Читать книгу Magna Carta: A Commentary on the Great Charter of King John. With an Historical Introduction онлайн

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Other theories also are possible; as, for example, that the Great Charter is of the nature of a Declaration of Rights, such as have played so prominent a part in the political history of France and of the United States; while a recent American writer on English constitutional development seems almost to regard it as a code, creating a formal constitution for England—in a rude and embryonic form, it is true. “If a constitution has for its chief object the prevention of encroachments and the harmonizing of governmental institutions, Magna Carta answers to that description, at least in part.”^[188]

It would be easy to find examples of attempts to compromise between these competing theories, by combining two or more of them. Thus, a high English authority declares that “the Great Charter is partly a declaration of rights, partly a treaty between Crown and people.”^[189]

The essential nature of what took place at Runnymede, in June, 1215, is plain, when stripped of legal subtleties. A bargain was struck between the King and the rebel magnates, the purport of which was that the latter should renew their oaths of fealty and homage, and give security that they would keep these oaths, while John, in return, granted “to the freemen of England and their heirs for ever” the liberties enumerated in sixty-three chapters. No one thought of asking whether the transaction thus concluded was a “treaty” or a private “contract.”