"Magna Charta" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... as the treatment of Joan of Arc. Political history was for him still the most important, although to one branch of it, constitutional history, he was totally blind. So were almost all Englishmen then, even Shakespeare, whose King John contains no allusion to Magna Charta. In his work On the Inventors {582} of Things Vergil showed the depth of his insight into the importance in history of culture and ideas. While his treatment of such subjects as the origin of myths, man, marriage, religion, language, ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... world is almost a unit. And these thirteen states have spread across a continent to which have been gathered the peoples of the earth. We are the "heirs of all the ages." Our inheritance of tradition is greater than that of any other people, for we trace back not alone to King John signing the Magna Charta in that little stone hut by the riverside, but to Brutus standing beside the slain Caesar, to Charles Martel with his battle-axe raised against the advancing horde of an old-world civilization, to Martin Luther declaring his square-jawed policy of religious ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... speeches against Church and against State, and against the Aristocracy, and Habeas Corpus, and against Physic, and against Standing Armies, and Magna Charta, and every other rascally tyranny and oppression to which we are subjected, that I will!" Here Tom gave such a thump with the pestle, that I thought he would have split ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... in the darkest times excommunicated the breakers of Magna Charta do now by themselves, and their adherents, both write, preach, plot, and act against it, by encouraging Dr. Beale, by preferring Dr. Mainwaring, appearing forward for monopolies and ship- money, and if any were slow ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... protest against what certainly seems too contemptuous a rejection of a mass of historic evidence hitherto undoubted, except by the school of Voltaire; and of the hasty denial of the meaning of Christian and martyrologic symbols, as well known to antiquaries as Stonehenge or Magna Charta. ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... historical fact, such as the youth of Arthur, the widowhood of Constance, the character of Faulconbridge, are all from the earlier version, as is the suppression of the baron's wars and Magna Charta. Shakespeare added practically nothing to ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... bent again to its task, and bade the Spaniard Dominic arm new levies with the best weapons of science, and flaunt the name of Aristotle on the Church banners along with that of Saint Augustine. The year 1215, which happened to be the date of Magna Charta and other easily fixed events, like the birth of Saint Louis, may serve to mark the triumph of the schools. The pointed arch revelled at Rheims and the Gothic architects reached perfection at Amiens just as Francis died at Assisi and Thomas ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... circumstances, his attacks upon the administration were rather more severe than ever. "The proceedings of the Council were assailed by argument, eloquence, and satire, in prose and verse, in squib and essay. One number, issued just after James Franklin's release, was nearly filled with passages from 'Magna Charta,' and comments upon the same, showing the unconstitutionality of the treatment to which he had been subjected. It is evident that a considerable number of the people of Boston most heartily sympathized with the Courant in its gallant contest for the liberty of the press, and that ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer
... 1356. He found the Emperor wholly occupied with that famous Golden Bull, the provisions of which he settled with the States, at the diet of Nuremberg, and which he solemnly promulgated at another grand diet held at Christmas, in the same year. This Magna Charta of the Germanic constitution continued to be the fundamental law of ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... Literature: "Give dates and significance of the following; and state whether they are persons or books: Stratford-on-Avon, Magna Charta, Louvain, Onamataposa, Synod of Whitby, Bunker Hill, ...
— The Story of Wellesley • Florence Converse
... of Magna Charta. You will see that Sir Edward Coke, that great oracle of our law, and indeed all the great men who follow him, to Blackstone,[84] are industrious to prove the pedigree of our liberties. They endeavor to prove that the ancient charter, the Magna Charta of ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... blazed into a furious flame in the religious wars of Elizabeth, in the great rebellion of 1642, in the Jacobite struggle of 1689, in the religious war into which the rebellion of 1798 speedily degenerated. These facts are about as conspicuous in the history of Ireland as Magna Charta and the Commonwealth in the history of England. No one who knows Ireland will deny that the policy of Mr. Gladstone has contributed more than any other single cause to revive and deepen the divisions which every good Irishman deplores." ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... which he greatly enlarged the precincts by trespasses on the land of the city and of St. Katharine's Hospital. He surrendered the Tower to the citizens, led by John, in 1191. The church of St. Peter was in existence before 1210, and the whole Tower was held in pledge for the completion of Magna Charta in 1215 and 1216. In 1240 Henry III had the chapel of St. John decorated with painting and stained glass, and the royal apartments in the Keep were whitewashed, as well as the whole exterior. In the reign of Edward III it begins to assume ...
— Authorised Guide to the Tower of London • W. J. Loftie
... INQUISITOR (bowing gracefully to the bar).—Good morning, gentlemen. You behold how carefully we fulfil the letter of Magna Charta. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 7, 1841 • Various
... is, at the same time, she who had the best knowledge of her dignity. And her humility, which was never equaled by that of any other woman, did not hinder her from seeing the great things that God had operated in her, as she herself proclaims in that sublime canticle which is the "Magna Charta" of the rights, the prerogatives ...
— Serious Hours of a Young Lady • Charles Sainte-Foi
... lived; and lit, from land to land, Florence, Albion, Switzerland. [Footnote: Florence freed itself from the power of the Ghibelline nobles, and became a free republic in 1250. Albion—England: Magna Charta wrested from King John: the Commonwealth. Switzerland: the great victory of Mogarten, in 1315, led to the compact of the three cantons, thus forming the nucleus of the ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... said I. 'I hope I am too good a subject for that. But for a nameless fellow with a bald head and a pair of gingham small-clothes, why certainly! 'Tis my birthright as an Englishman. Where's Magna Charta, else?' ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... answered, "but I suppose it is because they are too busy in the fight. When a self was dodging Battle Ax he hadn't much time to think about evolving a Magna Charta. But most of all I suppose it is just natural laziness. People refuse to think. It calls for effort. Most people would find it easier to pitch a load of hay than to think of ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... is the formal grant by Duchess Mary of the "Groot Privilegie," or Great Privilege, the Magna Charta of Holland. Although this instrument was afterwards violated, and indeed abolished, it became the foundation of the republic. It was a recapitulation and recognition of ancient rights, not an acquisition of new privileges. It was a restoration, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... of Austria, whom she loved, but Jagellon, Duke of Lithuania, who offered to unite his extensive and adjacent dominions with those of Poland, and to convert his own pagan subjects to Christianity, the nobles, in virtue of their Magna Charta, elected Jagellon (baptized under the name of Ladislas) to the throne of Poland, which thus became dynastically united ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... lines, which would languish if it were lengthened into four. Spenser is my example for both these privileges of English verses; and Chapman has followed him in his translation of Homer. Mr. Cowley has given in to them after both; and all succeeding writers after him. I regard them now as the Magna Charta of heroic poetry; and am too much an Englishman to lose what my ancestors have gained for me. Let the French and Italians value themselves on their regularity; strength and elevation are our standard. I said before, and I repeat it, ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... upon, draw up, and the people ratify by their votes, is no constitution, for it is extrinsic to the nation, not inherent and living in it—is, at best, legislative instead of constitutive. The famous Magna Charta drawn up by Cardinal Langton, and wrung from John Lackland by the English barons at Runnymede, was no constitution of England till long after the date of its concession, and even then was no constitution of the state, but a set of restrictions ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson
... two men before the Council were making an epoch at that moment, and their grand words are the Magna Charta of the right of every sincere conviction to free speech. They are the direct parent of hundreds of similar sayings that flash out down the world's history. Two things Peter and John adduced as making silence impossible—a definite divine command, and an inward impulse. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... of Punch, in his individual quality and personality as a jester, was the pantomime of "King John, or Harlequin and Magna Charta." Punch had at that time become so popular, and was so generally regarded as the incarnation of all that was witty, that a commission was given for a pantomime that was to surpass for wit and humour any pantomime that had ever been written or thought ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... all religion by, And strive by law to establish tyranny, When a lean treasurer shall in one year Make himself fat, his King and people bare: When the English Prince shall Englishmen despise, And think French only loyal, Irish wise; When wooden shoon shall be the English wear And Magna Charta shall no more appear: Then the English shall a greater tyrant know, Than either Greek or Latin story show: Their wives to 's lust exposed, their wealth to 's spoil, With groans to fill his treasury they toil; But like the Bellides must sigh in vain For that still fill'd ...
