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CHAPTER ONE

DEFENDING BASIC RIGHTS

I History of Magna Carta

Magna Carta: 800 years of liberties (1215- 2015)

A touchstone (= pilier) of English liberties

King John was in a war against France. He needed lot of money for the fight. So, there were arbitrary rules and high taxes. That’s why there was a rebellion of English barons.

King John was forced to sign “The Great Charter of Liberty” on 15 June 1215.

What is Magma Carta?

It is a peace treaty between warring sides. We have a few copies, which were sent out, across the country.

This Charter was not enough to stop the Civil War…

Some people don’t agree to this Charter. The pope Innocent III declared “null and void”.

Why is Magma Carta still popular today?

It was re-issued 3 times by John’s son, Henry III. It gained statutory force (il a obtenu le statut de loi) in 1297.

Principles and rights secured in MC

No one is above the law.

All (free) men are equal before the law.

There are 3 chapters still in force, including the one securing the right to a jury trial.

Famous illustration in 2008

Government plan to allow police to detain terror suspects without charge (page 11).

Habeas corpus

Anyone has the right to be brought before (= devant) a court of law (= tribunal) so that the legality of the detention may be examined.

The influence of MC

MC had a big influence on the US Constitution, the US Bill of Rights. Also on the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

II Background to the English Bill of Rights

A) PROTESTANTS AND CATHOLICS

Once upon a time there was a king, Henry Tudor or Henry VIII of England. He was a catholic. All these kings went to the same church the Roman Catholic Church (the head of the church is the Pope).

Henry’s wife was Catherine. But there was a problem: Henry really wanted to have a baby boy. All Catherine’s babies died, except one girl named Mary. Henry had no male heir. There was another nice girl in the palace, Anne, but the was one problem: Henry was already married.

Meanwhile, in Germany, a man named Martin Luther was making a lot of troubles. He said the pope was wrong about many different things. He made a big list of all the things the pope was wrong about (95 things) and put them on the door of the pope’s church.

Luther thought it would be a good idea to talk about these problems and try to fix them. But the pope didn’t agree. The pope said Luther had to apologize for all the trouble he caused.

Luther said that people had the right to think whatever they wanted and told the pope to shove off. In the End, Luther made his own church.

This gave Henry a great idea: if the pope would not give him a divorce, he would make his own church. He would make himself the head of the church.

Henry made a new church, a protestant church called the Church of England or the Anglican Church. The king was the boss of this new church.

After Henry VIII died, his son Edward took over. He kept his father’s church the way it was: protestant. But Edward died after only 6 years.

Then Edward’s sister, Mary became queen, and made England Catholic again. People called her “Bloody Mary” because she liked killing Protestants.

After Mary came her sister Elizabeth, she was Protestant.

The next King was James VI of Scotland and I of England. He was of a different kind of Protestants, called Presbyterians. There was a problem with his son, Charles: a Catholic who married a Catholic princess, Henrietta. That made Protestants very angry, especially the ones in Parliament.

One of them was so angry that he had a revolution. His name was Oliver Cromwell. He chopped off the king’s head made himself boss and said everyone had to be Protestant again.

People were getting confused about all this Protestant and Catholic craziness. So they called up Charles’ son, Charles II. He was protestant, raised in the Church of England, but he thought everybody should be tolerant.

The problem was that his brother, James, was a Catholic. And since Charles didn’t have any kids, James became king James II. James II didn’t listen to anyone, even Parliament. That’s why Parliament decided it was time to take over.

They called up James II’s daughter, Mary, told her to ask her husband, William, to come to England, kick out James II and become king and queen.

But before they let them become king and queen, Parliament made them sign a “Bill of Rights”.

This event was called the Glorious Revolution, it happened in 1688-89.

For Protestants, the Roman Catholic Church meant hierarchy and authoritarianism, which they mistrusted (= se méfier).

The Protestant Parliament in England applies the same logic to royal power, which they also mistrusted.

They wrote the Bill of Rights as a kind of contract between:

- The Parliament and the citizens

- The King

It was a guarantee that certain individual liberties could not be taken away.

Where did that idea come from?

* One of the sources was Protestantism, which emphasised (= mettre l’accent sur):

- The importance of individual conscience

- Clear, understandable relations based on contracts

* Another source was recent philosophy, and mainly the writings of John Locke.

When James was king, a lot of freethinkers went to exile in Holland. One of them was John Locke.

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