Zusammenfassung der Ressource
King John and Magna Carta
- About the Charter
- Latin for 'great charter', smaller charter
about forests issued around the same
time, this distinguished between the
two.
- Greatness is retrospective.
- 63 clauses, some of which are still around today.
- A legal document that acted as a
peace treaty and intended to
place the king under a degree of
legal restraint.
- Civil war broke out again three months later.
- 1st written constitution in European history.
- Copies sent out to all English counties, 4 still remain.
- No royal signature but is sealed with royal seal.
- Gillingham: the famous document in English history.
- King could no longer impose new taxes without a degree of consent.
- Could no longer arbitrarily arrest subjects.
- Product of rebellion, John had lost London, so was forced to negotiate.
- How did Magna Carta come into existence?
- John was hated for his failures and regarded as a criminal.
- in 1204 he lost all Plantagenet lands in
France to Philip Augustus and failed to
recapture them
- Military defeat was unkingly as it was his duty to
protect England. It was interpreted that god had lost
favour for the king.
- Disappearance of his nephew, Arthur of Brittany.
- Was captured after rebelling against John, disappeared and was murdered.
- Tainted reputation, he was regarded with distrust and distaste.
- John had abandoned his first wife and married Isabelle of Anglouleme- Scandal.
- Drove hard bargains, went after enemies.
- Wanted to restore the good old laws of Henry I.
- Dispute with papacy and excommunication.
- Aftermath
- Controversial as it gave power to barons if the charter was violated: PROVISIONS OF OXFORD.
- John died the next year.
- Gillingham: "Highly successful total failure."
- August 1215: Condemned by the Papacy.
- Reissued in the early years of Henry's reign, this time it worked as it
was a manifesto of good rule rather than a forced treaty of peace.
- Was voluntary this time.
- Papal legate did sign reissues in Henry's reign.