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Are we celebrating the wrong Magna Carta?
00:42:41
David Carpenter explains why a lesser-known reissue of Magna Carta is in fact more significant than the original
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- [00:00]
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- [02:17]
Podcast Host
Welcome to the History Extra Podcast. Fascinating historical conversations from the makers of BBC History magazine. In June 1215, King John was forced by his rebellious barons to agree to a charter at Runnymede. We know that charter as Magna Carta, but no one in the 13th century actually called it that. Ask a medieval baron or king. And they would say that Magna Carta referred to the charter issued by John's son, Henry III, 10 years later in 1225. In today's episode, Professor David Carpenter explains to David Musgrove why we ought to commemorate the 11th of February 1225, 800 years ago today, as the real anniversary of Magna Carta.
- [03:09]
Professor David Carpenter
David, you have written a great piece in the latest issue of BBC History magazine, where you remind the readers that this year, 2025, in fact the 11th of February, we commemorate the 800th anniversary of Magna Casa. Now, I have been working on the magazine and podcast for quite a few years and I distinctly remember us talking about the same anniversary 10 years ago in 2015, when, of course, we were 800 years after 1215. So, am I losing my mind?
- [03:34]
Carvana Customer
Well, not entirely. Yes and no. I would never accuse you, day of losing your mind. Certainly since the 18th century, and we might come onto that, King John's charter issued at Runnymede on 15 June 1215, has always been considered Magna Carta. So in that sense, you were right, and that's why 10 years ago, we celebrated its 800th anniversary. But for people in the 13th century and beyond, John's charter was not regarded as Magna Carta. It was nearly always called the Charter of Runnymede. And Magna Carta was the charter Henry iii issued on 11 February at Westminster in the ninth year of his reign, which is 11 February 1225. And in that sense, therefore, the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta is on 11 February 2025. So it's quite complicated, but it's a question of then and now. Now, certainly, we think of Magna Carta as John's charter of 1215. Then everyone thought of it as the charter of Henry III of 1225. If you want me to unravel that, I'm happy to have a go. But that's the situation.
- [04:49]
Professor David Carpenter
That is what we will do in this conversation. We will unravel that complexity. So, before we dive into what happened in the run up to 1225, can you super quickly remind us what was going on in 1215? What led to John having to put his name to the original.
- [05:05]
Carvana Customer
Well, John was faced by a baronial rebellion which, partly derived from his own character, he was widely regarded, as my friend John Gillingham famously said, widely regarded as a shit. But it was also more than that. It was deeper than that. It was the way Angevin kings have governed the country since Henry ii. Richard the Lionheart. Their oppressive rule had created all kinds of grievances and the Magna Carta itself. Well, what was it? What was the charter John issued in 1215? As I've said, contemporaries regarded it as the Charter of Runnymede. It was a Latin document, it was 3,500 words long. It asserted a fundamental principle that the ruler was subject to the law. But it also did that, and I think this is what set it apart from other contemporary European documents. It did so in a very nitty gritty way, in a whole series of do's and don'ts, which the King was supposed to do or not do, covering the whole realm of royal government. So it was a really very well thought out document. It wasn't just vague sounding principles, it really gripped the whole way. The King had been governing the country really since the mid 12th century, if not earlier.
- [06:22]
Professor David Carpenter
And the thing was that, as you said, John was not an attractive character in many respects. He was notoriously slippery. And even after putting his name to this charter in June 1215, he soon backslid on it. That's right, isn't it?
- [06:34]
Carvana Customer
Yeah, absolutely right, I think. Why does John concede the charter? He concedes it because he's faced by a baronial rebellion, but with absolutely typical, as you say, slipperiness, treachery. I think John was thinking this, he was thinking that, look, I will concede the charter, everyone will go home, there'll be peace, but the barons will never get around to enforcing its poisonous contents. So that was John's calculation, a very clever one. Everyone would think, this benevolent king has granted this charter, but no one will know what's in it. And actually getting actual original charters out of King John was like drawing teeth. It was very, very difficult for him to actually get the originals from him, but he was proved wrong. He made a terrible miscalculation because actually, he soon discovered that the barons were going to not merely enforce the charter, but they were going to enforce it to the letter and beyond. And so as he realised that he actually got the Pope, he appealed to the Pope to quash the charter. And because John, by absolutely brilliant footwork, had now got the Pope on his side, the Pope complied. And so the charter had a very, very short life. So by the end of 1215, it seemed that the charter was a failure without a future, because John had got the Pope to quash it. But the curious thing is that the barons, although very attached to it, the rebel barons, thought, we'll never be able to hold John to its terms. So they go down another route altogether. And they depose John and they offer the throne to the eldest son of the king of France, Louis, who comes to England with a big army. And so they've gone down a different road altogether. They've thought, we can't hold John to this charter. What we must do is get a new king. And so, you know, by the end of 1215, 1216, when Louis comes to England, large army carries all before him. Most barons support, he controls London. You know, the charter seems absolutely forgotten.