— English Satires • Various
... the lessons suffered sometimes while they indulged in day-dreams, for it was hard to recall such mundane matters as the capital of Mexico, or the date of Magna Charta, when their thoughts were far away in the lantern room, busy with concealed ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil
... law of Congress not made in pursuance of, or in unison with the Constitution, is an illegal and void law." Coke declared an Act of Parliament against Magna Charta ...
— An Account of the Proceedings on the Trial of Susan B. Anthony • Anonymous
... parliament,—a fit person to be a Chief Justice, or a Lord Chancellor, in a tyrant's court, ready to enact iniquity into law. His compliance with the King's desire to violate the first principle of Magna Charta, "endeared him to the Court, and secured him further preferment as soon as any opportunity should occur." So he was soon made Lord Chancellor and raised to the peerage. Littleton had once been on the popular side, but deserted and went ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... the Sheriff refused to put his Lordship's amendment, declaring it to be irregular, Mr. Cobbett addressed the assembled thousands, and moved an amendment, which I seconded. This amendment merely proposed to add, after the word Constitution, in the original address, "as established by Magna Charta, the Bill of Rights, and the Act of Habeas Corpus, for which our forefathers fought and bled." This amendment Mr. Lockhart and his gang declared to be most seditious and wicked, and the Sheriff, a little ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... to do so. To this day they regard it as the Magna Charta of their liberties. They were fully aware that under it the supreme authority passed to the Queen; but they were quite able to understand that their tribal lands were guaranteed to them. In other words, they were recognised ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... have also made myself quite clear in the interview to which I have referred that my feelings are not anti-English, for I shall never forget that liberal government and all forms of liberalism have had their origin, ever since the Magna Charta, in that great nation whom we so often love to call our cousins. But, with all of this, can you ignore the fact that England even today, without the further power and prestige victory in the present conflict would give her, practically dominates the high seas, that she treats ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... Consent; Earliest Social Statute; Recognition of Personal Property; Law of Land Tenure; The Charter of Liberties; Early Methods of Trial; Distinction Between Sin and Crime; Church Law Governs Sin; Important Clauses of Magna Charta; Freedom of Trade; Taxation for the Common Benefit; The Great "Liberty" Clause; "Administrative" Law not ...
— Popular Law-making • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... say, "with all my worldly goods (or, as the Salisbury ritual has it, "with all my worldly chattels") I thee endow," which entitled the wife to her thirds, or pars rationabilis, of his personal estate, which is provided for by Magna Charta, cap. 26. The meaning, therefore, of the words noticed in A. A.'s Query, if they can be said to have any meaning in the present state of the law, is simply that the wife's dower is to be general, and not specific, or, in other ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 77, April 19, 1851 • Various
... provocation, in 1820, in 1824, and in 1828—each stage intensifying the discontent, arising more from the injustice than the weight of the burden borne. It was not the twenty-shilling ship-money tax, but the violation of Magna Charta, which Hampden and his associates resisted. It was not the stamp duty nor the tea-tax, but the principle involved in taxation without representation, against which our colonial fathers took up arms. So the tariff act in 1828, known at the time as "the bill of abominations," ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... on listlessly, vaguely, for a little while, going over the words mechanically, reading how Sir Somebody Something, a leading light of the Opposition, had been holding forth at an agricultural meeting, arguing that never since the date of Magna Charta had the national freedom been in such peril as it was at this hour; never had any Ministry so wantonly trifled with the rights of a great people, or so supinely submitted to the degradation of a once glorious country; never, within the memory of man, or, he would go further and say, within the ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... because we claim the rights of Englishmen, and, saving your presence, sir, are as loyal as those who do not. And if these principles be bad," I added to my uncle, "then should we think with shame upon the Magna Charta." ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... the right to freedom of conscience in their form of worship and the people were growing more insistent for the recognition of their ancient rights and liberties, secured to them, in the first place, by the Magna Charta,—just at this time looms up the obstruction of a King so imbued with the defunct ideal of the divine right of Kings that he is blind to the tendencies of the age. What wonder, then, if the swirling waters of discontent should rise higher and higher until he became engulfed ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... the Battle of Hastings he will make out Harold to be the head of a highly patriotic nation called the "Anglo-Saxons"; they shall be desperately defending themselves against certain French-speaking Scandinavians called Normans. He will deplore the defeat, but will say it was all for the best. Magna Charta he will have signed at Runnymede—probably he will have it drawn up there as well. He will translate the most famous clause by the modern words "Judgment of his peers" and "law of the land." He ...
