Magna Carta: The Start of Liberty

“Dan Jones has an enviable present for telling a dramatic story whereas on the identical time inviting us to think about severe subjects like liberty and the seeds of consultant authorities.” —Antonia Fraser

From the New York Occasions bestselling creator of The Plantagenets, a vigorous, action-packed historical past of how the Magna Carta got here to be—by the creator of The Templars

 

The Magna Carta is revered world wide because the founding doc of Western liberty. Its ideas—even its language—might be present in our Invoice of Rights and within the Structure. However what was this unusual doc and the way did it acquire such legendary standing?

Dan Jones takes us again to the turbulent yr of 1215, when, beset by international crises and cornered by a rising home revolt, King John reluctantly agreed to repair his seal to a doc that might change the course of historical past. On the time of its creation the Magna Carta was only a peace treaty drafted by a gaggle of insurgent barons who had been bored with the king’s excessive taxes, arbitrary justice, and limitless international wars. The delicate peace it established would final solely two months, however its ideas have reverberated over the centuries. 

Jones’s riveting narrative follows the story of the Magna Carta’s creation, its failure, and the conflict that subsequently engulfed England, and charts the excessive factors in its sudden afterlife. Reissued by King John’s successors it protected the Church, banned illegal imprisonment, and set limits to the train of royal energy. It established the precept that taxation should be tied to illustration and paved the best way for the creation of Parliament. 

In 1776 American patriots, impressed by that long-ago defiance, dared to select up arms towards one other English king and to demand much more far-reaching rights. We consider the Declaration of Independence as our founding doc however those that drafted it had their eye on the Magna Carta.