- [08:37]
Professor David Carpenter
For listeners and whoever is interested in a visual interpretation of this, you can go to our YouTube channel and watch me talking about the siege of Dover in 1216, when Louis and John's people had a bit of a scrap there. But let's think about Louis. Just a second. What did the barons think about Louis and Louis's reaction to the charter? Did they say that Louis needed to put his name to the charter as well?
- [08:59]
Carvana Customer
That's absolutely fascinating. And also a fundamental question about the charter's survival. There's no evidence at all that Louis issued the charter of his own, that he confirmed the charter or did anything. And I think his view was that, you don't need a charter with me. I'm from the benevolent Capetian dynasty. I will be a good lord and a good king. And that was helped by Louis personality, which was totally different from John's. He had a reputation for being honourable, he was uxorious. There's no hint of bastards and mistresses. As far as he's concerned, he was totally different from the malevolent King John. And so I think the barons accepted this Louis line was, I will be a good and benevolent king, you don't need the charter. Why did the barons go for Louis? Of course, they wanted someone powerful enough to rid them of this tyrannical king. And the only person who had the power to do that was the eldest son of the king of France, because they hoped behind him would be all the power of the great Capetian dynasty. That's why they didn't choose King Alexander of Scotland. Another person they could have chosen, you know, just didn't have the actual clout to defeat King John. Louis did, and that's why they went for him. But they did. So accepting that Louis was not going to bind himself to Magna Carta, I mean, that would be absolutely impossible for a Capetian king to have accepted all those restrictions.
- [10:32]
Professor David Carpenter
In 1216, we've got the civil war between those who support Louis and those who continue to support John. And I guess then, if Louis had succeeded there, then maybe we wouldn't really be talking about Magna Carta at all. Given what you've just said, it would have been a very short lived document.
- [10:46]
Carvana Customer
That's a fascinating point. If Louis had won the war, I mean the future of Europe must have been quite different, the politic structure of Europe, because you would have England and France coming under the same dynasty, but equally there probably would be of no future for Magna Carta. I think Louis would have issued some very anodyne coronation charter, promising in general terms good rule and something like that, but it wouldn't have been beyond that. So you're absolutely right. What saved the charter was King John's death.
- [11:18]
Professor David Carpenter
So John dies in October 1216 and that's when we get his son, the very young King Henry III comes into the picture. Now, presumably the supporters of Henry III needed to find ways to garner support and show that he wasn't going to be the same as his father. Did Henry's team weaponize the charter to his benefit?
- [11:37]
Carvana Customer
Well, that's a really good way of putting it because that is exactly what they did. Let's think about the situation in October 1216. Louis has the allegiance of two, probably certainly the majority of the English barons. He controls London, he has a large army. The nine year old Henry III therefore is an absolutely awful situation. He can't even be crowned at Westminster because Louis controls London, so he has to be crowned at Gloucester. Now the combination of magnates and ministers who remain loyal to the young Henry iii, led by William Marshall, Earl of Pembroke, who become regent led by the Papal Legate Guala, they think what is the way forward? What can we do to rescue this terrible situation? I don't think any English king succeeded in a more parlous situation than the nine year old Henry iii. And what they did was to take an extraordinary decision in a way which shaped the whole future course of English history. And what they did was to issue a new version of the charter. So they accepted what King John had rejected and Louis was ignoring. And in November 1216 from Bristol, Henry issues this new version of the charter, shorn of the most pernicious from the King's point of view, content. So it's watered down a bit, but fundamentally it's the same. I always think if you take the two principles here, the Papal Legate Gwala and William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke. I think it was easier for William Marshal because William Marshal had remained loyal to King John for a series of material reasons and reasons of principle. But I mean he's going to benefit from the provisions of the charter, just like any other great baron. And indeed, you know, take the very, very key principle for barons, that the inheritance tax of a baron should be £100. Whereas John, of course, had charged hundreds and thousands of pounds. When William Marshal died in 1219, what happens? His son, William Marshal Jr. Succeeds with an inheritance tax of £100. Wow. You know, the Marshals have certainly gained straight away from the char. I think William Marshal had absolutely no principled objection to the charter. I think the Papal legate Gwala was in a totally different situation and I think he