[MUSIC]

So if King John was so keen to disown

Magna Carta, how did it become permanent?
>> That's a story that
belongs to the next reign.
The reign of King John's son and
successor, King Henry III.
When John died in October 1216,
he really had done the best thing that
he could have done in the circumstances.
Because in a sense that solved
England's problems at a stroke.
His son was a nine year old boy.
That is to say, in legal terms,
he was a minor.
And you could not blame the sins
of the father on the son.
He was a young innocent.
But, of course, being nine, he could
not actually run the country himself.
A regent had to be appointed.
Someone who could run,
run the country on his behalf.
And fortunately there was a man waiting
in the wings ready to act as regent.
Fine man and true the greatest and
most famous baron of his day,
the great Marshall William Marshall,
Earl of Pembroke.
He became regent and
ran the country and the king's name.
And there was another man in England at
the time who also deserves credit for
what follows.
Not such a well known figure, but
this was the papal legate, Guala.
The pope's representative in England.
And between them, Guala and
the Marshal were responsible for
a program of pacification.
And what they did was take the original
version of the charter, agreed here at
Runnymede, which as I've said was in
many ways quite an extreme document.
They took the original
version of the charter,
shredded it of all its most
controversial clauses.
They knocked out all the clauses
that were specific to John and
the problems of John's reign.
Took this slimmed down document and
reassuited as the new king's
peace offering to his subjects.
In origin, it was an opposition document.
Marshal and
Guala reissued it as a royal document.
Well the trick didn't work the first time.
They tried it November, 1216.
It didn't work because the country was

still divided, the war was still going on.

But they tried again a year later,
in November 1217.
And by then,
they were winning the Civil War.
They had actually won it.
And this time the trick worked.
It was a master stroke.
The slimmed down Magna Carta 1217 reissue
became the basis on which
England was pacified.
It was reissued again in 1225,
this time divided into two documents,
the original Magna Carta and
the charter of the forest.
And that was the reissue that was regarded
as definitive, accepted by everyone.
And it was at that stage,
I think, 1225, that we can say
Magna Carta became the law of the land,
the foundation statute of the English state.
>> That really is a remarkable
transformation from its almost near
dismissal when John wants to
ignore it to say then his death.
And then the statesman like abilities of
these two individuals manage to turn it,
transform it and give it the durability
and the longevity with which,
why we still have it today.
>> The Marshal and
Guala deserve the credit,
I think due to political visionaries.
England was in a terrible state
at the time of King John's death.
England was a bitterly divided nation.
They began the process, not only of
pacification but of unification.
And Magna Carta in its revised
state became the symbol of that.
That's how it became permanent.
>> It's interesting they represent
a secular individual and a papal legate so
you've got the religious and
the secular sides working together,
which may be one of the reasons why
they managed to pull that trick off.
>> That's absolutely right.
And the presence of Guala, an Italian in
England, helps to remind us of the story
of Magna Carta has a place in European
history, not just in English history.
Back in Italy, Guala founded the Abbey
of Vercelli, in the Italian Alps.
And the Magna Carta anniversary is being
marked there, as well, Guala's Abbey.
>> So how would you sum up the place
of Magna Carta in English history?
Does it really deserve its fame?
>> Yes I think it does deserve its fame.

It had its limitations,

as I said in its original
version in 1215, it was quite
an extreme quite a partisan document.
But that was taken care
of in the reissues.
I think it's also fair to say,
it should not be seen in
an exclusively English context.
As I just mentioned when talking about
the Pope, other people were involved.
And in other parts of Europe, at the time,
there were other documents
published limiting royal authority.
One of the most famous is a document
that was agreed in Hungary
in the 1220s, limiting the power
of King Andrew of Hungary.
The problem that the barons were wrestling
with in England in the early 13th century.
How do you bring the king under control?
That crucial question of authority.
That was one being addressed by people in
other parts of Europe at this very time.
So what's distinctive about
Magna Carta is not so
much that it was drawn up,
as that it survived.
And we've seen, that that was partly
because of the master stroke of Guala and
the Marshal in taking this
document which was [...]
in origin an opposition document.
And reissuing it as part of
the pacification program.
But it's also, the people in England
in the 13th century found it useful.
They wanted it.
They made use of it.
They saw it as a touchstone
of good government.
A guarantee of their liberties.
You find case after case
in the courts in the 13th
Century where litigants
appeal to Magna Carta.
Rather as they do today.
They appeal to Magna Carta
in support of their case.
They point to this clause or
that clause of Magna Carta.
And they said, that protects my interests.
And even more interesting,
you find people transcribing,
that is to say, making copies of
Magna Carta for their own use.
Great landowners, abbeys, cathedrals,
commissioned copies, transcripts
of Magna Carta, which they kept
with all their other essential documents

in their archives, because they needed to.

It was useful.
They might find themselves
involved in litigation themselves.
They needed to dig out Magna Carta and see
what it's, so that they could point to it.
Cite this clause, or that clause in
Magna Carta in support of their case.
And quite a number of these later
transcripts of Magna Carta survive.
And we'll be looking at a couple
of them that have come down to us,
preserved in the Library at
the Society of Antiquaries in London.