skills to be king in this period? This is a really hard question and answer, because John, his reputation is so tainted so quickly. And he's working from such a back foot that it's kind of hard to negotiate, like, what reality was. Was John capable of being a good king? Maybe. I mean, I don't know.

I don't think Richard I first was a good king. So there you go. And he's, like, held up as one of the great kings. And I'm like, he was not a good king for England. I don't know. The idea that John was sort of intrinsically bad, I don't think is quite fair. But at the same time, he's absolutely an incredibly outggy. by being up against Philippe II.

Philippe II is a fantastic king, and he gets the job done. And that job is he recovers, or he conquers, that French land that's being held by the kings of England, either, as you say in a feudal relationship as kind of dukes of Normandy and dukes of enjou, or as kings of England. Anyway, that gets resolved pretty quick in the beginning of the 13th century because Philip just blitzkriegs through it, right? Now that he has the English king saying,

oh, these lands are really French, I'm just holding him. He's got an excuse. Philippe, yeah, comes storming in. It takes some time. The big thing he's really got to take is Chateau Geyer, and that siege is a long, drawn-out siege. But once he takes Chateau-Gaard in 1204, that's it. I mean, he just blows right over Ruan, and he's got it all. And now, John is in the position of having started off week and then makes this treaty to kind of save his skin, loses all this stuff.

again, right? And he goes from being John Lackland, right? So he went John Lackland because of the earlier agreements how the father had disseminated the lands to the sons. He was Lackland. Now everybody's just started calling him soft sword with the wink-wink implication of what that means that he's got a soft sword this fellow, which is fantastic. Can you imagine being younger brother to the Lionheart and your nickname is Soft Sword? I mean, it's too much. It's too much. Okay, so how does he respond. He's determined to prove his sword has got steel in it. And he tries to build up a war chest, right? He wants to reconquer that land. Yeah, you're getting any money. And, well, where are you going to get the money from? Well, I can't get it from these lands that have been taken. I got to get from

back home. And that means getting it from the barons in England. And this is the source of the major conflict. It's him trying to get money to go back. And always that's running afoul of the barons. Like, we've given you enough money and you haven't used it. Well, why would we want to give you more. In addition to that, he's also present in England in a way that kings of England hadn't been for a while, right? Richard did not spend hardly any time in England. England was just something he was using to fund his continental empire. John doesn't have that anymore. He's there, and he's now actively getting money and actively engaging in the politics of the barons, and nobody likes that. Let's just quickly look at the way that he's raising money, because

he's taking advantage of sort of customary ways of raising money, but he's kind of turning the screws, right? He's just perhaps not unlike Charles I first in the 17th century. He's riding his prerogatives as hard as he can. He really is not inventing new ways of doing this. He's using the old mechanisms, but he's just trying to squeeze more out of the system, right? The system has given X percent, and he's like,

well, let's just dial that up, right? Let's crank it up because I need it. if I'm going to get these lands back, I need an army, and I'm going to need to have the logistics to transport that army and feed that army. I need the money. And there is this kind of growing concern that even if we give you the money, are you going to do anything good with it, right? Is this going to lead to anything good? And that struggle is valid, I think. I mean, I think John is not a terrific military leader. He's, I don't think as bad as people kind of want to picture him, but I do think the baron's probably got a little bit of a sense of the wind.

We give this guy a clean check. He's going to probably waste a lot of it. And that then causes an initial breach between the crown and subjects that then gets even more complicated with what happens with the church. To make a long story short, King John clashed with, well, with everyone, but the church in 12.05 in particular, over the appointment of the new Archbishop of Canterbury, John rejected the Pope's choice, Stephen Langton, and Pope, Innocent III, retaliated by closing the churches of England, suspending the sacraments and excommunicating John calling for him to be deposed. Now, this is a PR nightmare that John made worse by escalating. He sees lots of the church's money, which infuriated the Pope still further.

But after a while, he backtracked in a desperate attempt to convince the Pope to, convince the Pope to, to come alongside him as an ally. He was in trouble. In a dramatic and probably humiliating actor's submission, he accepted Stephen Langton as Archbishop, and he ended up ceremonially surrendering England and France to the Pope as papal fiefs, territories under the official spiritual rule of the Pope. As I said, the whole thing was a PR, well, and a real world, strategic disaster for John. It really solidified in people's minds. He was at best weak and malleable, but at worst, a sort of deviant heretic. If we scoop forward to 12, 12 now, John's in a position where he's unpopular with the English barons.

