SUPPORT OUR JOURNALISM: Please consider donating to keep our website running and free for all - thank you!

Queen Elizabeth II

The Queen inspects copy of modern Magna Carta at Buckingham Palace reception

The Queen has inspected a modern copy of the Magna Carta at Buckingham Palace during a reception to mark the world’s most famous document’s 800th anniversary.

The Magna Carta was signed and sealed 800 years ago.

The Magna Carta was signed and sealed 800 years ago.

Her Majesty is patron of the Magna Carta Trust, which is holding events to commemorate this important moment in history.

The original charter attempted to limit the powers of Her Majesty’s medieval ancestor, King John.

Although this copy is not an original, it is written in sheepskin parchment so it looks identical. The British Library owns this copy as well as the original.

There are only four remaining versions of the original manuscript still in existence today. Recently Kent County Council in Maidstone unearthed a forgotten edition of Magna Carta that could be worth up to £10 million.

Meaning ‘The Great Charter’, the Magna Carta brought an end to the unlimited power of the monarch and established the principle that everybody was subject to the law and had the right to fair trial.

The document still has a large influence on the rule of law in Britain today, giving all citizens the right to justice and a fair trial.

The copy viewed by The Queen is made up of 3,500 words handwritten in medieval Latin.

Dr Breay, the lady who showed it to the Queen, said: “There were 63 clauses in the original document and most of those have now been repealed, and of the version of Magna Carta which went on to the statute books only three clauses are still valid in English law on the statute book today.”

“So I was showing the Queen the clause ‘no free man should be seized or imprisoned or stripped of his rights, or outlawed or exiled except by the judgement of his equals or by the law of the land and no one shall have justice delayed or denied to him’ because that is one of the clauses that is still on the statute book and is at the heart of its fame today.”

She also noted that the 88-year old monarch had been “intrigued” to see a seal of King John, which will be part of an exhibition on the Magna Carta starting at the British Library in March.

The seal is one of the earliest images of the Plantagenet Kings. It is currently on loan from Eton College.

You can read all about the Magna Carta being sealed in a previous post as part of Royal Central’s History Rewind by clicking here.

Photo credit: anselor via photopin cc

1 Comment

Comments are closed.