— First and Last • H. Belloc
... confessional is established, and the alter-service is restored. It is a time when earnest men and women cannot be trifled with on soul concerns. Their property may perish or be confiscated, but the right to unmolested worship is older than Magna Charta, and as inalienable as life itself. What is to be done? Resistance or emigration—which? Resist and die, say Cromwell and Wentworth, Eliot and Hampden. Emigrate and live, say the men and women who came by thousands ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. 1, Issue 1. - A Massachusetts Magazine of Literature, History, - Biography, And State Progress • Various
... he knew the utter contempt in which Henry held the terms of the Magna Charta which he so often violated along with his kingly oath to maintain it. But what all England did not know, De Vac had gleaned from scraps of conversation dropped in the armory: that Henry was even now ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... stone remains. But under the great mound which bore the keep you may see what local tradition has named the Baron's caves, where, as the story goes, the Barons met before the signing of Magna Charta. Martin Tupper, indeed, has written a whole chapter in Stephan Langton describing the interesting scene, though as a mere matter of history it never took place. To begin with, the de Warenne of the day ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... week these paragraphs made their bow to the public. Mannerly admonitions, courteous disapprovals. A style borrowed from the memory of the professor informing a backward class in economics what the exact date of the signing of the Magna Charta really was. ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... A man has a right never to finish anything. Certainly he has; and by Magna Charta. But he has no right, by Magna Charta or by Parva Charta, to slander decent men, like ourselves and our friend the author of the Opium Confessions. Here it is that our complaint arises against Mr. Gillman. If he has taken to opium-eating, can we help that? If his face shines, ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... appeared a little earlier than this, entitled The Contrast. It was in the form of two medallions, one called English liberty, and the other French liberty. On the former is seen Britannia, holding the pileus and cap of liberty in one hand with Magna Charta, and in the other the scales of justice. At her feet stoops a lion; and on the placid sea, in the distance, is a British merchant-vessel under full sail. Under the medallion are the words, "Religion, Morality, Loyalty, Obedience to the Laws, Independence, Personal ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... statute laws grown weak and impotent, the barons at Runnymede wrested Magna Charta from King John; in defiance of statute laws grown weak and impotent, the free men of England wrested their Habeas Corpus Act from King Charles; in defiance of statute laws grown weak and impotent, ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... their trials in law, or concerning the king's patrimony, or in chancery, which moderates the severity of the common law by equity. Till the time of Henry I. the Prime Court of Justice was movable, and followed the King's Court, but he enacted by the Magna Charta that the common pleas should no longer attend his Court, but be held at some determined place. The present hall was built by King Richard II. in the place of an ancient one which he caused to be taken down. He made it ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... back to England from the pine-woods and bright order and regimen and foreign novelty of their Bohemian Kur-Ort, in a state of renewed perplexity. Already that undocumented Magna Charta was manifestly not working upon the lines she had anticipated. The glosses Sir Isaac put upon it were extensive and remarkable and invariably in the direction of restricting her liberties and resuming controls ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... are entitled to an acquittal." On Lord Eldon enquiring whether he relied on common-law or statute-law, the counsel for the defence answered firmly, "My lord, I rely on a well-known maxim, as old as Magna Charta, Nine Tailors make a Man." Finding themselves unable to reward a lawyer for so excellent a jest with an adverse verdict, the jury acquitted the prisoners. Towards the close of his career Eldon made ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... Sanction, as it is often called by way of pre-eminence, is the magna charta of the liberties of the Gallican Church. Founded upon the results of the discussions of the Council of Basle, it probably embodies all the reformatory measures which the hierarchy of France was desirous of effecting or willing to accept. How far these were from administering the needed ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... throwing up her arms in consternation, "he is very backward in his history, too! Would you believe it, he couldn't recollect when Magna Charta was signed on my ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... in one vol., at one-and-sixpence; it was 14s. I consulted and partially read for it (as I wanted accurate pictures of John's reign in England) the histories of Tyrrell, Hollingshed, Hume, Poole, Markland, Thomson's Magna Charta, James's Philip Augustus, Milman's Latin Christianity, Hallam's Middle Ages, Maimbourg's Lives of the Popes, Ranke's Life of Innocent III., Maitland on the Dark Ages, Ritson's Life of Robin Hood, Salmon's, ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... his court in Lincoln a whole winter, and held another Parliament, in which he confirmed the Magna Charta of King John. {120a} ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... and women more truly representative of the highest and best of American life and genius. To suggest that these were all the agents of a Jewish conspiracy, either consciously or unconsciously, is to invite and deserve ridicule. In truth, Socialism is as Anglo-Saxon as Magna Charta and as American as the Declaration of Independence, and we might as well attribute either or both of these to Jewish intrigue as Socialism. It is true that the organized Socialist movement in America has long spoken with a foreign accent and borne the imprint ...
— The Jew and American Ideals • John Spargo
... occasion it was, that Hampden made his first stand for the fundamental principle of the English constitution. He positively refused to lend a farthing. He was required to give his reasons. He answered, "that he could be content to lend as well as others, but feared to draw upon himself that curse in Magna Charta which should be read twice a year against those who infringe it." For this spirited answer, the Privy Council committed him close prisoner to the Gate House. After some time, he was again brought up; but he persisted ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... "may not be beautiful, but its origins are sufficiently venerable to inspire respect. It testifies to long political stability; it is rooted in Magna Charta. We foreigners, who upset our Governments and annihilate our aristocracies every ten years, will never attain that mellow stage. One may dislike it; one dislikes the by-products of many excellent institutions. Your ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... and impartial God, and are not altogether unacquainted with the law of Christian love and kindness. They claim for themselves the broadest freedom. Boastfully they tell us that they have received from the court of heaven the Magna Charta of human rights that was handed down through the clouds, and amid the lightnings of Sinai, and given again by the Son of God on the Mount of Beatitudes, while the glory of the Father shone around him. They ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... David Maclise—"The Spirit of Justice" and "The Spirit of Chivalry"—are over the strangers' gallery, as well as a half-dozen others by famous hands elsewhere. In niches between the windows and at the ends are eighteen statues of barons who signed Magna Charta. The House of Commons, 62 feet long, 45 broad, and 45 high, is much less elaborate than the House of Peers. The Speaker's chair is at the north end, and there are galleries along the sides and ends. In a gallery ...
— Dickens' London • Francis Miltoun
... [Footnote 2: Magna Charta Libertatum, the Great Charter of Liberties obtained by the barons of King John, June 16, 1215, not only asserted rights of the subject against despotic power of the king, but included among them right of insurrection against royal authority ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... bound to law nor evidence,—who are, or may be, mutable in their apprehensions, doing one thing to-day, and soon again undoing what they did,—I conceive, to be judged in such an arbitrary way is repugnant to the fundamental law of England contained in Magna Charta, chap. 29, which says no freeman shall be disseized of his freehold but by the lawful judgment of his peers,—that is to say, by due process of law; which was also confirmed by the Petition of Right, by Act of Parliament, tertio Caroli I. And also such arbitrary jurisdiction ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... development of the modern state and in understanding the position which this state assures to the individual. Thus far in the works on public law various precursors of the declaration of the Constituent Assembly, from Magna Charta to the American Declaration of Independence, have been enumerated and arranged in regular sequence, yet any thorough investigation of the sources from which the French drew is ...