He's lost his lands in France, including Normandy. His relationship with the church is clinging by a thread. He's looking for a way to retrench, to build his power, to prove that he's the king that England needs. And so he decides to roll the dice. He decides to gamble. He's going to try and recoup all his forfeited family lands in France from the French king. And that's when we get probably the most important battle in English history that you've never heard of. This is such a massively important battle.

And most people don't know about it. It is incredible. You know, what John realizes, to his credit, and again, I'm not a John Truthor. John's a bad guy. But to his credit, he realizes, look, I'm not the only one who has something against Philippe II of France. Philippe II of France is pushing against kind of everybody around him and really, really, really, kind of. of throwing his weight around. And to this point, nobody's been able to stand up to him.

And John starts putting together a sort of Avengers team here, if you will, of folks who don't like Philippe. And let's all get together. And we may have differences between us, but you know who we really hate, that guy. Let's get that guy. And in particular, he gets a deal made between himself, Otto the 4th, who's one of the two claimants to be the Holy Roman Emperor. Philippe is supporting his rival.

Ferrand of Flanders, who is the count of Flanders, under the auspices of the French king, Renaud of Boulogne, a whole bunch of people in the low countries, a bunch of leaders in low countries. Let's all get together, band together, and let's get Philippe. And this leads to the Battle of Bouvene in 1214, which John's not actually there. So he funds most of this, arranges most of this,

but isn't actually at the, fight because the idea is we'll take sort of a pincer effect of invasions to really mess up Philippe's intention to defend against this. So John actually invades from the opposite side, from the south and west, invading towards Paris. And the plan is that while he's doing that, all the rest of this crew is going to invade from the northeast. And that's kind of like pincer, Philippe. And unfortunately, the rest of the team doesn't get together in time. In the south-west of France, King John landed at La Rochelle and began his advance. But the decisive clash took place barroway.

It took place in the north. In Flanders, where so many decisive moments in European military history do take place. It was on a hot Sunday afternoon. The French King's army were returning eastward from a raid into Flanders. They crossed a bridge at the village of Bouvine, just outside modern Lille, and the imperial Allied army led by Holy Roman Emperor Otto IV. and Count Ferand de Flanders and William de Longspay, he was in command of the English forces,

they emerged suddenly from the forest of the south, and there, in the fields by the bridge, the battle is forward. Brutal, intimate combat, hand-to-hand swelter. Knights using heavy lances for that initial charge, shattering them against enemy shields, then drawing swords, maces, axes for close combat, infantry meanwhile, fighting with their spears and their pikes, archers with their crossbows

At one desperate moment The King of France was hauled down Saved by the heroism of his bodyguard For four or five hours The fight rages in the summer heat Steel on steel There's mud and blood and chaos But in the end

French discipline and cohesion Carried a day The Count of Flanders taking prison So was William Longspan The Holy Roman Emperor Otto flees Several hundred mercenaries from Brabant Are butchered after the surrender The Coalition

hastily stitched together only days before, just shatters in defeat. Against all odds, King Philip of France has snatched a crushing victory. When word of the disaster reaches John in the South, well, the plan is over, it collapses. He disappears back to the coast. His lands in France are now certainly lost. Any prestige he had left, utterly destroyed. And in England, the barons who bore the cost of this failed war began to plot rebellion. This is just disastrous for John Wright. It's the second time he's lost a pile of money and has been completely bested on the battlefield. He's taken all this money that he's squeezed out of all these guys.

And he's put it into this grand alliance. This is going to happen. This is going to do it, guys. And it utterly fails. Not only does he kind of fail to get his objectives, the other crew all fail. and Philippe comes out of this stronger than ever. He's now Philippe Augustus, which is a pretty good title to be getting.

And he's now got his thumb on everybody in Europe. Yeah, John is absolutely hat in hand when he comes back to England and has the temerity when he comes back to be like, all right, well, let's start getting some money. Like, I'll get him in the fourth quarter. Like, no, you will not, man, this is done. He's right where I want.

