The Magna Carta Memorial @ Runnymede

I had closed the gate on the acre of land that used to be part of England but was now forever part of America, the John F Kennedy Memorial. I felt flat and empty. Not because of the lack of excitement or anticipation that or an inherent part of the border control experience or the mid-winter gloom around me. No, it was because of seeing the memorial stone in such a weathered condition.

Onward I trudged along the edge of the water meadow mentioned in the closing lines of the Magna Carta:

‘Given by our own hand in the meadow that is called Runnymede, between Windsor and Staines, on the 15th of June in the seventeenth year of our reign (1215).’

Those barons, clergy, lords, and Royal entourage were lucky being here in June when it was supposedly during the height of the English summer but why Runnymede and not nearby Windsor? Apparently the barons who entrapped King John to sign the Magna Carta had brought a small army with them in case the monarch decided to change his mind and not sign. The King had also brought his own small army in case the barons and their supporters tried anything such as deposing him. Both opposing forces were kept well apart creating an area of neutrality. A thirteenth century equivalent of keeping Celtic and Rangers supporters away from each other.

What separated them was the very field I was walking along the edge of. In 1215 there was very little, if any, attempt to manage the levels of the nearby Thames. Consequently, the flat land was water meadow and therefore, even in June, would have been soft and deep enough to discourage either side from attacking on horseback for fear of getting bogged down.

Each of my steps elicited a soggy foot sucking slurpy squelch as I walked through the 748-year temporal space between the signing of the Magna Carta and the death of the President.

Another gateway, another notice board and again I was stepping on to American land. No formalities or cliched informalities like ‘Welcome to America’ or “You all have a nice day” and no golden arches indicating commercial interference with our sacred history. All it took was one step from a muddy English meadow on to a paved straight path sloping gently upwards towards the Magna Carta memorial rotunda. It was built in 1957 and financed by the American Bar Association that continues to provide funding to ensure it is kept as new as it was over 60 years ago at its unveiling.

The path may have been straight to the rotunda but that fails to show the deviations through 800 years that the original Magna Carta took to the present day when it is regarded, rightly or wrongly, as a foundation of modern democracy here in that nebulous concept called the ‘West’.

King John died in 1216 and his son, Henry III, published a second edition in 1216. A sort of ‘Magna Carta Lite’. It had been stripped of some of its most radical clauses such as the King not being allowed to raise taxes without the consent of the barons. In 1225 Henry III released a third edition, a sort of Magna Carta Double Lite, as part of a deal with the barons to raise more taxes. Then in 1297 Henry III’s son, Edward I, released a fourth edition that was enshrined in English statute law making it an integral part of English political life and the basis for the arguments against the divine right of kings to be absolute monarchs.

This sharply defined path represents the perpetual and inexorable progress of time. There are no trees whose canopies cast dark shadows over the memorial and its surrounding very formal lawns. There is no representation of pilgrims moving from tyranny to freedom, from darkness into light as with the memorial less than one hundred yards away. Its straight and angular shaped paving tiles can never portray the winding and tortuous path of the development of democracy or the lives continually lost in the pursuit of its universality for which there is no finish line.

The land the Magna Carta memorial is on has a 999-year lease, rent free I presume. Hopefully when that lease expires in 2956 those ideals that started their path through history in 1215 will still be the basis of travel for pilgrims from darkness into light.

‘Democracy is a journey of continuous improvement, always striving for a more inclusive and just society.’

The person who said the above will be mentioned in ‘The Jurors’. I wonder if they still live by those words?

It was still light. I checked my watch. Thank goodness, there were still forty-five minutes before the gates to the car park would be closing so still time to see something else.

Dec 20