— The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of Citizens • Georg Jellinek
... It was the Magna Charta of missions for India; and from that time until this the Christian missionary has found permission to preach his message in that land. He has also enjoyed there ample protection in the exercise of all his religious ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones
... head of the family was one of the chief barons who demanded Magna Charta from him, and resisted the Pope when he made demands that would have been derogatory to the spiritual independence of the English Crown. The great grandson of this nobleman was a distinguished commander ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope
... congregation one winter night, and Captain Self-denial another. We shall have another painful but profitable evening before a communion season with Mr. Prywell, and so we shall eat of that bread and drink of that cup. Emmanuel's livery will occupy us one evening, Mansoul's Magna Charta another, and her annual Feast-day another. Her Established Church and her beneficed clergy will take up one evening, some Skulkers in Mansoul another, the devil's last prank another, and then, to wind up with, Emmanuel's last speech and charge ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... their Magna Charta and Bill of Rights, and that of Americans for their national Constitution, seem weak in comparison with the intense gratitude and reverence of the Five Nations for the "Great Peace" which Hiawatha and his ...
— Hiawatha and the Iroquois Confederation • Horatio Hale
... bless the memory of this poor, timid creature for saving that dear remembrance of "Matchless Mitchel." How many, like him, have thought they were preaching a new gospel, when they were only reaffirming the principles which underlie the Magna Charta of humanity, and are common to the noblest utterances of all the nobler creeds! But spoken by those solemn lips to those stern, simpleminded hearers, the words I have cited seem to me to have a fragrance like the precious ointment of spikenard with which Mary ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... malcontents the Coronation Charter of Henry I., which the barons accepted as a declaration of the views and demands of their party. He was at the head of the barons in their struggle with the king, and his name appears as that of the first witness to the famous Magna Charta. John at once applied to the pope, and obtained from him the abrogation of the charter and a papal order to Langton to excommunicate the king's enemies. This he refused to do. John overran the country with foreign mercenaries, and his cruelties eventually resulted in the barons summoning Louis of ...
— The Cathedral Church of Canterbury [2nd ed.]. • Hartley Withers
... 'Vicissitudes of Families' strikingly exhibit this rise and fall of families, and show that the misfortunes which overtake the rich and noble are greater in proportion than those which overwhelm the poor. This author points out that of the twenty-five barons selected to enforce the observance of Magna Charta, there is not now in the House of Peers a single male descendant. Civil wars and rebellions ruined many of the old nobility and dispersed their families. Yet their descendants in many cases survive, and are to be found among the ranks of the people. Fuller wrote in ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... an independent Briton to beat his wife without being liable to impertinent foreign interference is well known to be one of the most precious privileges inherited from Magna Charta. The national use of this privilege is now generally considered, by social philosophers, to be the foundation of the love of "fair play," so universally characteristic of the English. It is only upon this ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., Issue 31, October 29, 1870 • Various
... seriously, because serious minds are exercised by deportation, and quite naturally. On December 13 nine Indians were arrested under a certain Indian Regulation of the year 1818, and they who reproach us with violating the glories of 1215 (which is Magna Charta) and the Petition of Rights, complain that 1818 is far too remote for us to be at all affected by anything that was then made law. Now what is the Regulation? I will ask you to follow me pretty closely for a minute or two. The Regulation of 1818 ...
— Indian speeches (1907-1909) • John Morley (AKA Viscount Morley)
... 'Why, that's Magna Charta!' Dan whispered. It was one of the few history dates that he could remember. Kadmiel turned on him with a sweep and a whirr ...
— Puck of Pook's Hill • Rudyard Kipling
... condemned, though the wholesale destruction of villages in our own Indian frontier wars and the methods employed on both sides in the civil war in Cuba appear to have borne much resemblance to it. In the treatment of merchants the rule of reciprocity which was laid down in Magna Charta is largely observed, and the Conference of Brussels in 1874 pronounced it to be contrary to the laws of war to bombard an unfortified town. The great Civil War in America probably contributed not a little to raise the standard of humanity in war; for while ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... joint sovereigns. The Declaration of Rights, which is an important monument in English constitutional history, once more stated the fundamental rights of the English nation and the limitations which the Petition of Right and Magna Charta had placed upon the king. By this peaceful revolution of 1688 the English rid themselves of the Stuarts and their claims to rule by divine right, and once more declared themselves against the domination of the Church ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... like a sensible man, and a loyal subject, Mr. Dillon. The habeas corpus, Miss Alice, was obtained in the reign of King John, along with Magna Charta, for the security of the throne, by his majesty's barons; some of my own blood were of the number, which alone would be a pledge that the dignity of the crown was properly consulted. As to our piratical countrymen, Christopher, there ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... to sing them. There was a moral infection of clap-trap in him. Strangers, modest enough elsewhere, started up at dinners in Coketown, and boasted, in quite a rampant way, of Bounderby. They made him out to be the Royal arms, the Union-Jack, Magna Charta, John Bull, Habeas Corpus, the Bill of Rights, An Englishman's house is his castle, Church and State, and God save the Queen, all put together. And as often (and it was very often) as an orator of this kind ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... further development of The Hague Tribunal, of the work of the conferences and courts at The Hague. It has been well said that the first Hague Conference framed a Magna Charta for the nations; it set before us an ideal which has already to some extent been realized, and towards the full realization of which we can all steadily strive. The second Conference made further progress; the third should do yet more. Meanwhile the American Government has more than once tentatively ...
— African and European Addresses • Theodore Roosevelt
... should be remembered, are a time-honoured institution; the Lincolnshire Cardyke and Fossdyke date from the period of the Roman occupation of this country. The Magna Charta of the early 13th century took cognizance, not only of the roads, called "The King's Highway," but also of inland navigation, under the term "Haut streames de le Roy." The latter half of the 18th century was remarkable ...
— A History of Horncastle - from the earliest period to the present time • James Conway Walter
... of Magna Charta as though it were of no greater consequence than an act of parliament for the establishment of a corporation of buttonmakers. Whatever low ideas he may entertain of that Great Charter, and such ideas he must entertain ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... The grant of Magna Charta by King John, in response to the demand of the Barons at Runnymede, gave birth to the Bar in its modern character. Articles 17 and 18 of that instrument provided that Common Pleas should not follow the court of the King, but should be held in a certain place, and that trials upon ...
