Magna Carta: The Medieval Context and the Part Played by William Marshal - Lord Igor Judge

Lord Mayor sheriff's alderman Provost ladies and gentlemen I have never ever commented on any case in which I have sat as a judge but I'm about to break that rule now when Tony Arledge relied on Magna Carta 1215 in support of his case that there was an abuse of process in the prosecution of a police officer he was wrong and there's no further appeals I think just before we get to Magna Carta it is worth us spending 30 seconds just paying tribute to the memory of Thomas Gresham in whose memory these lectures are taking place Thomas Gresham understood finance he understood economics he understood what the consequences of bringing lots and lots of gold from the new South American colonies of Spain would do to the value of the pound in your pocket we could do with his assistance to this very day but eight hundred years ago this month indeed almost 800 years ago to this very day 14th of January what we nowadays would describe as peace talks collapsed the talks were organized and planned and took place at the temple then called the new temple then the home of the Knights Templar one of the most influential and powerful orders in Christendom now of course the home of barristers middle and in a temple it was then what it some of you may not think it is now a place of holy sanctuary some 10 minutes ride on horseback from where we stand I stand you sit today 200 years or so before this ancient Guild Hall was built just gives us some sense of the distance in time we're talking about and assembled there in the temple was the anointed king significant that he was the anointed king John and his rebellious barons who had already formed a conjurer RTO or sworn association to stick together to seek relief from their grievances against the king and there was a further group of barons loyal perhaps not so much loyal to the king in his personal capacity but honoring their obligation of fealty fidelity and the oaths they had taken to abide by them and then there was Stephen Langton Archbishop of Canterbury accompanied by heavyweight members of the church this was the Epiphany meeting it was supposed to have a deal done the Baron's had their terms ready the King thought their terms were outrageous and expressed himself in no uncertain terms but more to the point in the political world that inhabited 1215 and political worlds do not change as the years go by more to the point he found himself a ready-made excuse for bringing the discussions to an end nothing of course whatever to do with the terms the rebel barons had come to the temple carrying weapons carrying arms they had not shown these are his words proper respect why does that remind me of the excuse of the yabo all down the ages the excuse for so many fights in the streets and indeed sadly the excuse for so many deaths and violent incidents that occur in them the other side was not showing proper respect but the church got what it wanted from that meeting a second Charter guaranteeing its independence which in effect repeated the Charter granted in the temple a couple of earlier in November 1214 those charters became Clause 1 of magna carta although the rebel barons hadn't been in any way bothered about the status or the consideration for the church Stephen Langton found his way in he got his charter although the Barons did not get theirs and say ladies and gentlemen quite apart from the prospect of the horrors of an imminent Civil War a very distinctive feature of the times in which our predecessors lived is difficult for us to grasp we are a secular society we live in a secular age of course people have their faiths not denying that or doubting it but not a lot of you here today and I'm including myself among us spend a great deal of time worrying about where our immortal souls will go some do but many do not they in 1215 were troubled and again to put it in context in 1215 it was not that long since Thomas Becket had been murdered on the steps of the altar of Canterbury Cathedral by the king's men let's not discuss whether henry ii was complicit in his murder only ten years before King John had refused to accept Langton the papal nominee as the archbishop England was placed under interdict we have to understand what that meant no communion no confession and absolution no marriage and in January 1209 John was excommunicated when neither the interdict nor his personal communications served to change his conduct by January 12 13 the Pope Innocent the third pronounced sentence of deposition on him and again using a phrase which we in our world have become sadly familiar the Pope had authorized the King of France philip augustus to wage holy war against john the john was rather more bothered by the impact of the papal order on the exercise of his power on earth than he had been by the potential consequences to his immortal soul and so in May 1213 he submitted to the Pope again let us just pause to think what that meant John accepted that the Pope was not only his spiritual Lord but and politically speaking more important his feudal lord the kingdom was surrendered to the Pope and John became his vassal the Euroskeptics of the day would have rent their garments and when later the Pope directed the rebel barons that they were after all to pay their taxes to the king well when their assent had not been sought or given the skeptics would no doubt have donned sackcloth and ashes we were being run by Europe oh my goodness that'll make a headline now the Pope Innocent the third very interesting character never knowingly undersold himself he generously allowed that he was lower I suspect in his own mind it was only just a little bit but lower in status than God now that's very generous kind of way of dealing with things but he asserted and sought to enforce the assertion