showed extraordinary courage and imagination. Because the Pope had condemned the charter, the Gwala as papal legate, had absolutely no means of consulting the Pope over this total change of policy. And I would love to have seen the letter Gwala wrote explaining himself to Pop Honorius. I think he probably would have done it just in terms of, this is the only future we could possibly have unless we accept this. The young King is finished. And so this new version of the Charter was issued. But of course, the key question is, did it have any effect? Did it have impact? And I think I didn't used to think this, but thinking about it now, I think it had terrific impact because it's perfectly true, very, very few rebel barons went over to the King's side, to the young King's side, in the immediate aftermath of the reissue of the charter. But if we come to the totally decisive battle of Lincoln, one of the most decisive battles in English history, which basically established the young King on the throne because the Anglo French forces or rebel forces were totally defeated, that's in May 1217 at Lincoln. What is so extraordinary about it is that the rebel barons evidently did not fight very hard. Not one of the rebel barons was actually killed. And you had this huge list of them all. They all surrendered. So I think what happened is they sort of struck token blows and then gave up. The reason they gave up was that their cause was won. On the one hand, the young innocent Henry III replaced the evil King John, but on the other, the regency government has reissued Magna Carta. So, you know, the original reason for all this trouble for the war has been conceded. So they knew they'd won in a way. So I think the impact of the new charter was colossal.
- [15:53]
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- [16:23]
Professor David Carpenter
That's really interesting. So you're saying the lackluster performance of the rebels at Lincoln was directly attributable to the fact that they knew they had Magna Carta in the bag and kind of their provisions were sorted?
- [16:34]
Carvana Customer
Absolutely. And that was confirmed at the end of the war, because part of the final peace settlement was Magna carta, because in November 1217, right at the end of the war, Henry III now issues another version of the charter. And he does so, and this is an even greater victory, with a separate charter regulating the whole running of the Royal Forest. Huge grievance, the Royal Forest. And so from now onwards, the two charters go together. And that, of course, is how we finally get the name Magna Carta. We've got to remember that, as I've said, John's charter is the Charter of Runnymede. No one really calls the 1216 charter anything particular, just a charter of liberties or charter. The King has conceded. It's now when we've got two charters that the term Magna Carta is introduced.
- [17:29]
Professor David Carpenter
So, David, this is a classic case of London busses, isn't it? You wait one year for a charter of liberties to come along and then suddenly you've got three come along at the same time. So we've had three charters in three years.
- [17:40]
Carvana Customer
We have. And now, I suppose in a way, it was London buses which explained the introduction of the term Magna Carta, because the poor clerks drawing up royal proclamations have now to think, how are we going to distinguish the one charter from the other? How are we going to distinguish the Forest Charter from the other charter, which is the descendant from the charter of 1215? And so what they dream up is the term Magna Carta to describe the first one. And the reason they chose it was that the Forest charter is physically considerably smaller in terms of actual dimensions than the original charter. And so the original charter is bigger, physically bigger. And so they decide to give it the term Magna Carta. And all that means is great charter, big charter in terms of its size. It's got nothing to do with its status, its grandeur, its holiness, nothing like that. It's just because it's physically larger than the little Forest charter. And so that's the best way of describing it. So the actual proclamation and the copy of that proclamation on the CLO is even an afterthought. There's a little arrow underneath in which arrowed up is Magna Carta. And that's the very first time that it appears. And I suppose the clerk who dreamt that up as an afterthought, never in his wildest dreams thought that this term would go round the world.
- [19:12]
Professor David Carpenter
Can we leap on to 1225, then, when we get yet another charter? I'm not missing out any between 1217 and 1225, are we?
- [19:20]
Carvana Customer
No, we now have the two together. 1217, Magna Carta and the Forest Charter. And now we go on to 1225. And what's different about 1225 is that we really do now stop. The 1225 versions are final and definitive, and that's why they are the Magna Carta. It's because subsequent kings, and we might come on to that when they confirmed Magna Carta, they never issued a new version. They simply confirmed the charters of 1225. So in 1297, 1300, when Edward I said, I confirm Magna Carta, what he just said is, I have inspected the 1225 chart of my father. Here it all is set out and I confirm it. And that's why, therefore, the 1225 charter is the final definitive the Magna Carta.
