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The Barons' Great Treaty of Government

By Charles Gilman

John, duke of Normandy and Aquitaine,
and king of Britain's Anglo-Saxon parts,
successor in all of those lordships of
his childless brother Richard, took his throne.

He had experience of governing:
of running England in his brother's stead,
when Richard was away in warmer lands
doing deeds thought dishonourable now.

The ruthless elder brother was no more,
and soon an opportunity was seen.
One William, or Guillaume in the French
that was the language of the royal house,
entrusted in the
marshalling of lords,
and bearer of the office's great arms -
a red lion on a palewise-parted field,
saw something worth the task of marshalling.

Cardinal Stephen Langton, leader of
lords spiritual, whose church the Pilgrims' Way
led to, in Canterbury's maze of walls,
agreed with his temporal counterpart.

They, aided by a band of lesser lords,
decided to curtail the royal strength
with a great treaty for the king to sign.

It would give powers to non-royal men -
the lords themselves but also, to a point,
the common population of the land.

The treaty was drawn up, and off they went,
to see their king, and to persuade him to
sign with the seal that had passed down to him
along with crown and throne at Richard's death,
and if persuasion failed, resort to force.

They found that John was not at home, and so
pursued him through the land he ruled outright,
unlike his dukedoms under France's king.

After a chase through England's many parts,
they cornered him close to the capital,
on London's very river's southern bank.

The place was Runnymede, the western end
of Surrey's section of the mighty Thames;
the eastern end faced London's palaces.

Reluctantly the king signed with his seal;
so ended there the right divine of kings,
instead a council larger than one man
taking the task on of deciding laws.

It fell far short of full democracy,
but it was an initial starting point
from which enfranchisement of common men
and finally of women was traced back.

The modern parliament at Westminster,
some distance down the Thames, is the result
in England of that modest document.

Some progress in the intervening years
was tried before its time and soon reversed,
such as abolishing the post of king,
a step that should perhaps be tried again.

In other lands the principles set forth
in that great document were taken up,
not always quite as slowly as they were
within the isles where John was made to sign.

The legal men of one republic thought
that they should fund a modern monument
in Runnymede to what was started there.

The latest stage to cover British land
challenges nationality itself:
a parliament, bureaucracy, and court
for Europe as a whole, added to which
might be a cabinet and president.

Already a republic on that scale
has displaced Britain's kings in India.

Perhaps in Europe kings will end that way.

Authority by merit will prevail,
and yet old titles still can find a place.

The highest titles found among the lords
who forced the king to sign the treaty are
commemorated in a modern form:
that great museum of nobility,
the family of <../../Gindex.html>variants of chess.

The <../../piececlopedia.dir/rook-knight.html>marshal has the moves of <../../piececlopedia.dir/rook.html>rook and <../../piececlopedia.dir/knight.html>knight;
the <../../piececlopedia.dir/bishop-knight.html>cardinal those of <../../piececlopedia.dir/bishop/html>bishop and <../../piececlopedia.dir/knight.html>knight.

So lives the memory of two who stand
for all who had pursued and held to book
John, duke of Normandy and Aquitaine.


Written by Charles Gilman.
WWW page created: June 2005.