that he was above all men including reigning monarchs as for Philip Augustus of France he would have been only too pleased to rub JEP John's nose yet further in the mud following the great French victory over John's allies in France the Battle of bhuvan's 1214 July that's the moment when one of the great professors of Magna Carta the late Sir James Holt said that Runnymede became inevitable John was bust using fillet quill if I may say so - miss flan is an economic language there was no money in the kitty now for the French the prize in sight was the throne of England for Philips son Louie and there's a rarely remembered I suspect none of us were taught it in schools when every time the English went into battle they were victories that we won we all heard about crécy Poitier's in court but none of us ever heard of the defeats you know we did lose the Hundred Years War after a hundred years but so this is a bit of the story we've never been told civil war on its way the rebel barons who some put in the category of heroes of Magna Carta offered the throne of England to Louis of France bring your troops here bring your troops here to a foreign King assist us in the Civil War the deal is that you'll become the king they were traitors and so my lord mayor you've heard me say this before but I've got to say it in public now so standing here in the guild hall I have to say was the City of London desperate for support in May 1215 John gave the city its charter free for nothing and its own Lord Mayor it had been wanting this for some years and every time it asked for it no no no you have to pay that was the way it was done in those days so the Charter was given to the city as a bribe again in modern terms appeasement well the King hoped that his gratitude for the Charter would bring them in on his side and it failed because the city as the city always does saw the reality the Kings position was becoming weaker when French soldiers no fewer than 7,000 of them landed in England in support of the rebel barons they were quite unopposed and greeted warmly by the rebel barons and the City of London later opened its gates to them we are stood in contact with the consequences of the drought of the Great Charter of the City of London to the City of London it's exemplified each year as the new Lord Mayor of London in the parade with which so many of you will be familiar comes to the Royal Courts of Justice to be presented to the Lord Chief Justice and take the oaths of the ancient office which he sometimes she will now occupy the loyalty of the Lord Mayor can now be taken for granted we can think thank King John for something country but that's the context this is a civil war about to break out there are armed men wandering round the country setting out to beseech castles and the like and in June they assemble on a field at running Mead or runnymede by the Thames all armed all ready to fight the rebel barons have their articles we still got the document this is the deal we want all written out the discussions begin on the 15th of June the deal is done by the 19th of June why we celebrate the 15th of June because that's the date at the top what people have overlooked is that you wrote the date at the top of the document but they didn't finish till the 19th then they all did a lot of hanging around handshaking you've seen it when big political meetings could take place you know all our leaders meet they shake hands they smile they all come out saying they've done a really good deal when they haven't and what's more in medieval times there then all took oaths you know we promised that we're going to keep to the terms of this treaty well one person who had no intention of doing so was King John himself say by taking the oath that he did his soul was once again in great peril and then the copies of the Charter are made and distributed around the country and we have four of them left the one in Lincoln actually has got the name bling Konya written on the back taken back to Lincoln by the Bishop of Lincoln who was there at Runnymede contra to popular belief the King never signed the Charter he sealed it well actually that's not true it was sealed with his seal it was not called Magna Carta it was not called Great Charter it was just one more charter in an age in which charters were produced like confetti x' at a wedding as a legal document it was totally unenforceable there's no question ez judgment this one the King signed sorry the King agreed under duress so he had no intention of abiding by it it would not have been legally enforceable on the duress point and then most important of all the King at the Pope rather in his capacity as the King's feudal lord stepped in England is my fiefdom you've all entered into a deal without anybody asking me what I think about it and he immediately annulled it the moment he heard of the Charter he annihilate and quoting his words utterly repudiated and even the King was forbidden by the Pope listen to the language to presume to observe it that's not the language of a modest man is it but it had been sealed it had gone round the country it had been proclaimed now we're all familiar I think we're all familiar I hope we are with the justice provisions and they're very important and they're still apply to this day the denial of justice the delay of justice the delay being the denial the entitlement to trial according to the law of the land yes but in the medieval context perhaps the significant moment in the document is Clause 61 this is an extraordinary clause by which the anointed king answerable on his death to God for the way in which he had abided by the oath he took at his coronation and they all did and they all said they'd rule justly and fairly well when you get to God he may save done a really bad job and you'll go to hell fire but it's not much used to the subjects