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King John and the Magna Carta2.3 History

1 SCAN the following texts and see if you can explain why John is popularly known as ‘Bad King John’.

2 READ the texts and get ready to report orally on the following points:1 Richard I;2 the reasons for John’s

unpopularity;3 the barons’ reaction to

John’s rule;4 the clauses of the

Magna Carta.

GLOSSARYdrain prosciugaredefy sfidareseal sigillareindictment accusa scrittaseizure confiscawage dichiarare (guerra)writ decreto, ordinanza

Richard I succeeded his father, Henry II, in 1189.

He spent less than a year of his reign in England because he left for the Holy Land to take part in the Third Crusade. During his absence, his brother John tried to usurp his place. When Richard died without an heir in 1199, the English and Norman barons chose John to be king. In the popular perception, John is ‘Bad King John’, an image reinforced by his negative representation on the screen in films about Robin Hood or TV series like ‘Ivanhoe’ (1997), where he appears as a cowardly, cruel and reprehensible monarch. The rebellion that started in England in 1215 had John as its cause: his defence of the French territories was ineffective and the constant collection of taxes drained the incomes of the barons and increased their discontent. It seemed that no one was safe

from his arbitrary rule. The barons refused to pay scutage and conspired to resist the king. By May 1215 war had broken out. The rebels, under the name of the ‘Army of God’, defied the king and occupied London. John agreed to meet them and sealed the Magna Carta.

1215, the Magna CartaThe clauses of the Magna Carta were indictments against John’s rule. Among them, the Magna Carta called for a guarantee of protection to all free men from illegal imprisonment and seizure of property. It also asked for swift justice and scutage limitations. The charter established a committee of twenty-five barons with a mandate to wage war on the king if he failed to respect the agreement.

Milestones

Habeas corpusHabeas corpus, meaning ‘you have to have the body’, is a writ, or legal action, which determines the legality of detention. Anyone who believes they are unlawfully detained can demand a habeas corpus petition, which does not determine guilt or innocence, but whether the person is legally imprisoned. If the charge is considered to be valid, the person must submit to trial, but if not, the person goes free. The Habeas Corpus Act, passed by Parliament in 1679, guaranteed this right in law, although its origins go back to the Magna Carta, which says in Article 39: ‘No freeman shall be taken or imprisoned or exiled or in any way destroyed, nor will we go upon him nor will we send upon him except upon the lawful judgement of his peers or the law of the land.’ The original use of habeas corpus was more straightforward: it was a writ to bring a prisoner into court to testify in a pending trial. But what began as a weapon for the king and the courts became, as the political climate changed, a protection for the individual against arbitrary detention by the state.

Insights

1 Battle between Crusaders and Muslims. Bibliothèque Nationale, Alinari Archives, Paris.

Spiazzi, Tavella, Layton PERFORMER. CULTURE & LITERATURE © Zanichelli 2012