810 Years Ago at Runnymede: Magna Carta Yesterday and Today

In 1215 at Runnymede, less than ten miles from Sunninghill, King John granted Magna Carta. 2025, marks the 800th anniversary of the final confirmation of the Charter by John’s son Henry III - the moment when the Charter became the first statute on our statute book.

The Charter laid down in clauses 39 and 40 the principles of equality before the law and speedy access to justice. It placed the executive under the law in a way that had never been done before, and it paved the way for the development of the limited, constitutional monarchy we have today.

The talk will look in general terms at how Magna Carta came to be made, at how ‘bad’ King John quickly overthrew it, and at how its permanent establishment owed much to the turbulent minority of the young King Henry III. It will also look at how Magna Carta was rediscovered and reinvented by the common lawyers in the seventeenth century, as a weapon for combatting what they saw as the tyranny of the Stuarts. And it will conclude by considering how the Charter’s meaning has been reinterpreted yet again in our own time as a blueprint for human rights. If there’s a moral here, it is that every generation reimagines Magna Carta in its own light.

Finally, there will be a few thoughts on what Magna Carta has done for you and me.

Our speaker, Nigel Saul is emeritus professor of history at Royal Holloway, University of London. He was a member of the national organising committee of the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta in 2015. He is the author of the standard biography of Richard II.