— Ethics in Service • William Howard Taft
... disgraced, bankrupt, and incompetent, under autocratic rule. But the moral is never drawn by Voltaire. His references to political questions are slight and vague; he gives a sketch of English history, which reaches Magna Charta, suddenly mentions Henry VII., and then stops; he has not a word to say upon the responsibility of Ministers, the independence of the judicature, or even the freedom of the press. He approves of the English financial system, whose ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... internal structure is similar to the cave under the ruins of Reigate Castle, built by the Saxons; where the barons of England, in the year 1212, with their followers, (frequently amounting to five hundred persons,) held their private meetings, and took up arms, previous to their obtaining Magna Charta at Runny Mead, near Egham, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, Issue 353, January 24, 1829 • Various
... burgesses. And hence, a little later, the Mayoress let it be known that she meant to give a municipal ball. The news of the ball thrilled Bursley more than anything had thrilled Bursley since the signing of Magna Charta. Nevertheless, balls had been offered by previous mayoresses. One can only suppose that in Bursley there remains a peculiar respect for land, railway stock, steam ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... inclination to interfere with the management of the Church, and they positively refused to take the oath of allegiance to King William and Queen Mary until they should, on their part, have sworn to the Solemn League—and Covenant, the Magna Charta, as they termed it, of the ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... his allegiance to the papacy, and suffered the cheap vengeance of having his body exhumed and its ashes scattered in the river Swift; Aquinas and Duns Scotus delivered philosophy from the tyranny of theology; Roger Bacon (1214) practically introduced the study of natural science; Magna Charta was signed in 1215; Marco Polo, whose statue I have seen among those of the gods, in a certain Chinese temple, began his travels in the thirteenth century; the university of Bologna was founded before 1200 for ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... to such a little thing as I am whether King John was a good man or a bad one, or what sort of a thing Magna Charta was!" said she, reproachfully, to her book; "as if it mattered to anybody, indeed, when it was such an extremely long time ago! Eleven hundred and ninety-nine he came to the throne; and who'd care if he had never ...
— Little Folks (December 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... from walking, and you deprive me of my health. Prevent me from going alone where I please and when I please, and you deprive me of my liberty—tear up Magna Charta, in effect. But I do not insist upon being alone in this instance. If you can return to your office by way of Regent's Park and Gower Street without losing too much time, I shall be glad of ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... glass windows representing the Kings and Queens of the United Kingdom from the accession of William the Conqueror down to the present reign, the niches filled with effigies of the Barons who wrested Magna Charta from King John, the ceiling glowing with gold and colors presenting different national symbols and devices in most elaborate workmanship and admirable intricacy of design, it is undeniably worthy of the high purpose to which it ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... fresh in charms, "My throne, like Magna Charta, raise "'Mong sturdy, free-born legs and arms, "That scorn the threatened ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... same, adding other acts of usurpation and oppression. His third Parliament showed increased opposition to his methods, and accordingly he decided to change them. The Parliament passed (1628) the Petition of Right, the second English Magna Charta, and Charles ratified it. By this act the King was bound to raise no more moneys without consent of Parliament, not to imprison anyone contrary to law, not to billet the military in private houses, and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... [Footnote: From "Pilgrimages to English Shrines." Magna Charta Island lies in the Thames, a ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey
... least south of the Tweed; and when the English rose after the storm, they rose as one homogeneous people, never to be governed again by an originally alien race. The English nobility were, from the time of Magna Charta, rather an official nobility, than, as in most continental countries, a separate caste; and whatever caste tendencies had developed themselves before the Wars of the Roses (as such are certain to do during centuries of continued wealth and ...
— The Ancien Regime • Charles Kingsley
... — N. compact, contract, agreement, bargain; affidation^; pact, paction^; bond, covenant, indenture; bundobast^, deal. stipulation, settlement, convention; compromise, cartel. Protocol, treaty, concordat, Zollverein [G.], Sonderbund [G.], charter, Magna Charta [Lat.], Progmatic Sanction, customs union, free trade region; General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, GATT; most favored nation status. negotiation &c (bargaining) 794; diplomacy &c (mediation) 724; negotiator ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... with his pipe and glass, and ready for any amount of Self-Government. And the Chairman stood up and briefly explained the business of the meeting. He said the Parish Councils Act was the logical result of Magna Charta, and would have the effect of making us all citizens of our own parish; and that as the expense of this would come upon the rates, we should endeavour to use our hardly won enfranchisement with moderation. "We had ...
— Wandering Heath • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... of the conference a declaration prepared by the Governors of Louisiana, New Jersey, Wisconsin, Utah, and South Carolina, was unanimously adopted. This Magna Charta of the conservation movement declared "that the great natural resources supply the material basis upon which our civilization must continue to depend and upon which the perpetuity of the nation itself rests," ...
— Theodore Roosevelt and His Times - A Chronicle of the Progressive Movement; Volume 47 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Harold Howland
... in quartering troops in Boston. The members nobly met this demand by returning to the Governor (July 15, 1769) a grandly worded state-paper, in which, claiming the rights of freeborn Englishmen, as confirmed by Magna Charta and the Bill of Rights, and as settled by the Revolution and the British Charter, they expressly declared that they never would make provision for the purposes mentioned in the two messages. On the same day, it was represented ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... 1215—from Windsor to the meadow at Runnymede, where the barons lay encamped, and signed the articles laid before him, happy enough in getting some of them softened. The Great Charter came into being, truly the 'Magna Charta,' which throws not merely all earlier, but also the later charters into ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... the Turks and the Slavonians. They were granted the honorable and lucrative privilege of directing and controlling the mints, and that of putting Hebrew as well as Slavonic inscriptions on their coins.[6] In the Lithuanian Magna Charta, granted by Vitold in 1388, the Jews of Brest were given many rights, and about a year later those of Grodno were permitted to engage in all pursuits and occupations, and exempted from paying taxes on ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin
... whole continent. It is our duty to carry English principles—I mean, sir [said Mr. Webster turning to Sir Henry Bulwer], Anglo-Saxon American principles, over the whole continent—the great principles of Magna Charta, of the English revolution, and especially of the American Revolution, and of the English language. Our children will hear Shakespeare and Milton recited on the shores of the Pacific. Nay, before that, American ideas, which are essentially and ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... against the people, Catholic against Protestant, and, within the latter group, Anglican, Presbyterian, and independent, each against one another. All sorts of unjust and inhuman practices were indulged in. It would seem that the spirit of Magna Charta and of the Christian religion ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... or slogan, came to them from across the sea and was first uttered in England before the days of Magna Charta. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... centuries after the Conquest, there is no doubt that the peasantry were liable to be bought and sold as slaves. Even in Magna Charta, there is a prohibition that a guardian shall not 'waste the men or cattle' in the estate of the ward: there is here no consideration for the men who might be 'wasted;' it is all for the property of the ward, which is not to be injured through the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 461 - Volume 18, New Series, October 30, 1852 • Various
... pre-reformation documents will make clear the customary phraseology in England during the Middle Ages. King John's Ecclesiastical Charter of 1214 uses the terms "Church of England" and "English Church." The Magna Charta of 1215 grants that the "Church of England shall be free and have her rights intact, and her liberties uninjured." The Articuli Cleri of 1316 speak of the "English Church." The Second Statute of Provisors of 1390 uses the title "The Holy Church of England." "The English Church" ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... John. Archbishop Langton laid before the assembly the charter of Henry I., and commented on its provisions. The result was an oath, taken with acclamation, that they would, if necessary, die for their liberties. And this led up to Magna Charta. But it was a scene as ignominious as the first surrender before Pandulf, when Pope Innocent accepted the homage of King John as the price of supporting him against his barons, and the wretched King, before the altar of St. Paul, ceded his kingdom as ...