who you have oppressed on earth or Clause 61 acknowledged was that if the King failed to abide by the terms of the Charter and paraphrasing after notice was given to him of his failure by a group of twenty were five barons any non-compliance thereafter in effect absolved them from their oaths of fealty and they were entitled then to make war on him that was an extraordinary Clause the security clause it's called on the continent John was derided for having become subject to over Kings but it was from that clause that the principal identified or spoken of by the Lord Mayor a few minutes ago and described by Mr Justice Bracton acknowledging that the king was above all ended Jules but subject to the law was derived and that phrase was written in about 1240 1250 so yes the king is answerable to God of course but everybody in the medieval world accepted that a starting point but crucially for the development of all our constitutional principles subject to the law no longer his whim no longer was he himself the law and this provided the core principle on which lawyers and parliamentarians challenged the Stuart claim to rule by divine right the other crucial clause no time to go through it in detail is clause 12 coupled with clause 14 no aid that's tax no scoot ish that's another form of tax to do with carrying shields which I can come to if you asked me to but it would take too long without the agreement of the council and provision for calling the council to see whether the council would agree I come to I that significant in a moment now can we just remember eight hundred years on that we're talking about people you know they were like us they had the characteristics strengths weaknesses they had their own agendas of course we've seen how well they're the Barons didn't raise the issue of the church's position the church got the first Clause in of course they did they were like us and each of them was unfair reacting to an unfolding situation as it happened not all the Barons who were rebels were committed as equally as each other on the other hand Llewellyn of Wales must have felt very committed indeed to the rebellion he had seen or heard of he hadn't seen he had heard of fourteen Welsh boys being hanged by John with John going all the way to Nottingham to see them being hanged because some of their fathers had rebelled against him and William Marshall himself that most loyal of the loyal to whom I'm going to come now had been declared a traitor by John in 1205 and effectively banished from the court as John's situation became increasingly hazardous John asked him to come back summoned him of course what I'm driving at is there's no set pattern to these things if there's a hero of this event it's not the rebel barons it's William Marshall Earl of Pembroke John regarded Marshall as his key envoi in the discussions and negotiations importantly he was seen as the only civilian as opposed to clerical guarantor of John's good faith and that was because he had an absolutely unrivaled reputation for fidelity to his word he was so close to the center of discussions that some historians in the last earlier part of the last century suggested that he'd helped to draft it as Marshall was illiterate it seems unlikely but it is interesting that in relation to the first Charter he is the first of the people identified in it who is not himself a cleric the first of the illustrious magnates from the baronial class and then the Charter was annulled civil war broke out Marshall acknowledged to be one of the foremost battlers campaigners strategist of his age supported the king but the French were now in England the French were now in London the outcome was uncertain and we are very close we were very close to the end of the Plantagenet dynasty and the French King that would have changed our history but as I remind myself and you all know history's determined by two recent prime minister described as events now 800 years later it would be churlish to trumpet with joy the death of anyone but it was a very convenient event that innocent the third died in 1216 succeeded by a pope of a deaf very different hue and then in October 1216 John himself died two deaths a happy event but not immediately or obviously so John's heir was a boy nine years old now the death of a medieval king without an heir old enough to succeed him would be likely to be catastrophic for the line we all know what happened to the princes in the tower we all know what happened to a much earlier prince in the tower John's nephew Arthur who was murdered almost certainly on John's orders because on the basis of primogeniture he had a better claim to the throne than John himself so John's heir is a boy nine years old Henry the third martial moment he heard of John's death was at Gloucester he summoned the loyal barons to Gloucester and brought the boy King there to be anointed crowned Gloucester Abbey notice because Westminster Abbey itself was under the control of French troops when did they teach you that in the history who learned we're always told the last time we were invaded was 1066 it isn't true ladies and gentlemen it just isn't true within days marshal was appointed by the other barons with the support of the papal leggett as regent rector Nostra at regn in Austria a new title new office Regent Protector rule of the country I'm going to quote a Dan Jones whose recent vivid book the Plantagenet the Kings who made England underlines it all those in the Abbey's vast crowd must have realized that this was a dreadful way to start a reign it was not just to the solemn nine year old Henry's advantage that Marshalls attitude prevailed among a few good men in England the future of the dynasty depended on it Marshalls first step was to resuscitate John's 1215 Charter notwithstanding John's repudiation of it and the Pope papal annulment of it in late 