Magna Carta: Eight Centuries of Liberty

The Wall Street Journal ^ | May 29, 2015 | Daniel Hannan

[St_Thomas_Aquinas]

The story is more complicated than it might appear.

Though in form a free grant of liberties, the charter had really been won from John at the sword's point. It could not in any sense be looked upon as an act of legislation. He had accepted the terms demanded by the barons, but he would do so only so long as he was compelled to. He had already taken measures to acquire both juridical and physical weapons against his enemies by appealing to his suzerain, the pope, and sending abroad for mercenary troops. By a Bull dated August 24 at Anagni, Innocent III revoked the charter and later on excommunicated the rebellious barons. The motives of Innocent's action are not far to seek. To begin with, he was probably misled as to the facts, and trusted too much to the king's account of what had happened. He was naturally inclined to protect the interests of a professed crusader and a vassal, and he took up the position that the barons could not be judges in their own cause but should have referred the matter to him, the king's suzerain, for arbitration. But, more than this, he maintained quite correctly that the king had made the concessions under compulsion, and that the barons were in open rebellion against the Crown.

Regardless, I suppose that your point is that the pope's action undermines the doctrine of papal infallibility. The pope isn't regarded as infallible with respect to political decisions, only with regard to faith and morals. At the time, the pope was the ruler of an earthly kingdom as well as an earthly state.

FWIW, Innocent III is the pope who called for a crusade against the Mohammedans in Spain --a crusade which, along with the Spanish Inquisition, eventually drove the Mohammedans out of Spain.

[Jan_Sobieski]

Not many of us, and we have to lay low, but we are out there...(shhhh)

[Ohioan]

Magna Carta was, of course, understood by the Founders to be a prime example of the validity of Jefferson's compact theory of legitimate Government, as set forth in the preamble to the Declaration of Independence.

Much of it deals with property rights, including rights of inheritance--as well as rights to profit from commerce & enterprise; and represents very much a Conservative, counter-revolutionary achievement--as was the American Revolution--rather than an uprising against the social order--as were the Jacobin, Bolshevik, Nazi, New Deal & other Leftist Revolutions.

Magna Carta--in the original version--also had a mechanism for enforcement, which called for a Committee of Barons to raise the country against the Government, if it violated the solemn assurances of the document.