- [20:15]
Professor David Carpenter
Why did Henry iii, who's by now a teenage king, why did he feel a need to reissue the charter or do a new charter in 1225?
- [20:22]
Carvana Customer
Well, I think that takes us to actually another question, a very related question, which is, is the charter of 1225 qualitatively different from all the charters which had gone before? And does that qualitative difference explain why no one ever wanted to have another version, why it becomes final and definitive? And I think it is qualitatively different. And that takes us to the answer of your question, which is why 1225. And the answer to that is that there remained grave doubts in the public mind about the validity of. Of the earlier charters, 1216 and now 1217. And they were expressed by one rebarbative old minister of King John William Brewer, at a council meeting in 1223 when he said, the charters of Henry III, referring here to the 1217 charters, should not be obeyed. They have no validity because they've been extracted by force. And in a way, that was true, wasn't it? Because, you know, it was the civil war which had forced both the 1216 one and the 1217 one out of the government of Henry III. So, you know, there's a real doubt as to their validity. Now, two people wanted to put that doubt at rest. And I think the most important of them was the Archbishop of Canterbury, Stephen Langton. Very, very important person in the whole history of the charter. And he was a great theologian, one of the great academic scholars of the age. He believed profoundly in a kingship limited by law. And he also believed in the charter because it protected the liberties of the Church. So he's desperate to place the Charter on a new footing to get rid of all the doubts about it, you know, that it's a problem of coercion. And he works hand in hand with the person in charge of the minority government of the King, and that's Hubert de Burgh, who is very soon to be Earl of Kent. Now, Hubert, I think, had no ideological attachment to the charter, but sees this as a practical necessity. And how does this all come together to actually make the final, definitive version? It's a crisis abroad. It's a crisis in which the King of France, now Louis viii, who was precisely the Louis who challenged the young Henry III. Louis is now king of France. And in 1224, he overran Poitou and threatened Gascony, the one remaining possession of the dynasty in France. Now, in order to save Gascony, what was necessary was a huge tax. Only a gigantic tax on the kingdom would save Gascony from being overrun by the King of France. And so what Hubert de Burgh and Archbishop Langton realised was that the only way to get the tax was to concede a new version of the charter. But you see, that's where I think Langton in particular saw his opportunity. He realised that what we can do now is to remove any kind of suspicion that the charter has been extracted from the King by force. Because what we'll craft is a charter which is quite manifestly a product of a freely entered into bargain between the King and the kingdom. In other words, this charter will be granted by the King in return for the tax. And so no one anymore can say, the King has been forced to do it, he's done it freely. And I think the great stroke of genius, and I think this was Archbishop Langton who thought of this, is that that fact is stated in the charter of 1225. At the end of the 1225 charter, the king says, in return for these liberties, everyone in the kingdom has granted me this great tax. So, in other words, it's there now in black and white. No one can think that the charter has been extracted from the King by force. And so the charter of 1225 is qualitatively different it's put on a totally different bas. It's now the part of a. It's a consensual document as between the king and the kingdom. And that helps to explain how it survives.
- [24:55]
Professor David Carpenter
So this was a case of taxation for representation, then?
- [24:59]
Carvana Customer
Yeah, if you like. Or taxation, certainly, in return for. And I'll come on to representation in a second taxation in return for these liberties. Representation is interesting there too, because there are all kinds of changes made in the 1225 version which indicated not exactly representation, but certainly that the great and good of the land, in a way they'd never done before, had accepted the charter. In a way, it's the product of Parliament. And later on, it was always regarded as the first statute. And that is shown in the extraordinary witness list of the 1225 charter. 1215 charter hardly had a witness list. 1216, 1217, the same. Whereas at the end of the 1225 charter, there's this huge list of all the great and good of the land who have witnessed it. In other words, they've given their consent to it. It starts with all the bishops, then it has the abbots, then it has the earls, and then it has the barons. And whatever side people took in the civil war, loyalists, rebels, they're all together at the end giving their common consent to this great document. And I think people realized that was so important because the witness list was frequently copied out again and again. And people realized, you know, this shows we're all behind the charter. And I think it was those two things, the huge witness list, the statement that it's in return for a tax, which meant that no later king really felt the need to issue another version. Cause this version was it. And that's why the 1225 one became accepted as the Magna Carta.