He's right where I want. They'll never suspect it. now. Yeah, the barons are just furious, absolutely furious at this. Like, this is the last straw and essentially go straight under rebellion, right? The first baron revolt pops right out of this. We're on Magna Carta coming up after this. That was the motto and the master plan of the family that through strategic marriages and, in breeding, didn't just gain power, they became Europe. I'm Professor Susanna Lipscomb, and in a new series on Not Just the Tudors, I'm coming face to face with the emperors, kings and queens who shaped the continent, not to mention their own jaw lines. Power, scandal and naked ambition.

Delve into the dynasty that ruled half the known world on not just the Tudor. from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts. By spring 1215, John's failures are manifest. They're piled high. He'd lost Normandy in his French lands. He'd been utterly smashed at Bovine the previous summer. There was no hope of recovery. English barons have been bled dry by John's relentless taxation to fund his wars and had suffered from his personal acts of cruelty. They're angry and their dissolution. The barons met in January 1215,

and they swore an oath to resist the king and raise their banners in rebellion. At first, John seems to have the advantage. He has loyal mercenaries, he's got the backing of the Pope. The rebels attack Northampton but failed to capture the castle, and without a secure base, their uprising looks like it's going to collapse. But do they turn back? Do they give up? No, they do not.

They do not. They risk all. They dialed up to 11. They set their sights on even bigger prize, the biggest of them all. London. On the 17th of May 1215, the rebel army approaches the capital. And Londoners, merchants, aldermen, citizens, they'd long resented John's heavy taxation and arbitrary justice. London has always had a slightly uneasy relationship with the King of England, and they threw open at their gates. They took great pleasure in assisting the barons to enter the city. And so, the barons face little resistance. Indeed, the chronicler suggests it was a popular uprising. There were people surging into the streets and attacking royal officials and welcoming the rebels as liberators. This is a proper disaster for John. London is the most important city now in rebel baron hands, the wealthiest city in the kingdom gone. A king without his capital is weak. And it's particularly valuable for the barons symbolically, but also logistically. They've got a secure base they can negotiate from. And in the days that follow more and more nobles, desert John and join the rebel cause. The rebellion is spreading and John now faces the very

realistic prosperity of civil war. He agrees to meet with the barons in a meadow outside the capital to negotiate a way forward, one that doesn't involve full-scale war, lots of bloodshed. That's why in the summer of 1215 the two sides met in a field in Runnymede, now just outside the commuter town of Staines, on the banks of the Thames, in a standoff. that would ultimately produce one of the most important documents in the English-speaking world. I followed in their footsteps. I headed to Runnymede, and there I met medieval historian Dan Jones, who picks up the story. All right, Dan, pay you a picture. What was this place like in 1215?

Well, in 1215, I mean, the landscape broadly the same. You've got Cooper's Hill over that side, and you've got the River Thames, which should just be on the A308 here. You didn't have Heathrow Airport in the distance, obviously. You do now. But this was a meadow. and it's flooded by the river Thames so it can be quite boggy underfoot so when it gets wet it gets really really wet and that's quite important in the story of magna Carta and why it was chosen as the negotiation venue there's a school of thought that says this is a good place to meet

if you don't want things to escalate into a battle because if this ground gets wet it's way too marshy to be fighting a battle presumably the Thames is also very important right that's a great artery of england at this point yeah so you've got upriver that way is Windsor that's where the the king's castle was. Down river that way is Staines, which happens to be where I live, and that's where the barons were. Now, that's not random. Staines had a bridge. It was called Adpontes in Roman times, and that bridge was one of only a few on this stretch of the Thames. So it was possible around here to get from one side of the Thames to the other. It was possible for the king to get from his castle here by boat, and the barons to get here by horse or by boat

as well. So it was a good convenient meeting point. There's more to it as well. This was neutral territory. It was land that was owned by Westminster Abbey. It's not baronial land and it's not royal land either. So it's also a place where there are four counties that all come together, Surrey, Middlesex, Berkshire and Buckinghamshire. So it's really a kind of liminal space. It's on the edge between a whole bunch of different jurisdictions.