1216 he issued it with his personal seal together with that of the papal Leggett not in identical terms to the 1215 Charter with a number of revisions purpose let's try and find a reconciliation with the rebel barons in its final Clause it offers the possibility of a resolution of outstanding issues when fuller council would be possible to achieve what was best for the common good well as an attempt to make peace it failed it was issued from a position of lamentable military weakness and so it was rejected by the Barons and indeed probably leery of France and say the Civil War continued move on a year 1217 and incidentally we now have two charters we always think of one but now move on to 1217 for some reason it doesn't matter the French troops were divided a large body went up to Lincoln to take part in a siege there at Lincoln castle the castle being held by a loyal female baron the remarkable woman in her own right marshal is no longer young he's 70 he's reached that lovely age when judges in our country are obliged to retire what did he do action man went straight up to Lincoln and there were no motorways and no trains and no airplane to do it and they're set about raising the siege a strategic opportunity occurred and when he saw it the old warrior charged into battle forgot his helmet you could imagine the squire st. him to this great man and he was physically a very big specimen to him you've forgotten your helmet oh damn it said the helmets put on just as well when the battle was over it was very heavily dented in a number of places so hand-to-hand fighting the battle ends with a great victory for marshal 46 of the rebel barons and their associates captured the French invasion continued for a while Louie defeated shortly afterwards in a sea battle of Sandwich then peace negotiations followed marshal working with the papal leggett accepted notice accepted in victory that the liberties demanded by the rebel barons should be restored and in November 17 1217 the third Charter was reissued for issued a reissue again without being quite the same language as the two previous charters but understood to be part of the same sequence difference this time the Charter sealed by marshal did not reflect the military pressure which forced John to seal the 1215 Charter nor the military weakness of the royal situation which led Marshall to issue and seal the 1216 charter but now issued in the full amplitude of victory in battle in short notwithstanding the defeat of the rebel barons the Charter was issued it was not in modern language a truth and reconciliation process but it showed a magnanimity and statesmanship which brought an end to foreign invasion civil war and established this boy king on the throne of his father that magnanimity was not recognized by the boy maybe Marshall thought well Marshall wasn't around now he died in 1219 after his death Marshall was criticized for the generosity of the peace terms that he had achieved with the rebel barons and the peace that he had achieved in England and perhaps that is one reason why his name has been obliterated from public memory Henry the third learned a bitter lesson much later I'll summarize it in three words Simon de Montfort Marshall was given a state funeral Stephen Langton described him as the greatest Knight that ever lived by 1225 when the king was old enough to assume power the Charter was reissued under his own seal the deal was very simple unless you give us our Charter you cannot have the taxes you are seeking this is not an occasion and there is no time to address how no taxation without representation became the foundation for our own parliamentary system and eventually the battlecry of the colonists in the future United States of America but even the eventual development of parliament can be seen I don't say it's attributed to Marshall that the concepts wouldn't have occurred to him he was a medieval man but we can see that the processes used by Marshall when he was regent can be described and have been described by a modern historian as proto parliamentary now I make no bones about it I firmly believe that without William Marshall what we now call Magna Carta four documents would have been not much more than a medieval document commanding very little attention from any but the most distinguished specialist historians how many of you remember the laws of Henry the first all the laws of King Stephen Oh full of good intentions justice loyalty I mean it's all there but they didn't matter they don't matter these documents do matter and one of the reasons they matter is that William Marshall was there to ensure the issue and the reissue and the reissue if you want to pay your respects to William Marshall and his achievement you can visit the temple Church the Mother Church of the common law he joined the Knights Templar a few days before his death one of the treasures of our church I speak as a member of Middle Temple is his monumental effigy but more important it is perhaps time is it not for his contribution to the events which we are celebrating to be recognized he not the rebel barons is the hero of this event his contribution has been to over long too long overlooked and there's a gentleman I think it's time that we understand what he did for us thank you very much you

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Keywords: gresham, gresham college, gresham college lecture, gresham college talk, magna carta, magna carter 800, magna carta 800th, king john, william marshal, baron's war, city of london, lord mayor of london, 1st earl of pembroke, lord mayors lecture, alderman, magna carta uncovered, law, great chater, medieval history, history, lord, lord chief justice, lord igor judge, igor judge, Middle Ages (Event)

Id: NQuzeJdiCOQ

Length: 32min 41sec (1961 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 20 2015