But the point is that the law already covered the King. The Baron’s whole point was that John was *breaking *the law.
(Bolding mine.)
No. Most free men would have their disputes adjudicated by the King’s Justices, who were not bound by Magna Carta. Only the tenants-in-chief had justice directly from the King, who is the “we” in the passage you quote. It’s a specific promise that the King will treat his barons the way he ought to treat them, according to the existing law. And again, it was perfectly alright under Magna Carta for a King to arrest his barons for any reason whatsoever, provided he only signed a bit of paper saying he thought it was a good idea.
It’s interesting to compare Magna Carta’s position on selling justice with this clause in Henry I’s Coronation Charter, which predates Magna Carta by 115 years and which influenced Magna Carta greatly:
The “…in the time of my other ancestors” phrasing is a reference to a pre-existing legal framework that prevented the king from dispensing “justice” according to his whim. It was understood in 1100 that this was the base state of affairs and that deviations from it were unjust.
There are a couple of other factors to take into consideration:
- The Plantagenets struggled to develop absolute power because they fought each other for the crown. Not in a constitutional struggle, but in a naked attempt to become Big Boss. If, say, Richard II had been a strong, capable ruler the development of the monarchy would have been very different, Magna Carta or none.
- Parliament. The development of Parliament had nothing to do with Magna Carta but was the major check on the monarchy, especially as its power to raise taxation increased while cash from feudal tithes diminished.
- Union of the Crowns - the introduction of a new monarchy with little relationship to the existing polity, and a new polity with its own relationship with the new monarchy, was somewhat disruptive.
Even discounting these fairly massive confounding factors, I’d argue that the Tudor version of monarchy didn’t fall far short of anything you’d see from a Bourbon. And of course the Stuart kings were so committed to absolute monarchy that it took rebellion and decapitation to bring them in line. It can’t be stressed enough that by the time of the Tudors, Magna Carta was defunct.
And yes, as discussed, Coke in particular referred to Magna Carta in his conflict with the Crown over the limits of its authority. But his was a mythic interpretation, and it is this myth, rather than the actual 1215/1225 document, which played a founding role in the development of citizen’s rights and limitation of state power.