— Old St. Paul's Cathedral • William Benham
... as it is a most idle and most groundless conceit, to assume as a general principle, that the rights and liberties of the subject are impaired by the care and attention of the legislature to secure them. If so, very ill would the purchase of Magna Charta have merited the deluge of blood which was shed in order to have the body of English privileges defined by a positive written law. This charter, the inestimable monument of English freedom, so long the boast and glory of this nation, would have been at once an instrument of our servitude ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... crimes are, they form half the Magna Charta of the republic,* and the authority of the Convention is ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... hospitable roof of Lord Houghton. Lord Ashbourne was then Mr. Gibson, Q.C. He is now the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, and the author of the Land Purchase Act of 1885, which many well-informed and sensible men regard as the Magna Charta of peace in Ireland, while others of equal authority assure me that by reversing the principle of the Bright clauses in the Act of 1871 it has encouraged the tenants to expect an eventual concession of the land-ownership to them on ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (1 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... to remain in force for seventeen years, was a master-stroke of diplomacy on the part of the Bell Company. It was the Magna Charta of the telephone. It transformed a giant competitor into a friend. It added to the Bell System fifty-six thousand telephones in fifty-five cities. And it swung the valiant little company up to such a pinnacle of prosperity that its stock went skyrocketing until it touched one thousand dollars ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... periods of their history; a democracy founded upon the privileges of the few and the exclusion of the many. Very much like the democracy of the barons of Runnymede, who, when they met together to dictate Magna Charta to King John, guarded fully their own privileges as against the king, but cared but little for the rights of the people. And so with the south—the old south. But it was ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... used in Magna Charta as including franchises, privileges, immunities, and all the rights which belong to that class. Professor Sullivan says, the term signifies the "privileges that some of the subjects, whether single persons or bodies corporate, have above others by the lawful grant of the ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... administrator of the New Poor Law. He had been persuaded that it would elevate the condition of the labouring class. His son-in-law, Lord Everingham, who was a Whig, and a clearheaded, cold-blooded man, looked upon the New Poor Law as another Magna Charta. Lord Everingham was completely master of the subject. He was himself the Chairman of one of the most considerable Unions of the kingdom. The Duke, if he ever had a misgiving, had no chance in argument with his son-in-law. Lord Everingham ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... confine ourselves to the few examples which are best known, and which bear the greatest analogy to our particular case. The first to which this character ought to be applied, is the House of Commons in Great Britain. The history of this branch of the English Constitution, anterior to the date of Magna Charta, is too obscure to yield instruction. The very existence of it has been made a question among political antiquaries. The earliest records of subsequent date prove that parliaments were to SIT only every year; not that they were to be ELECTED every ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... he formulated, more tellingly than any one else and for a people whose thought was permeated with legalism, the principles on which the integrity and ordered growth of their Nation have depended. Springing from the twin rootage of Magna Charta and the Declaration of Independence, his judicial statesmanship finds no parallel in the salient features of its achievement outside our ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin
... distribution of powers among the branches that compose the government and fixes the limits of authority vested in each. The British constitution is partly written, as found in the great historical documents of English history, such as Magna Charta (1215), the Petition of Right (1628), and the Bill of Rights (1689);[63] and partly unwritten, consisting of precedents and customs which are recognized as authoritative. The constitutions of the other monarchies of Europe were made during the ...
— Our Government: Local, State, and National: Idaho Edition • J.A. James
... mentioned, great as they were, were only preliminary to the publishing of the hatti-scheriff of Gulhana, the magna charta and bill of rights of Turkey. The son of Mahmoud, Abdul Medjid, on ascending the throne, published this ordinance, which was to effect a reform in the internal administration more beneficial than any other, either before or after the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... wanting; oratorical Tribune high-raised; nor strangers' galleries, wherein also sit women. Has any French Antiquarian Society preserved that written Lease of the Jacobins Convent Hall? Or was it, unluckier even than Magna Charta, clipt by sacrilegious Tailors? Universal History is ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... went home, she gave her family the story of the Magna Charta, drawing such a vivid picture of King John's general depravity that even her father's ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung
... way in which I was led, while teaching the Bakwains, to commence exploration, he will, I think, recognize the hand of Providence. Anterior to that, when Mr. Moffat began to give the Bible—the Magna Charta of all the rights and privileges of modern civilization—to the Bechuanas, Sebituane went north, and spread the language into which he was translating the sacred oracles in a new region larger than France. Sebituane, at the same time, rooted out hordes of bloody savages, among whom no white ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... (still on the east side of the Bar) with a wreath of gilt laurel, and placed under her hand (that now points to Child's Bank) a golden glistening shield, with the motto, "The Protestant Religion and Magna Charta," inscribed upon it. Several lighted torches were stuck before her niche. Lastly, amidst a fiery shower of squibs from every door and window, the Pope and his companions were toppled into the huge bonfire, with shouts that reached almost ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... lawyer would yet find undoubted proofs of his claims in some of the written parchments which he might procure. Sir Robert Cotton is said to have discovered one of the original vellum copies of the Magna Charta in the shop of another tailor, who, holding it in his hand, was preparing to cut up this charter of the liberties of England into tape for measuring some of England's sons for coats and trousers. The missing manuscript of the History of Scotland, from the Restoration to 1681, which was ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... devout and virtuous testament or will, Mistress Merrylack," said Mr. Bossolton; "and in a time when anarchy with gigantic strides does devastate and devour and harm the good old customs of our ancestors and forefathers, and tramples with its poisonous breath the Magna Charta and the glorious revolution, it is beautiful, ay, and sweet, mark you, Mrs. Merrylack, to behold a gentleman of the aristocratic classes or grades supporting the institutions of his country with such remarkable energy of sentiments and with—and ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... a saint's day, mounted the pulpit in his sporting toggery, using his gown as "a cloak of maliciousness?" But have patience, sweet Spy; be kindly-minded, dear Bernard: like John of Magna Charta memory, "I have a thing to say;" and do now be a good attentive ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... as a public question. The discussion of taxation has accompanied the growth of free government in England and America from the time of Magna Charta. The control of the public purse has been found to give the key to political power, and therefore it has frequently become the occasion of conflict between the monarch and the people. But in our own national history since the adoption ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter
... of Caxton's press. Among the manuscripts contained in it are the celebrated manuscript of the four Gospels and Acts of the Apostles, known by the name of the Codex Bezae, which was presented to the university by that distinguished reformer; Magna Charta, written on vellum; and a Koran upon cotton paper superbly executed. In the library of Trinity College, Cambridge, there are several exceedingly interesting literary curiosities; amongst others, some manuscripts in the handwriting of Milton, consisting ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... dispense do come from de Pope, Lilli burlero, bullen a-la— We'll hang Magna Charta and dem in a rope: ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... quickly journey on 1199-1216 Until we reach the reign of John; A King whose list of crimes was heavy; He treated badly his young 'Nevvy'. Magna Charta He signed the Magna Charta. Yes; 1215 In twelve-fifteen, but we may guess With much ill grace and many a twist; For King John wrote an awful fist. John loses Normandy to France And by this beneficial chance In England comes amalgamation; Normans and Saxons form one Nation Robin Hood And now we come ...