There's some thought that the name Roneymead, Ronnie Med, comes from an old English phrase meaning the meadow for taking counsel or discussion, that's not totally certain. It may be given that name because of the Magna Carta negotiations. And what had been like that, June, are people setting up camps

or are they all just coming here for that key day? Well, no, we know from a chronicler's account that the barons and the king's men came armed, and they set up tents. So you can sort of imagine, I mean, this is a high-level political negotiation, but there are tents everywhere. It's a sort of cross between,

imagine Glastonbury times Davos. So you've had pavilions, tents here, little breakout groups discussing all sorts of aspects of the detail of Magna Carta really what was the issue was whether the barons could accept this deal or not. So you've got lots of different groups, all discussing different points within the agreement. The king coming down, he comes down at least three times from Windsor here to Runnymede by boat.

So when he pitched up, that would have been a bit of a hullabaloo, I think. Here's Dr. Michael Livingston again. As luck would have it, the person put in charge of negotiations is the Archbishop of Canterbury. The rebels know that he doesn't like the king, so he might be on our side and help us out, which he basically is. But from the king's standpoint, well, he's part of the papacy, and I'm in good with the Pope now. So that'll work as a negotiator. They're there for about a week, but feel the best maybe five days or so.

Yeah, well, the agreement is struck in five days. Now, there have been some preliminary work to get to that point, so that when the barons show up, they're able to present a list of demands. It's called the Articles of the Barons. We still have a copy of this, which is, here's all the stuff we're mad about. It's not the Magna Carta yet. It's not that formal document. Those five days are the certain negotiations to move it from, we don't like how you look, to something that actually works better as a formal charter. And Archbishop Canterbury is very important in that.

Stephen Langton is very important in that. But it's, yeah, the 15th of June, we've got an agreement. We've got what is now called the Magna Carta kind of nailed down and oaths are sworn. Copies are made on the 19th and away they go hither and yawn. What's in there, Mike? 63 clauses? What's in there? The Magna Carta, the great charter, this amazing document that has got an amazing place in history

and yet hardly anybody knows what's in it these days. it has a lot of protections that are promised in it for the church for the barons this is very much a you've gone the wrong way king john it's very directed at him we're going to get protections to church protections to the barons there's gestures towards judicial reform protections from false imprisonment from delayed trials for instance you can kind of see in it a lot of what john had been doing right john had been taking tax taxes, you know, more than they thought he should be taking. So we got rules in there. Very important. We got rules about how much you can tax us and under what conditions. And it also outlines mechanisms for baronial consent of the King's Axe. So you now have sort of written up,

we get to have a say. So not necessarily in everything, but we get to have a say. Magnetard becomes unique, certainly, in legend. is always seen as a huge milestone. There is a clause in here that's bonkers, isn't it, the 1215 version of Magna Carta, which says that there's a committee of barons who will keep an eye on this. And in the event of it not being adhered to, they will lead a rebellion. So it legitimizes rebellion against the game. That's pretty radical. Clause 61, the security clause. Yeah. This is the thing that is shocking, I would say, about the Magna Carta. Pretty much everything in it, you can be like, oh, that was in this Charter of Liberties. That was already done.

over in Europe somewhere, none of it is beyond the pale or surprising. But yeah, that clause 61, most agreements like this have some kind of security clause, right? Meant to enforce the agreement, right? But the way that this is constructed, as you just said, by creating this group of barons who have a direct and really heavy-handed ability to restrict and control the king's actions, I mean, it's a recipe for disaster is what it is. It's an absolute recipe for disaster. And in fact, yeah, all goes sideways. Listen to Dan Snow's history, talking Magna Carta more coming up. The best spouse for a Habsburg is another Habsburg.

That was the motto and the master plan of the family that threw strategic marriages and in breeding didn't just gain power, they became Europe. I'm Professor Susanna Lipscomb, and in a new series on Not Just the Tudors, I'm coming face to face with the emperors, kings and queens who shaped the continent, not to mention their own jaw lines. Power, scandal and naked ambition. Delve into the dynasty that ruled half the known world

on Not Just the Tudors from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts. Throughout the negotiations, King John obviously just tried to reall out of everything. He doesn't really want to be there. He certainly doesn't approve what he's being asked to sign up to in Magna Carta, especially this security clause. The whole time he's writing letters to Pope Innocent III, complaining that the barons are trying to make him agree to something he doesn't want to agree to. He's signing up under duress and he doesn't plan to stick to it. and the Pope repays his new servant, John, by declaring the whole thing null and void. Magna Carta, so celebrated by subsequent generations, in its first iteration, only lasts a few weeks.