- [26:41]
Professor David Carpenter
You talked about Stephen Langton and Hubert de Burgh being kind of key figures in the move towards the 1225 charter. You didn't really mention Henry very much in that. I wonder, what agency, if any, did the teenage Henry have in agreeing to it?
- [26:54]
Carvana Customer
Well, I think he had some agency. And I've mentioned this episode where William Brewer, at the council meeting in 1223, speaks up and says, you know, the charters are invalid. They were extracted from the King by force. And Archbishop Langton sort of hurries him off into a corner and says, for heaven's sake, shut up. You're disturbing the peace of the kingdom. And it's at that point that Henry III makes his very first political statement. And Henry III is quoted as saying those things. I have agreed to those things I have sworn to, I will maintain. So it's other words, Henry III in 1223 gives his verbal assent to the charter. In 1225, he's said in the charter itself to be granting it of his own free will. And for the first time it's authenticated with his seal. He didn't have a seal in 1217 and it's still the legate and the regent who actually seal it, whereas in 1225 Henry seals it. Now, I think this did make a deep impression on Henry and as I think did the sentence of excommunication. He often worried if he was actually fallen under that sentence of excommunication. So I think Henry was a perfectly willing party to the 1225 issue. I think it was masterminded by Hubert de Burgh and Langton, but they both had great influence on Henry. And so I don't think Henry was insincere. I think he was a willing participant of in what is happening, as the charter itself shows and states.
- [28:28]
Professor David Carpenter
Can we just dive into that just a little bit more? Because you've written the definitive biography of Henry III and he had a very long reign. He reigned for decades through the 13th century after this is this moment. Is this charter in 1225 significant in the way he reigns and the length of his reign as well. Did it enable him to have good relations with his barons through the rest of his tenure?
- [28:48]
Carvana Customer
Yes and no. Let's do the no first, in that there were constant complaints that the charter was not observ. And one problem there was, in one respect it was weaker than the 1215 charter, because the 1215 charter had this thing called the security clause, in which 25 barons were appointed to enforce the charter. So if the king broke it, they could seize his property, seize his castles and so on. Now, that chapter was dropped from all the subsequent versions and so it left the charter with no easy constitutional means for enforcement. I say easy, but of course you could say it was a recipe for Civil War. The 25 barons, now, Henry was certainly accused, his officials were accused of often breaking the charter. I personally think, though, that people perhaps protested too much. I think Henry's rule was very different from that of his father. And that was partly personality, because Henry had none of the manipulative malevolence of King John. He was quite easy going, he was simplex, he was deeply pious, he was generous, warm hearted. He was not a dangerous person in any kind of way. But I think it was also due to the charter and very important chapters of the charter were obeyed. And they did make a profound difference to both the king's power and his revenues. And I've mentioned one of them, which is the inheritance tax of a baron. So, you know, when a baron dies, his heir has to pay the king a sum of money to succeed to the estate. King John, Richard, Henry II sometimes had charged very large sums of money against people they distrusted or just wanted to sort of put in their place hundreds of pounds, thousands of pounds. And I mentioned that Magnar says to be a hundred pounds. And that chapter was fundamentally agreed. Another important chapter related to noble women in that a chapter said that widows were not to be forced into remarriage. And that chapter was fundamentally obeyed too. And there are a lot of merry widows in the 13th century who didn't remarry, were in full command of their estates and so on. And another chapter, justice was not Openly sold after 12th. I mean, one of the most famous chapters of the charter says justice is not to be sold. Justice wasn't openly sold in the same way under Henry iii. So in lots of ways, I think the charter was obeyed. I suppose what we ought to say here is that, you know, what's the difference? But fundamentally, the 1225 charter is the same as the 1215 charter, but shorn of some of the most dangerous clauses and shorn of the security clause in particular. But its essence is the same as the 1215 charter. Nonetheless, 1215 at this time is just the charter of Runnymede. Although everyone's aware that 1225 is derived from 1215. They didn't in the medieval period think we ought to rename the 1215 charter Magna Carta. Of course, that was quite logical, of course, because Magna Carta is the term introduced to distinguish the original charter from the Forest Charter. As there was no forest charter in 1215, there was no grounds for calling it John's Charter, Magna Carta. And so it's the charter Runnymede.
- [32:07]
Professor David Carpenter
Okay, so we've unravelled that whole story very effectively. Thank you for that, David. To go back to the start of the conversation and my confusion over which anniversary we should have been celebrating. If the 1225 charter is the one that's had the long lasting impact, the one that's been referenced by subsequent monarchs and parliaments, why are we talking about 1215 at all? Why is that to date, the one.
