MAGNA CARTA: THE BURY ST EDMUNDS CONNECTION
The motto of the Borough of St. Edmundsbury, Sacrarium Regis, Cunabula Legis, means Shrine of a King, Cradle of the Law. The King is St. Edmund, King of the East Angles, who was killed by invading Danes in 869. His shrine stood for centuries in the medieval Abbey of St. Edmund, and from him the town derived its name. Cradle of the Law refers to the tradition that in 1214 the barons of England met in the AbbeyChurch and swore that they would force King John to accept the Charter of Liberties later known as Magna Carta.
King John (1199-1216) succeeded his brother Richard I. He lacked his brother’s military prowess and he spent much of his reign attempting to recover lost English possessions in France. To finance his military campaigns, he resorted to harsh taxation of his subjects, which provoked growing unrest. While there was some hope of military success abroad, the discontent was contained, but defeat at the Battle of Bouvines in July 1214 marked the end of English hopes of regaining Normandy. Opposition to King John intensified, and he was no longer able to resist the barons’ demand that their liberties be confirmed. On 15 June 1215, at Runnymede, he agreed to a document that later became known as Magna Carta. He did not sign it: indeed there is no evidence that he could write, but within days copies bearing his seal were produced by the royal chancery. Four originals of this document survive, one in Lincoln Cathedral, one in Salisbury Cathedral and two in the British Library.
The constitutional importance of Magna Carta lies in the fact that it placed limits upon the absolute power of the King and made him subject to the law. The most famous of its sixty-three clauses said that no free man could be imprisoned, outlawed or exiled except by the lawful judgement of his peers or by the law of the land, and that justice could not be sold, delayed or denied. It also contained clauses relating to the treatment of heirs and widows and to the payment of debts. It provided for uniform measures of wine, ale, corn and cloth throughout the realm. It confirmed the liberties of the Church and of all cities and towns and it sought to regulate the conduct of all local officials such as sheriffs, bailiffs and constables and ensure that they knew and observed the law.
King John had been forced to agree to Magna Carta, and he immediately attempted to have it annulled by the Pope, who issued a papal bull saying that it was ‘as unjust and unlawful as it is base and shameful’. A period of civil war followed, which ended with the sudden death of King John from dysentry in October 1216. After his death, Magna Carta was reissued with changes in 1216, 1217 and 1225, and the document of 1225 became accepted as a statement of law. After the 1217 re-issue, it became known as Magna Carta, or great charter. In the later medieval period, it was reissued several times and confirmed frequently. In the early seventeenth century, a period of particular conflict between king and subject, Magna Carta assumed a new importance. Sir Edward Coke, the Lord Chief Justice, said that it was ‘declaratory of the principal grounds of the fundamental laws of England’ and it formed a basis for the Petition of Right (1628). The clauses of Magna Carta were also echoed in early American colonial charters, in the American Declaration of independence (1776) and in the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948). Three of its clauses still stand on the English Statute Book, including its most famous one protecting free men from arbitrary imprisonment and prohibiting the sale, denial or delay of justice.
The Bury St. Edmunds connection is related in Flores Historiarum (The Flowers of History), a chronicle written by Roger of Wendover (d. 1236), a monk in the Benedictine monastery of St. Albans. He says that: About this time the earls and barons of England assembled at St Edmund’s as if for religious duties, although it was for some other reason; for after they had discoursed together secretly for a time, there was placed before them the charter of King Henry the First, which they had received, as mentioned before, in the City of London from Stephen, Archbishop of Canterbury. This charter contained certain liberties and laws granted to the holy church as well as the nobles of the kingdom, besides some liberties which the king added of his own accord. All therefore assembled in the church of St. Edmund the king and martyr, and commencing from those of the highest rank, they all swore on the great altar that, if the king refused to grant these liberties and laws, they themselves would withdraw from their allegiance to him, and make war on him, till he should, by a charter under his own seal, confirm to them every thing they required; and finally it was unanimously agreed that, after Christmas, they should all go together to the king and demand the confirmation of the aforesaid liberties to them, and that they should in the meantime provide themselves with horses and arms so that if the king should endeavour to depart from his oath, they might by taking his castles compel him to satisfy their demands; and having arranged this, each man returned home.
The date of this meeting is not known, but historians believe that the most likely date was 20 November 1214, the feast of St. Edmund, when people might well have congregated at the Abbey for prayer. Not all historians accept Roger of Wendover’s account: J.C. Holt has pointed out that Wendover was not always the most reliable of chroniclers and that there is no mention of the meeting in the surviving Bury St. Edmund sources. However, other historians are more sympathetic. R.M. Thomson considers that a great pilgrim shrine would offer the rebels a good cover for their meeting. He also observes that Wendover’s account receives some support from another contemporary source, the Chronique de l’Histoire des Ducs de Normandie, which describes a meeting of the barons before the sealing of Magna Carta although it does not say where it took place.
Bury St Edmunds people have treasured this link with Magna Carta. In 1849, two commemorative plaques were erected on the ruined piers of the crossing of the AbbeyChurch. The Borough’s motto, Sacrarium Regis, Cunabula Legis, also seems to date from about this time. In 1908 a historical pageant in the AbbeyGardens was staged to celebrate the 300th anniversary of the town becoming a borough. It featured seven episodes from the town’s history, of which Magna Carta was one. In 1956, the Magna Carta Trust was set up. One of its aims was to hold a triennial commemoration of Magna Carta. These celebrations rotate among the five ‘Charter Towns’, which are the five places associated with the granting of Magna Carta, which means that each town hosts the celebrations once every fifteen years. These places are Bury St Edmunds, Runnymede, Canterbury, St. Albans and the City of London. Bury St Edmunds has hosted the commemoration four times, in 1959 when a Magna Carta pageant was held in the Abbey Garden, in 1974, 1989 and 2004.
Main Sources
C. Breay, Magna Carta, Manuscripts and Myths (The British Library, 1992)
G. Hindley, The Book of Magna Carta (Bury St. Edmunds, 1990)
J.C. Holt, Magna Carta (Second Edition, Cambridge, 1992)
J.A.P. Jones, King John and Magna Carta (Essex, 1971)
A.L. Poole, Domesday Book to Magna Carta (Oxford, 1955)
R.M. Thomson, The Chronicles of the Election of Hugh Abbot of Bury St. Edmunds and Later Bishop of Ely (Oxford, 1974)
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