‘Given by our hand in the meadow that is called Runnymede, between Windsor and Staines, on the fifteenth day of June in the seventeenth year of our reign’. Thus goes the text of the preliminary draft of Magna Carta. Four copies survive, at Lincoln and Salisbury Cathedrals and two in the British Museum. The year is 1215. Sixteen months later King John was dead and his young nine-year old son Henry III was on the English throne.

In Shakespeare’s King John, between Runnymede on 15th June 1215 and John’s suspicious death on 19th October 1216, Queen Eleonor…Henry II’s wife and the mother of Richard I and King John…also dies, Richard’s son Arthur…Pretender to the English Throne…falls to his death from the castle walls trying to escape custody…and Arthur’s mother Constance wrecks the peace deal between Arthur and John and blessed by France and Spain…a deal that includes the lovely Blanche…daughter to Alfonso King of Castille and John’s niece by his sister Elianor. Arthur is as besotted with Blanche as Henry VIIIth was later to be with Ann Boleyn, Queen Elizabeth’s mother.

Standing in the wings at the time of Magna Carta and allied with King Philip of France were the merchants of The City of London . While jostling for advantage and shifting with the moods of the latest perfidy are a bunch of noble cross benchers with their French estates at risk from the royal wheeling and dealing. Behind the scenes of this very European drama lurks Pope Innocent III…represented by his ambassador Cardinal Pandulph…who shuffles back and forth between the royal courts…not to preserve the peace…but to further the interests of the Roman Catholic Church.

For several days leading up to the signing of the Great Charter of English Liberties, John was in negotiation with the barons, the Church and the merchants of London. Signing of a preliminary draft marked John’s formal acceptance. This draft…the Articles of the Barons…listed 49 specific grievances that the King agreed to remedy. From it the full text was prepared in the Royal Chancery...so John got to write the minutes…with some further clauses added.

Here is what Rudyard Kipling…a pretender to the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square…heard whispered at Runnymede.

At Runnymede, at Runnymede,
What say the reeds at Runnymede?
The lissom reeds that give and take,
That bend so far, but never break,
They keep the sleepy Thames awake
With tales of John at Runnymede.

At Runnymede, at Runnymede,
Oh, hear the reeds at Runnymede:
You mustn't sell, delay, deny,
A freeman's right or liberty.
It wakes the stubborn Englishry;
We saw 'em roused at Runnymede!

When through our ranks the Barons came,
With little thought of praise or blame,
But resolute to play the game,
They lumbered up to Runnymede;
And there they launched in solid line
The first attack on Right Divine,
The curt uncompromising "Sign!'
They settled John at Runnymede.

At Runnymede, at Runnymede,
Your rights were won at Runnymede!
No freeman shall be fined or bound,
Or dispossessed of freehold ground,
Except by lawful judgment found
And passed upon him by his peers.
Forget not, after all these years,
The Charter signed at Runnymede.'

And still when mob or Monarch lays
Too rude a hand on English ways,
The whisper wakes, the shudder plays,
Across the reeds at Runnymede.
And Thames, that knows the moods of kings,
And crowds and priests and suchlike things,
Rolls deep and dreadful as he brings
Their warning down from Runnymede!

A few days after the official signing with the parties still gathered at Runnymede copies of the charter began to be issued over the King’s seal for the general information of the realm. This was the signal for dispersal. But this tells only half the story. For more about what really happened at Runnymede visit my Swedish website.