The barons are furious, obviously. They resume their hostile takeover, and England collapses into the first barons war. John marches hither and thither he targets the estates and castles of rebel lords. He makes pretty good go of it. The rebels realize they can't defeat John alone, so they seek outside help. Shockingly, they turn to King Philip of France's son, Louis, who in 1216, sails to England with an army. Louis quickly captures Winchester, much to the southeast. It isn't long until Louis has control over half of the English kingdom. He hangs out in London, where the barons proclaim him king of England, although he's never crowned. But then the rebel cause takes a major hit, because in October 1216, King John did the best thing he

could possibly do and died unexpectedly. He's about 49 years old. His son, Henry III, is just nine years old, and he takes the throne. And the protector, his protector, the regent of England, the Guardian of England, is, of course, you'll know from listening to my recent podcast, the seasoned legend, the greatest knight in Europe, William the Marshal. His military reputation and his political shrewdness helps to win back many of the barons from Prince Louis. Remember, folks that my two-hour mega explainer, my record-breaking two-hour podcast on William the Marshall is in the show notes, it will tell you why the Marshall is truly the goat. No question. But for the purposes of this story, I'll just quickly say the Marshall curries favor with the Barons

by reissuing a revised Magna Carta in November 1216. He removes some of the more radical elements, but he keeps its spirit of reform. And that gesture works. It wins over some Barons, but also it breathes new life into this Charter of Liberties. Now, the war will drag on for another year or so. In 1217, the Marshal won a crushing victory at the Battle of Lincoln, a French fleet destroyed off sandwich, and Prince Louis abandons his claim and returns to France to the tail between his legs. Magna Carta, though, reissued again by William the Marshal in 1217, and again in 1225 by Henry III himself. These reissues proclaim the freedom of the English Church, the right to justice, a fair trial for all free men, and seeks to limit the

king's absolute power through the requirement for consent when it comes to raising money, and calls for an establishment of a council so that they can advise and guide the king and ensure that the king follows the rules. It's really these versions that's the 1217 and then the 1225 versions that are the foundations of the rule of law in England and for much of the English-speaking world today. As I mentioned at the start, I went to see an original in the National Archives in Q. It's under the care of Dr. Jess Nelson, head of collections at the archives. A big moment. Wow. Thank you very much. So that's in very good condition, I'd say. It's not bad for 800 years old. Yeah. So this is 1225.

Well, lots of these sent out, I mean, do we think, to sort of counties, religious establishments? Absolutely. So we have lots of evidence for Magna Carta being sent out all around the kingdom to be proclaimed by the, in particular by the sheriffs, the King's local officials in the counties and bringing people together to read them so that they would be familiar with the contents. Of course, we wouldn't expect everyone to remember every single clause. You know, it's a lengthy document. That would be impossible. But I think that there is certainly evidence. We have evidence that people kind of understood the gist of it and they knew that the documents existed. There was also an onus on clergyman to make sure that. their flocks were familiar with Magna Carta, because there was a pronouncement from the church that infringement of Magna Carta could result in excommunication. So in order to avoid infringing it, accidentally, you had to know what was in it. So this is 10 years after the original Magna Carta. What is it being reissued? So the 1215 Magna Carta, as I'm sure you've covered, came out of the very individual circumstances of John's reign. And it was in a lot of ways forced upon John as a bit of a peace treaty to try and prevent a civil war between John and his

barons, and in that it was a failure. The 1225 Magna Carta's very different circumstances. Henry III is king. He's still a young man. He's still within his minority, but he's beginning to take a more active role in government. So he's 17 when the 1225 Magna Carta is issued. And it's issued under his own great seal. So it's a real statement from Henry the third about his kingship and about the way that he wants to rule, that he's going to be more concilia than his father, that he's going to be, in effect, a better king than his father, although of course he doesn't say that in the document, and that he wants to kind of take the barons with him. I mean, the exact kind of circumstances, he needs money, as medieval kings very often did. His French