— A Humorous History of England • C. Harrison
... was easily and quickly passed. David translated his bit of Caesar's commentaries, answered brilliantly the questions about Alfred the Great, the Anglo-Norman kings, the Constitutions of Clarendon, Magna Charta and Mortmain, Henry the Eighth and the Reformation, the Civil War and Protectorate of Cromwell, the Bill of Rights and the Holy Alliance. He paid his fees and his "caution" money; he ate the requisite six dinners—or ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... Fishermen and river raftsmen become ocean adventurers For myself I am unworthy of the honor (of martyrdom) Forbids all private assemblies for devotion Force clerical—the power of clerks Great Privilege, the Magna Charta of Holland Guarantees of forgiveness for every imaginable sin Halcyon days of ban, book and candle Heresy was a plant of early growth in the Netherlands In Holland, the clergy had neither influence nor seats Invented such Christian formulas as these (a curse) July 1st, two Augustine monks were ...
— Quotations From John Lothrop Motley • David Widger
... endowments, which will enable the minister to do what is right, and not too large to make him lazy or careless. Well then, in neither of them is a minister handed over to a faction to try. Them that make the charges ain't the judges, which is a Magna Charta for him. ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... is historical Art? Where is Alfred and the Cake—a subject which, as is well known, I discovered in my researches in history. Where is "Udolpho in the Tower"? or the "Duke of Rothsay the Fourth Day after He was Deprived of his Victuals"? or "King John Signing Magna Charta"? They are gone with the red curtain, the brown tree, the storm in the background. Art is revolutionary, like everything else in these times, when Treason itself, in the form of a hoary apostate and reviewer of contemporary fiction, glares from the walls, ...
— Old Friends - Essays in Epistolary Parody • Andrew Lang
... about the contents of the Twelve Tables, which is really as monstrous as if we could fancy ourselves reading in the pages of a native historian of mark, Hume, Henry, or Lingard, some blunder, into which a schoolboy could not fall, about the contents of Magna Charta, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Rights, or any other well known English law, on which the constitution of the country is primarily founded. In a work given out as written by Tacitus we are told that the Twelve Tables first fixed interest ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... more so as an index to the slow centuries of misery against which they were a mad protest. And then the wisdom of the poor! It is amusing to read the glib newspaper man writing about the ignorance of the masses. They don't know the date of Magna Charta, or whom John of Gaunt married; but put a practical up-to-date problem before them, and see how unerringly they take the right side. Didn't they put the Reform Bill through in the teeth of the opposition of the majority of the so-called ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... associates a particular character with a particular scene that is by any means presentable on the stage, that scene becomes obligatory in a drama of which he is the leading figure. The fact that Shakespeare could write a play about King John, and say nothing about Runnymede and Magna Charta, shows that that incident in constitutional history had not yet passed into popular legend. When Sir Herbert Tree revived the play, he repaired the poet's omission by means of an inserted tableau. Even Shakespeare had not the hardihood ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... colony," to which all "due submission and obedience" was promised. And this was followed a few years later in the sister colony of Massachusetts Bay by that "Body of Liberties" which, it is well said, may challenge comparison with Magna Charta itself or the latest Bill of Rights. Instinct with the spirit of common law, though somewhat ameliorating its rigor, these "rites, privileges and liberties," to be "impartially and inviolably enjoyed and observed throughout our jurisdiction forever," commence ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... argument's sake, grant that I have some Negro blood in me. You already make a mistake in making a gift of your blood to the African. Remember what your blood has done. It hammered out on fields of blood the Magna Charta; it took the head of Charles I.; it shattered the sceptre of George III.; it now circles the globe in an iron grasp. Think you not that this Anglo-Saxon blood loses its virility because of mixture ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs
... therefore in abeyance. But there is love o' both sides. Little Fenwick (you don't see the connexion of ideas here, how the devil should you?) is in the rules of the Fleet. Cruel creditors! operation of iniquitous laws! is Magna Charta then a mockery? Why, in general (here I suppose you to ask a question) my spirits are pretty good, but I have my depressions, black as a smith's beard, Vulcanic, Stygian. At such times I have recourse to a pipe, which is like ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... ignorant, 'why, I had an excursus on it myself in the Archaeological Gazette only last week.' And, do you know, it turned out that the Battle of Bouvines was fought in the Thirteenth Century, and had, as far as I could make out, something to do with Magna Charta." ...
— Science and Morals and Other Essays • Bertram Coghill Alan Windle
... Unmasked; while Augustine Mathewes was accused of printing, for Sparke, William Prynne's Antithesis of the Church of England. Each party put in an answer, and of these, Michael Sparke's is the most interesting. He declared that the decree of 1586 was contrary to Magna Charta, and an infringement of the liberties of the subject, and he refused to say who, beside Mathewes, had printed Prynne's book; it afterwards turned out to be William Turner of Oxford, who confessed to printing several other unlicensed books. A short term of imprisonment appears to have been the ...
— A Short History of English Printing, 1476-1898 • Henry R. Plomer
... caught up Merridew, ball and all, and ran swiftly past every opponent to the goal. It did not seem fit to us that such a one as he should trouble his head about spondees and dactyls, or care to know who signed the Magna Charta. When he said in open class that King Alfred was the man, we little boys all felt that very likely it was so, and that perhaps Jim knew more about it than the man who wrote ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... been used to administer the oath at the coronation of King Athelstan. Other treasures are the original Bull of Pope Leo X. conferring on King Henry VIII. the title of Defender of the Faith; and a contemporary and official copy of Magna Charta, granted by King John, and dated at Runnymede, 15th June, in the seventeenth year of his reign, which was given to Cotton by Sir Edward Dering. Both these precious documents were unfortunately damaged ...
