811 years ago today, 15 June 2026, King John was forced to sign Magna Carta at Runnymede in 1215. The Charter established that no one, including the King, was above the law. It gave rights to freemen in respect of false imprisonment, trial by jury and unfair taxes. To celebrate the Bruges Group is today publishing Parliament, Privilege and the People: A Concise History of England in paperback and Kindle.
Inexplicably many historians refuse to recognize the extraordinary heritage of pre-Christian Anglo-Saxon England. Disparaged as 'the Dark Ages' the period is dismissed as irrelevant until Augustine brought light to Kent in 597. This is nonsense. The 602 laws of King Æthelberht, with the exception of granting protection to church property are about the Kings peace. They did not suddenly pop up because a Benedictine monk started preaching five years before.
The Germanic tribes who, in England, became the Anglo-Saxons had developed laws long before Christianity appeared. They were unique in not having an organised religion or priesthood. Perhaps that made them 'dark' to adherents of Christianity. Codes of law were passed on and King Æthelberht's laws reflect that heritage. People in Anglo-Saxon England had Folk Right. Women were equal in law and no one, including the King was above it. In their attempt to disparage the Anglo-Saxon contribution, the detractors claim that the Charta applies only to freemen. Before 1066 that was almost everyone. They also advance the argument that the Normans abolished slavery. That ignores the fact that in pre-conquest England slavery was almost entirely penal as there were no prisons. It is also worth pointing out that by imposing Feudalism the Normans made slaves of free men.
Anglo-Saxon law was pragmatic and based on common sense. It was intended to evolve and is the basis of Common Law and our court system. In addition to law, they had a culture that encouraged early democracy. Although denied by the naysayers, even the King had to win the consent of the people. The contemporary 10th century Abbot, Ælfric of Eynsham, wrote: "No man can make himself king, but the people has the choice to choose as king whom they please".
In the 10th century, England was prosperous well run and law abiding. That made it a target, and perhaps one of history's great tragedies is its conquest by the Normans who were backward by comparison. Oddly, Anglo-Saxon values never died because common sense always has a value. After the reigns of William and his son Rufus the youngest son, Henry seized the throne and was crowned on 5 August 1100. He issued a Coronation charter known as the Charter of Liberties. In it he undertook to right the wrongs of his brother. He promised to "Restore the law of King Edward and the amendments that my father introduced upon the advice of his barons". Edward the Confessor made no laws. He applied the common law he had inherited from his forerunners back beyond Christianity.
Henry reigned for 35 years and was given the epitaph 'The Lion of Justice' in recognition of the peace he had maintained. He died in 1135. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles verdict was: "A good man he was; and there was great dread of him. No man durst do wrong with another in his time. Peace, he made for man and beast. Who so bare his burthen of gold and silver, durst no man say ought to him but good".
Subsequent rulers made similar pledges. It is therefore simple to trace the essential spirit of Magna Carta to the earliest Anglo-Saxons. Clause 39 states: "No free man shall be arrested or imprisoned or disseised or outlawed or exiled or in any way victimised, neither will we attack him or send anyone to attack him, except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land". That was the law before the conquest.
The English Petition of Right in 1628 and the Habeas Corpus Act of 1679 were based on clause 39. The Constitution of the United States of America (1789) and the Bill of Rights (1791) are based on the charter as is the Fourteenth Amendment (1868).
As I write in my book Parliament, Privilege and the People, A Concise History of England "My conclusions are contrary to 'received' wisdom, and I make no apology for that. I believe that we owe a debt to the Angles, Saxons, Frisians and Jutes that is immeasurable. Our past shapes the future. I believe that properly acknowledging that our past was not 'dark' will provide light for our future".
Parliament, Privilege and the People published on the 811th anniversary of Magna carta by
the Bruges Group.
It is available as a paperback and Kindle from bookshops and on line in the UK,
Europe USA and Canada.