lands have been invaded, and he needs to raise money to try and recapture those. So he grants Magna Carta in exchange for a taxation in effect. But he's not at the tip of a spear. This is him saying, I'm graciously issuing this. Absolutely. He's not under duress. He's very clear about that. One of the lines of Magna Carta, it says that he's issuing this from his spontaneous goodwill. So he's doing this of his own volition. He's not under pressure in the way that his father was. So the words are different in this Magna Carta to the 1215 one? Yes, so there's lots of small differences and then there's some sort of big differences as well. Obviously it's issued under Henry's name. He talks about how it's being issued from his own goodwill. It's addressed

to everyone, whereas the 1215 Magna Carta is addressed to free men. So that's quite a big difference. One big omission is the security clauses it's called. So this idea that 25 of the leading barons would effectively be put to kind of check the power of the king. So that's gone. But you're actually allowed. Rebellion is legitimate. Exactly. In, in, you know, if you're violating the times of Magna Carta. So that's gone. Absolutely. So that's a really big thing. And a new inclusion, which wasn't in the 1215 original or in the later ones before 1225, is a really long witness list. So it's got a wonderful witness list of the great in the good who are witnessing this charter that Henry is issuing. And that includes the leading secular and the leading ecclesiastic

to call men of the kingdom. And what you see in that witness list, which is kind of really telling, that's down here at the bottom, yeah, which is really fascinating, is you get people witnessing the Charter who were on John's side, but you also get people witnessing who were anti-John, including Robert Fitzwalter, who was the leading rebel baron. So it's a real kind of coming together of people who'd been on opposing sides, not very long before, and they're all witnessing together. There's a lot of goodwill for Henry's reign. So this is almost an expression of the entire ruling elite king, nobles, church, coming together to say this is how we all think this country should be ruled. So you can absolutely see it is that coming together of people

wanting Henry III's reign to be different and wanting it to work. Although today, nearly all of Magna Carta's original 63 clauses have been repealed or superseded by subsequent legislation and have effectively fallen disuse, the principles, the ethos of it remains. Today, the charter is important less for the direct legal force of its clauses than for what it means its symbolic power. It embodies an idea that no one should be punished without the judgment of the law, that justice can't be just bought and sold or denied or delayed. You've got to be able to access judgment, seek redress, and that essential belief that the king, the government, the president, whoever it is, they are subject to the law. They do not stand above the law. And that is an idea

that around the world people are still fighting for today. Here's Dan Jones again. It's definitely important in and of itself and it is this like political puzzle they get a stage closer to solving which is how do you make the king behave himself. It's so far as good what they're wrestling with here

is what we're all wrestling with and we've been wrestling with since the beginning of time is that how do you try and restrain those who have all this power over us? What can we do about us normies? Right, right, right. It's the big question. You know, you need people to run society.

You need governments. You need, if it's going to be a monarch, you need kings. You need these offices. Otherwise, you basically have sort of tribal anarchy at best. But once you put in place kingship institutions, you're still reliant on the, effectively, the good faith of the people in office. Here's the thing that Magna Carta is really trying to wrestle with. It's not necessarily so much.

that the king is riding roughshod over the law, although he is, it's that he's riding roughshod over conventions, over things that have been taken as read within normal political operations. And that's what's so difficult about what they're trying to do, because a convention,

a sort of standard of good behaviour, is the thing that really makes constitutions work and makes politics work. Well, folks, that brings us to the end of this episode of Downstone's History. Magna Carta, it's subject very close to my heart. It's a subject that feels important today as the rule of law is challenged on every continent. Something I'm afraid that feels more important than it did when I first studied it back in the 1990s. In a changing world, Magna Carta is a fixed

point, a polar star. Thank you so much to my guests, Dr Michael Livingston, Dan Jones, Dr. Jess Nelson. If you want more on Magna Carta, which of course, you do. You can check out our two-part documentary on our history hit TV player, which features me and Mike Livingston. And you can sign up to watch that and the show notes too, lots, and the show notes today, check it all out. Thanks for listening, folks. See you next time.