THE MYTH OF MAGNA CARTA.

Digger (Invercargill RSA), Issue 42, 7 January 1921, Page 15

THE MYTH OF MAGNA CARTA.

SOME COMMON EREOS REFUTED. No document in English history has heen more misruiderstood that Magjna Carta, writes Professor Ernest Scott in the Melbourne "Argus." The halo of superstition has gathered around it. loo commonly it has been suppcsed to be the foundation of British liberties and to contain the principles of the Habeas Corpus Act, trial by jury, no taxation without representation, and many other important things. In fact, it embodies no allusion to any of these dev,elopments. There is nothing in Magna Carta that was sound law -generations earlier, and nothing was inserted in it which can be regarded as the origin of any British institution. Much of what is popularly believed about it is pure myth. The truth is that the entire Charter was a formal guarantee of the rights and privileges of the baronial aristocracy, the knights, the "freemen," and the mer. chants, all of whom were, as the cant phrase goes, "class conscious." It did nothing to protect the peasantry, except to the extent that they were assets of the estates of their lords ; nor did it protect those artisans of the towns who were not "freemen" in the medieval sense of the word. Magna Carta was, in short, a statement of baronial privileges, with the addition of some provisions for the benefit of persons of lesser rank, but none for those who had not emerged from the condition of villeinage, the most numerous class in the country. It was not, even in a remote degree, a democratic instrument. If any villein in the thirteenth century had ventured to assert such principles as the Labour movement is now supposed to represent, his fate, in all probability, would not have been a happy one. Another common error concerning Magna Carta is illustrated by a statement of benator Gardiner in the Jerger debate. He described the misgovernment of King John as having brought "an organisation into existence which drafted quite an exemplary charter of liberty. " This organisation "was so powerful that it was able to force the King to sign that charter." Well, King John did not "sign that charter." There are no signatures upon it. Any one who has seen the two original copies at the British Museum, or the facsimile at the Melbourne Public Eibrary, will recoguise that it is utterly erroneous to speak of the "signing" of Magna Carta. It was scaled, not signed. Some text- books of history in use in schools make this mistake, and artists who have essayed to represent the scene at Runnymede almost invariably show King John with his crown on his head and a vicious expression on his face, dashing off his sigvjature with a large quill pen. I have one gorgeous picture — all blue and scarlet and gold — which shows the King writing his name with what looks like a fountain pen but may be a wooden one — in any case it is absurd. John used no pen ; he signified his assent, and the Royal seal was affixed to the parchment by his direction. (See on this point the reeent correspondence in "The Times," which brought out the interesting fact that there is not in existence any signature of an English King earlier than Edward III.). Much of the glamour which has contributed to the creation of the Magna Carta myth arises from its name. It was not known as the Great Charter to contemporaries any more than Domesday Book was known under that name to Williarn I and his chancellary officiais. It was known a» the Carta Baronum, or sometimes as the Carta Libertatum. Not till the reign of Henry 111 did the name which it now bears come into use, and then there is good reason to believe "Magna" was applied to it, not because its contents were supposed to be particularly important, but to distinguish it from a smaller charter — "parva carta" — which had been granted by Henry 111. If this theory of the name be correct, "Magna" was descriptive of the size of the charter of King John, i» comparison with that of Henry 111, and had no relation to its contents. Nor, ind.eed, was there any particular reason why contemporaries should regard the charter as "Magna" in any other sense. It was very important that John's barons obtained the King's formal assent to a plain statement of old law, from which he had departed, but the barons were not innovators. They were not making new law, but compelling tbe observance by a refractory king of sound English custom. It granted no fresh liberties to anybody. It was essentially a feudal instrument, forced at the sword's point upon a king who had grieviously offended the baronial class.