Magna Carta: What Happened Next? | 6 Minute History

[Music] on the 15th of June 1215 King John under durest from some of his mightiest subjects and seeking to avoid Civil War sealed Magna Carta at runny me in Su the chronicle of melrose's Abbey recorded a new state of things began in England such a strange Affair as had never before been heard for the body wished To Rule The Head and the people desired to be Masters over the King around 19th of June J the king's clerks set to work making copies of Magna Carta and John wrote to each County ordering his sheriffs to make arrangements for the charter to be put into effect this included Oaths of loyalty to be sworn not to the king but toward the 25 Barons empowered by the charter to hold the king to account 5 days later on the 24th of June the first seven copies of Magna cataa were distributed around the kingdom the challenge now was putting the charter into practice John had agreed to return the lands and castles he had seized from the Barons and to remove his foreign mercenaries from England however Jon kept hold of a number of Rebel castles and actually increased the number of French mercenaries in his personal body guard even Philip Mark the hated Sheriff of Nottingham remained in post despite the charter calling for him by name to be dismissed meetings in July and August in Oxford failed to resolve the simmering tensions a group of Northern Barons refused to attend the first meeting having concluded that John would not keep his word and those who did meet with John refused to surrender London until the charter was put into effect the second meeting fared no better meanwhile Pope Innocent III pressed the Barons to back down and accept Jon as their rightful King innocent the ruler of large swats of central Italy himself was appalled by Magna Carta which put subjects above their King on the 7th of July innocent ordered the Archbishop of Canterbury Steven lankton to excommunicate all those who Disturbed the Peace of the realm when lton who had mediated the runy me talks refused to carry out this order he was suspended toward the end of July John wrote to the pope asking him to anull Magna Carta and release him from his oath to honor it however he didn't wait for a reply before acting emboldened by the pro order to excommunicate the rebels John began confiscating their land and took his army North to punish Northern England for its part in the rebellion in Rome on the 24th of August innocent issued a papal bull which declared the charter invalid and shameful the bull reached England at the end of September but by then the country had already descended into Civil War at the beginning of the first Baron's War JN seemed the likely Victor his mercenaries were highly skilled and experienced paid for by his crown jewels and he controlled nearly 150 castles the Barons held only 60 many of which were not heavily fortified their only real strength lay in the control of London it's unsurprising then that several Barons broke ranks and made their peace with John while those who remained in opposition welcomed Prince Louie of France when he landed in Kent on the 22nd of May 1216 John's fortunes then took a sharp turn for the worse on the 12th of October he lost the Royal treasure in the quicksand of the wash with limited funds to maintain his mercenary Army and London Still In Rebel hands the future looked Grim large parts of the south of England were now under the control of Prince Louis who was joined in DOA by a Scottish Army led by King Alexander II that had invaded England the previous year and made it all the way down to the South Coast then everything changed John contracted Ed dentry and died on the 18th of October at Newark the crown passed to his 9-year-old son Henry III who was Guided by the widely respected William Marshall and the Pope's Ambassador pandalf Marshall shrewdly reissued Magna Cara stripped of most of its radical Clauses on the 12th of November 1216 Magna Carta was no longer to be a charter exacted by force but instead would be a freely given Manifesto of good government however in a signal that the Rebel Barons may not have been the men of principle commonly assumed many continued to Rebel a decisive victory of royalist forces led by the Marshall at Lincoln and the destruction of Lou's reinforcement Fleet at sandwich in 1217 settled the issue Louie was forced to make peace and drop his claim to the throne the Scots returned home and Magna Carta was issued again on the 6th of November 1217 8 years later on the 11th of February 1225 the charter was then reissued a third time this time by the adult Henry III under his own seal like the 1216 and 1217 issues the 1225 Magna cataa contained approximately half the Clauses agreed at runy lost were the Clauses that regulated the king's use of debt as a tool to control his Barons the insistence the taxes required the consent of the realm and the demand that the king expel All Foreign mercenaries from England most importantly of all the security Clause the Clause that in the words of the chronicle of Melrose made the people masters of the King was absent as Professor Nicholas Vincent reminds us Magna cartet did not put an end to tyranny heavy taxes or guarantee that the law would be fair it did however seow the seed of some very important ideas the golden Clauses of Magna Carta Clauses 39 and 40 survived upholding the principle that no free man should be imprisoned except by the lawful judg of his peers or the law of the land and the Justice could not be delayed or [Music] denied