Check to a King

New Zealand Listener, Volume 5, Issue 114, 29 August 1941, Page 5

Check to a King

IGHT from the first, steps were taken to spread news of the Magna Charta. Copies were sent for safe keeping all over England, just in case John should change his mind and tear up a document which he disliked. Then, within the next few years, the Charter was repeatedly confirmed, soon with the sanction of the Church behind it as well. It was read aloud in both English and French at important assemblies, and fearful threats were issued against anyone who might break it; and in some cases the king sent out a curiously detailed set of instructions to his subjects on how to disobey him if he broke his word. Thus it was brought home to people again and again that Magna Charta was a most important thing; and potential rebels were continually reminded of certain vital facts: that the king, as he himself acknowledged, was below the law, and that he had been forced to recognise this by an armed rising. Of course, rebellion is not necessarily a sign of democratic ideas; indeed, most rebellions in those days and for long afterwards, were purely reactionary outbursts against a progressive monarchy. Yet in much later days, when it was the king rather than the noble who was the most dangerous enemy of freedom, the story of Magna Charta set the precedent for opposition to kings in the name if not in the interest of the community as a whole-(Professor F. L. W. Wood, " Democracy" series, 2Y A, August 11.)