Magna Carta: Difference between revisions

A common belief is that Magna Carta was a unique and early charter of human rights. However, historianthe majority of historians see this as a myth created centuries later.<ref>{{cite journal|first1=R. H.|last1=Helmholz|title=The Myth of Magna Carta Revisited|url=https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/nclr94&div=44&id=&page=|journal=North Carolina Law Review|date= 2014|pages=1475|volume=94|quote="The latter, a negative opinion that a majority of professional historians seem to share, regards Magna Carta’s exalted reputation as a myth. In its origins, historians say, the Charter did little or nothing to promote good government. Nor, they add, did it serve to protect the legal rights of the great majority of English men and women. It served only the baronial class. Its glorification was a later invention, attributable to myth-making lawyers like Edward Coke in the seventeenth century and William Blackstone in the eighteenth."}}</ref> As [[James Holt (historian)|J. C. Holt]] andsaid, others claim thatthe "Magna Carta was far from unique, either in content or in form".{{sfn|Holt|2015|pp=50–51}}<ref>{{harvnb|Blick|2015|p=39}}: "It was one of a number of such sets of concessions issued by kings, setting out limits on their powers, around this time, though it had its own special character, and subsequently it has become the most celebrated and influential of them all."</ref> At the end of the 16th century, there was an upsurge in interest in Magna Carta. Lawyers and historians at the time believed that there was an ancient English constitution, going back to the days of the [[Anglo-Saxons]], that protected individual English freedoms. They argued that the [[Norman conquest of England|Norman invasion of 1066]] had overthrown these rights and that Magna Carta had been a popular attempt to restore them,{{sfn|Hindley|1990|p=188}}{{sfn|Turner|2003b|p=140}}{{sfn|Danziger|Gillingham|2004|p=280}} making the charter an essential foundation for the contemporary powers of Parliament and legal principles such as ''[[habeas corpus]]''. Although this historical account was badly flawed, jurists such as Sir [[Edward Coke]] used Magna Carta extensively in the early 17th century, arguing against the [[divine right of kings]].{{sfn|Danziger|Gillingham|2004|p=280}}{{sfn|Breay|2010|p=46}} Both [[James VI and I|James I]] and his son [[Charles I of England|Charles I]] attempted to suppress the discussion of Magna Carta.{{sfn|Hindley|1990|p=189}}{{sfn|Danziger|Gillingham|2004|pp=280–281}} The political myth of Magna Carta and its protection of ancient personal liberties persisted after the [[Glorious Revolution]] of 1688 until well into the 19th century. It influenced the early American colonists in the [[Thirteen Colonies]] and the formation of the [[United States Constitution]], which became the supreme law of the land in the new republic of the United States.<ref name="NARA-legacy" /><ref name="NARA-Magna Carta" />