[MUSIC] Some of the representations of Freeborn John. >> Yes. >> Though to the 18th century, you know, eventually being shackled, by tyrannical governments. >> Yes. >> That. Magna Carta is in shreds on the floor. >> Yes. >> The lips are enclosed. >> Yes. >> By padlocks. >> Yes. >> Clearly is incredible, emotive force behind those things. And you imagine the audience, whether they're high or low, thinking my Magna Carta's on the wall. And I'm going to sort of obey it. >> That's right. >> It's quite, quite odd. I mean whether. The contemporary, world really thinks of that document remains to be seen, I think. You know, there's a lot of interesting iconography going on. Magna Carta is a form of pest repellant. >> Yeah, haha. >> That should be sprayed on the House of Commons, to remove corruption is a re-imagining of that tradition that somehow. >> Yes. Magna Carta represents, liberty and justice. >> Yes. >> It had nothing, to do with the original text at all. >> That's right, yes. >> But its symbolism, has come through to us. >> Yes, yes. >> And I think a lot of the work that's done. >> Yes. >> In the 17th and 18th century, is where they're drawing from. >> Yes. >> You know, they can see these traditions. Yes. Yes. >> So it's, It's interesting as a historian of ideas. You know, these are emotional, connections rather than conceptual connections. >> I think one has to be careful about, fetishising these documents and the rights that they enshrine. Because of course in the end. Governments will do what they want, and and there's a way in which they can use these documents as a kind of mask, for what is in fact illegitimate action. And of course, the other thing to say is that in the end, law. Always has to be interpreted, by human beings. That in the end, there always has to be the discretion of judges, or politicians, and of course it's in that space of discretion and of hermeneutics of interpretation that all riots. Can, can come. Exactly. So I'm thinking about, the various ways in which it is used in the 1650s. Of course it's not, it's not always by the radicals that it is sometimes disdained. Of course very famously and poetically, it is disdained by Oliver Cromwell who describes it as Magna Farta. >> Yes. >> And there's this notion, why [...] why should I be controlled he said, by Magna Farta. As far as he's concerned, he is doing God's work. His, he is the sort of mouthpiece for, for the lord. He's won this battle providentially, and he has no need, for these corrupt legal niceties. So, so there's a, there's a kind of a, there's a disdain for Magna Carta coming both from the diggers and from Cromwell. >> Authority. Yeah. >> And from authority, exactly. Brilliant, brilliant. So we, we get, certainly, in the 1640s and '50s. And then, perhaps, in, in your lovely word an ossification in the restoration and afterwards of these principles of lives, liberties, and estates. You know, an ancient constitution that fundamentally. Protects, the property. >> Yes. >> Of free born, middling sorts. >> Yes. >> How, how does that feed into the sort of, later crisis of the 17th century? >> So Magna Carta is ,. It's sort of part of. It's drawn into the grand, Whig story of history. Which says that, the bill of rights of 1689 is a reaffirmation of the principals of Magna Carta. Which itself is reaffirmation of the fundamental law in the ancient constitution. But what's interesting, in a sense, is that the real revolutionary moment of the 1680s doesn't really happen in 1689, which is a sort of seemless transfer really, you know, out flees James, in sails, William, without any trouble at all. The revolutionary moment. In that decade comes much earlier when the Whigs as they later to be called fight to exclude James from the throne, and they fight against what they see as the tyranny of Charles the second. And there of course the language that they is not so much the ancient constitutional language, but again the language of natural rights. The notion of their being a contract, a trust between people, and monarchs that's been broken. >> Yeah, and I think that you know, there are small elements in, in some of the way propagandists who simply rehearsed some of Coke's commentary, I think that's one of the traditions which we see through to the 18th century. You can take this so called, golden passages of Coke. >> Yes. Clause 29, the free man shall not be, and pretty much, weave in anything you like, including natural law. >> That's right, that's right and I suppose, and rather than, in a way, see them using kind of Magna Carta in an instrumental way, as perhaps you have sort of implied, maybe a, a kind of fairer way of putting it would be that. That these are just simply not distinct traditions for them, that they are, that they're, that, that. There's this fundamental law, that all, kind of, radical or revolutionary are drawing on, which is that, that Salus populi suprema lex, that, suprema lex. The safety of the people is the supreme law. And, and that, you find invoked by everyone. >> Everyone, yes. >> Of the time. Even Thomas Hobbs. [LAUGH]. >> Yes. Yes. [LAUGH] Yes. The role of a historical precedent, especially if you were trying to appeal outside of a parliamentary and elite context. It's very important that this It is the age of print, you get more evidence of political cartoons invoking Magna Carta. So the sense that, there's been a tradition. That we're part of, that is correct and effective. >> Yes. >> I think it's quite important as well. >> Yes, yes. I mean and that's what I suppose what's very interesting about Magna Carta is that although in, in terms of law in terms of statute it becomes and increasing irrelevance. The fact as it where of its age which in a way speaks to its irrelevance is also the source of its power. >> Yeah. >> It's to do, with a sort of. If, if you like the kind of English, romance with its past. The English sort of adoration of antiquity, this, this harking back to a golden age is precisely because of its age that it's so appealing. >> Absolutely in, in one sense Jill Lepore's written very powerfully about the American Constitution. You know, an individual at the end of the 17th century or the middle of the 18th century, probably hadn't read Magna Carta. >> Yes. >> But they knew what it meant. >> Yes, exactly. >> So that sense >> That's right. >> In which it, it carries a lot of iconic. >> Yes. >> Constitutional arguments,. >> Yes. >> Even if the detail. >> Yes. >> Of the language isn't accurate. >> Yes. >> Is very important. >> Yes.