— English Book Collectors • William Younger Fletcher
... that Magna Charta "converted the right of taxation into the shield of liberty," but it did nothing of the sort. The liberty existed before, and the right to be taxed was an efflorescence and instance of it, not a sub-stratum or a cause. The necessity ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot
... to be a colony and Republic. The extent to which the Netherlands exercised an influence in shaping the future of the American Commonwealth has not been determined, and can not be, though Douglas Campbell has maintained that to the Dutch, and not to the English Puritan, nor yet to the Magna Charta, does the American Republic owe its chief debt. The theme is productive and stimulative and worthy, though the facts are indeterminate. America is attached to the Dutch Republic as a bold attempt whose failure was nobler than many successes. The Puritan exodus from Holland, ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... law, would, as the petitioners apprehend, impose hardships upon the people too heavy to be borne, and create discontents in the minds of his majesty's subjects; would subvert all the rights and privileges of a Briton; and overturn Magna Charta itself, the basis on which they are built; and, by these means, destroy that very liberty, for the preservation of which the present royal family was established upon the throne of Britain; for which reasons, such a law could never be obeyed, or much blood would be shed ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson
... strata were suitably disguised. The peerage was well represented, so was Judah; there were women entitled to wear coronets dancing with men entitled to wear the broad arrow, and men whose forefathers had signed Magna Charta dancing with chorus girls from ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... peasants of Wirtemberg had more freedom than any other people of the Empire. A heavy, stubborn race, these Wirtembergers, hating their French-speaking rulers and jealously safeguarding those ancient rights and liberties accorded to them by the testament of Eberhard der Greiner in 1514. This Magna Charta of Swabia granted the people a degree of freedom which was exceedingly irksome to the Dukes of Wirtemberg. The nobles of the land who regarded themselves as too mighty to attend the petty court of Stuttgart, for the most part sulked in their castles, or repaired to the imperial court in Vienna. ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... go on to Magna Charta Island, a sweetly pretty part of the river, where it winds through a soft, green valley, and to camp in one of the many picturesque inlets to be found round that tiny shore. But, somehow, we did not feel that we yearned for the picturesque nearly so much now as we had earlier in the day. A bit ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... the Exchequer neglects. So stirring a drama might have easily cleared its expenses—despite the length of the cast, the salaries of the stars, and the rent of the house—in mere advance booking. For it was a drama which (by the rights of Magna Charta) could never be repeated; a drama which ladies of fashion would have given their earrings to witness, even with the central figure not a woman. And there was a woman in it anyhow, to judge by the little that had transpired at the magisterial examination, and the fact that the country ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... and the colonies on the great point, which afterwards separated them, made its appearance. The legislature of Massachusetts, employed in establishing a code of laws under their new charter, passed an act containing the general principles respecting the liberty of the subject, that are asserted in magna charta, in which was the memorable clause, "no aid, tax, talliage, assessment, custom, benevolence, or imposition whatsoever, shall be laid, assessed, imposed, or levied, on any of his majesty's subjects or their estates, on any pretence whatsoever, ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall
... has been committed to many ancient books and writings, so faithfully as to have been deemed genuine from generation to generation, and obeyed as such by all. We have some fragments of them collected by Lambard, Wilkins, and others, but abounding with proofs of their spurious authenticity. Magna Charta is the earliest statute, the text of which has come down to us in an authentic form, and thence downward we have them entire. We do not know exactly when the common law and statute law, the lex scripta et non scripta, began to be contra-distinguished, so as to ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... English political history, such as might be gathered from the ordinary historians, and from such books as Baker's Chronicle and Rushworth, he was profoundly skilled. The history of the law from the days of Magna Charta to the passage of the reform bill of Earl Grey's administration, was the study of his whole professional and public life. He not only knew every leading event, every great statute, but he had the minutest details ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby
... red, and got into a towering rage, and threatened to tear up the Magna Charta to spite them all. Whereat they ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... in the gradual subjection of the seaman to the needs of the nation, defensive or the contrary, we are confronted by an event as remarkable in its nature as it is epoch-making in its consequences. Magna Charta was sealed on the 13th of June 1215, and within a year of that date, on, namely, the 14th of April then next ensuing, King John issued his commission to the barons of twenty-two seaports, requiring them, in terms admitting of neither misconstruction ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... Thames, and the songs of the myriad birds which congregate in its groves, and the legends sprung of its antiquity, all contribute to the adornment of the gigantic fact that here, King John, sorely against his will, signed Magna Charta! How that single fact fills the soul, and nerves the spirit; how proudly the British birthright throbs within our bosoms. We long to lead the new Napoleon, the absolute Nicholas, the frank, hospitable, and brave, but sometimes overconfident ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey
... freeman shall be taken, or imprisoned, or disseized or outlawed, or exiled, or in any way harmed—nor will we go upon or send upon him—save by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land." —MAGNA CHARTA, Sec. 39. ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... most for religion, liberty, and learning, have not been sudden in their origin nor rapid in their progress. Christianity has been preached eighteen hundred years, yet it is not now received, even intellectually, by the larger part of the human race. Magna Charta is six centuries old, but its principles are not accepted by all the nations of Europe and America; and it is not, therefore, strange that a system of public instruction, originated by the Puritans of New England, should yet be struggling against prejudice and error. ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell
... speech when Billy and Lydia got within hearing, and he introduced State Senator James Farwell as the chief speaker of the day. Farwell had considerable history to cover in his speech. He began with the Magna Charta and worked by elaborate stages through the French Revolution, the conquest of India, the death of Warren Hastings, the French and Indian War, the American Revolution and the Civil War to Lincoln's ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... questions, to which the expressions or the omissions of the text may give rise. The extracts from the Anglo-Saxon laws, the sources of the Common law, I wrote in their original, for my own satisfaction;* but I have added Latin, or liberal English translations. From the time of Canute to that of the Magna Charta, you know, the text of our statutes is preserved to us in Latin only, and some ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... another significance, which you will find if you look into your dictionary,—that blessed Magna Charta of linguistic rights and privileges. I do not claim the prerogatives of Ruskin's class of the 'well educated, who are learned in the peerage of words; know the words of true descent and ancient blood at a glance, from words of modern ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... under any pretence," hiccupped a young advocate, who was unable to rise from his chair, "be condemned, except by the legal decision of his peers, or by the law of the land. So sayeth the Magna Charta—King John—(hic)—right of all free-born Englishmen—including thereby all inhabitants of Great Britain, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton |
