[MUSIC] So what actually happened here at Runnymede? >> What actually happened here in June 1215, was a series of meetings between the king and the barons stretched over some two weeks occupying pretty well the whole of the first half of June 1215. The position was that the king was based over there, at Windsor, and the barons had occupation of London. And their advance guard was at Stains, the town a mile or two over in that direction. So, we have to imagine several weeks of American Secretary of State style shuttle diplomacy, envoys going back and forth between the two sides. And that in the end splitting the difference and meeting halfway here at Runnymede. We have no eyewitness accounts of what actually happened, no eyewitness has written a description. But we can work out roughly, how the flow of negotiations went. By the 10th of June, a provisional agreement had been reached. That's the document known as the Articles of the Barons, and it survives in the British library in London. Then a few more days of fine tuning and finally on the 15th of June, the final terms were agreed. And then there was some sort of reconciliation ceremony between the king and the barons, and the king's clerks got busy, scribbling away, writing out copies of the charter, and they were carried by envoys to every corner of the realm to be read out in public. >> Were baronial rebellions common at this time then? >> Yes and no. Rebellions in England were no more common, no less common than anywhere else in Europe. A baronial rebellion in the Middle Ages was in some sense a political safety valve, by which people could let off steam, and the king was told that he'd gone too far. They served that sort of political function. But what we can say, is that it was a major difference between the baronial rebellions in England and baronial rebellions elsewhere in Europe. In let us say, modern day France, barons rebelled in defense of provincial or local interests. The barons of Burgundy would rise up in rebellion to defend the privileges of Burgundy, barons of Normandy would rise up in defense of the baron liberties of Normandy, or wherever. Wasn't like that in England. In England, when the barons rebelled against the king, they did so in the name of the whole country. When the barons rebelled against King John, it was a national rebellion, not a local one. It was a national rebellion, the barons acting on behalf of the whole political community, to secure a charter of liberties granted to all the free people of England. >> So, that's one of the things that makes it distinctive and may well be one of the reasons it's got such longevity. >> Absolutely. It shows the political maturity of England. It shows England's precocious political unity, and it helps to explain why it was a document accepted by all, it helps to explain why it survived. >> Clearly there was a major crisis in England in 1215. What had gone wrong? Was King John really that bad? >> King John has had a bad write-up in history and he deserved it. There's no getting round the fact, he was pretty awful. He was slippery, untrustworthy, cruel, malevolent. Just to give an example, in 1208, he broke the power of one of the great baronial families of England and Ireland, the de Braose family. The thought they were on good terms with the king, suddenly, in 1208, he seized their lands and locked up William de Braose. But it wasn't just King John's personal unattractiveness. Perhaps even more important, he was unsuccessful in war, and this mattered. Remember, he was the brother and successor of Richard the Lionheart, the outstanding soldier of the age. He was compared with Richard the Lionheart, and found wanting. The turning point of the reign I think, came in the year 1204, when he lost Normandy to the French. We have to remember of course, that in those days, England, the King of England ruled great areas of Western France. John when he became king in 1199, inherited a big empire, stretching from Hadrian's Wall in the North, down to the Pyrenees in the South. He owned as much of France as the king of France did. And of course, the king of France resented that. He wanted to kick King John out, and that's what he did in the year 1204. King of France recovered Normandy and Anjou. And that was an appalling humiliation for King John, even he felt the humiliation. And he was determined to get Normandy back, and spent the next ten years trying to do so. Building up a war chest and building up a great army. And the culmination of this strategy came in the year 1214, when he launched a two-pronged attack on France. He himself went down to SouthWest France and attacked France from below. And his ally, the emperor of Germany, attacked France from the East. And the emperor got heavily defeated at the Battle of 800 years ago in July 1214, and that was a calamitous defeat. It was actually one of the most important battles in Medieval history, and it represented total collapse of King John's strategy. He lost, he'd found pacing back to England with his tail between his legs. It was a, another appalling humiliation. And it meant that John completely lost credit in England, he was a totally discredited monarch. But the bills still had to be paid. The soldiers wages still had to be paid, they were demanding their wages. So, King John's tax collectors went out all over England collecting the money, but they quickly encountered resistance, people refused to pay. And the disaffection began in the North of England and quickly spread to East Anglia. In October, there was a famous meeting at Bury St. Edmunds in East Anglia, where the barons swore to seek settlement with King John on the basis of the good old laws of King Henry the First. Henry the First had ruled a hundred years before. This is very characteristic of Medieval baronial thinking. You go to a lost golden age, an imagined golden age in the past to validate the political demands that you're making in the present. Well, of course, King John didn't want to have anything to do with this. But the barons pressed on, there was another meeting in the spring of the next year at Stony Stratford in the midlands, where they renounced their oaths of homage to King John. And that was the legal means which you could employ in the Middle Ages, to renounce your obedience to the king and declare war on him. So, England was in a state of total civil war by the spring of 1215, and the turning point came in May when London opened its gates to the rebels, and that told King John that he would have to negotiate. In England in the early 13th century, monarchy was a dynamic force. It was a powerful monarchy that could make it in, make its impact felt in every corner of the land. If the monarchy was weak, it didn't matter, people could just ignore the king. But precisely because the King of England was so powerful, his reach was so extensive. If it's in the case of King John, you had a bad king. His bad kingship effected everyone. So, the monarchy had to be brought under control. And the remarkable thing about Magna Carta, is that through rebellion the king was brought under the apparatus of law. Rebellion was used to create a constitutional means of controlling kingship. >> And that brings an over mighty and unsuccessful monarch to heel. >> Absolutely, but did it only for a few months.