- [32:27]
Carvana Customer
That people tend to remember, that is a fascinating story. And it's not really till the 18th century that things change, as you say, throughout the medieval period. When kings confirmed Magna Carta, they always confirmed the charter of 1225. Indeed, when the great lawyers of the Stuart period, Edward Coke, for example, when they dusted down Magna Carta and brought it out as a bastion against Stuart tyranny, what did they appeal to? It was still the 1225 charter, the charter of Henry III. And of course, Shakespeare had no knowledge that King John was associated with any document or Magna Carta or anything. It's not referenced in Shakespeare's King John. So how does this change? It changed in the 18th century and it was all due to a great lawyer called Blackstone. And Blackstone was the first person to really sort out and print the various versions of. Of the charter. So he issued a book in 1759 in which the charter of 1215 was printed, the charter of 1216. The charter of 1217, with the charter of the forest charter of 1225 does the same. That had never been done before. There had been sort of confusion between them all. So he sorted out for the first time the various versions and he took an absolutely crucial decision, which was to call John's charter of 1215 not the charter of Runnymede. He called it Magna Carta. And I suppose he was justified in doing that because obviously, setting out the whole sequence of charters showed that the later ones are all based on the 1215 charter, although they've got very significant differences. So for the first time, King John's charter is called Magna Carta in 1759, and such is the authority of Blackstone that it stuck. So both in popular culture from then onwards and in academic writing, Magna Carta becomes essentially the charter of King John in 1215. You know, the great historian of the last century, Sir James Holt, his book Magna Carta came out in 1965, second edition, 1991. That's a book essentially about the 1215 charter. So academic, popular culture, academic culture, Magna Carta is now King John as document. The only thing which didn't change is actually the legal position, because there are still chapters of Magna Carta on the statute book of the United Kingdom today. And actually on the statute book, it's still the 1225 charter of Henry III. So legally, the 1225 charter still holds the day, but actually, in academic culture and popular culture, King John's charter has triumphed and it's really due to Blackstone.
- [35:28]
Professor David Carpenter
Excellent. So Blackstone rewrote history and now you are rewriting it back to what we should probably know.
- [35:35]
Carvana Customer
Well, I think actually both should be, obviously, King John's charter of 1215. If it hadn't been for John's charter, Charter of Runnymede, there would have been no 1225. And as I've seen, you know, if Louis had won the war, probably no Magna Carta either. But on the other hand, the 1225 charter, I think does deserve to be remembered, because I think without the 1225 charter and without putting it on a consensual basis, so it's a freely entered into bargain between king and kingdom, supported by the Church. I think without that, the charter would not have survived. So really, 1215 and 1225 should always go in tandem together.
- [36:15]
Professor David Carpenter
If I go to the British Library tomorrow to look at Magna Carta, which one am I looking at? Which one have they got on display there?
- [36:21]
Carvana Customer
They have on display, you'll be pleased to know, both. They have on the one hand the 1215 charter, but they also do have in the British Library a 1225 original. Only four of the 1215 originals survive, and there are four of the 1225 originals surviving also. The most beautifully preserved one, though, is up at Durham, although unfortunately, an archivist spilt ink all over it in the 18th or 19th centuries. So it looks a little bit dilapidated, but it's still got a wonderful seal of King Henry iii. So if you go into the British Library, you can see both.
- [36:58]
Professor David Carpenter
Okay, that's unfortunate from the Durham archivist. Now to wrap up, if we've been kind of thinking about the wrong date, potentially Magna Carta, for all these years since Blackstone, is there anything else in our popular imagination of Magna Carta that we're getting wrong?
- [37:13]
Carvana Customer
I have just finished correcting a series of essays on, in fact, does Magna Carta empower women or imprison them? I don't mean literally imprison them. So anyway, the number of times that I was told in these essays that Magna Carta was signed, I was sort of, you know, I despaired. So I wrote in big letters above, sealed, admittedly, electronically wrote in big letters above. And so I think that is a popular myth which we ought to get rid of. Clearly, Magna Carta was sealed and it was not signed.
- [37:48]
Podcast Host
That was Professor David Carpenter. You can find out much more about Magna Carta and the reigns of John and Henry III, how@historyextra.com Thanks for listening. This podcast was produced by Jack Bateman.