Click2History - The Magna Carta: Source of Civil Rights, What is the Magna Carta, Chapter 2

<body link="0000ff" alink="ff0000" vlink="000000" bgcolor=000033> <table width="100%" bgcolor=000033> <tr> <td align=center valign=top> <table width=90% bgcolor=ffffff> <tr> <td align=center valign=top> <tr> <td> <div align=center><p><b><font face="arial, helvetica" size=5 color=000000><b>THE <i>MAGNA CARTA</i></p> <p><font size=4>CHAPTER 2 - WHAT IS THE <i>MAGNA CARTA</i></font></p> </font> </div> <center> <table width="90%"> <tr> <td align="left" valign="top"> <div align="justify"> <p><font face="arial, helvetica" color="000000" size="3">The "Great Charter" (English for the Latin <i>Magna Carta</i>) was not in King John’s best interests. Nor was it his original thought. It was also not the original thought of the barons who forced it on him.</p> <p><i>Magna Carta</i> was copied, nearly word for word, from "<a href="http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/hcoronation.html" target="_blank"><b>The Charter of Liberties</b></a> of <a href="http://www.royal.gov.uk/files/images/henry-I-Beauclerc_lrg.jpg" target="_blank"><b>Henry I</b></a>," an earlier charter (1100) from an earlier king (1100-1135) who had granted civil liberties to the English nobility.</p> <p>Today we also know the <i>Magna Carta</i> as a <a href="http://www.nara.gov/exhall/charters/magnacarta/magintrp.html" target="_blank"><b>forerunner</b></a> of American rights and liberties. People refer to it with reverence. But if granting the "Great Charter" was not in the king’s best interests, and if the king was all-powerful, why did he agree to it? Or <i>did</i> he?</p> <p>What really happened to bring King John and his nobles together on that June day in 1215?</p> </div> <p align="center"><font size="2"><a href="magna_carta_ch1.htm">GO TO LAST CHAPTER</a>   <a href="magna_carta_ch3.htm">GO TO NEXT CHAPTER</a></p><br> </font> </td> </tr> </table> </center> </td> </tr> </table> </td> </tr> </table> </body>