THE OKLAHOMA BAR JOURNAL 4 | APRIL 2025 For any of you who may be fact-checkers, feel free to confirm that King John brought foreign nationals into his circle of advisors, which caused both resentment in the barons and highlighted for the general population the national identity of Englanders. You will also find that King John imposed heavy tax burdens on England to finance his military efforts to reclaim lands lost in prior wars. He also imposed confiscation of lands and holdings of widows for the same purpose. With regard to the Jews, there was a relatively small population of Jews in England at this time, but they served as financiers, which gave rise to conflicts in which King John was involved. So what was the Great Charter about? From Professor David Carpenter’s book Magna Carta: The Charter was above all about money. Its overwhelming aim was to restrict the king’s ability to take it from his subjects. Another major thrust was in the area of law and justice. The Charter wanted to make the king’s dispensation of justice fairer and more accessible, while at the same time preventing his arbitrary and lawless treatment of individuals. Even though most of us remember Sir William Blackstone for his treatise, Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765-1769), he is also credited with establishing a numbering system for the provisions of the Magna Carta. Chapters 40 and 39 are the two chapters that, in my opinion, cause the Magna Carta to still be revered today. Chapter 40 simply states, “To no one will we sell, to no one will we deny or delay, right or justice.” Chapter 39 states: THE RULER’S EXECUTIVE ORDERS WERE A problem for the rebellious house of representatives. Other concerns were the ruler’s elevation of foreign- born individuals without regard to the impact on the resident population and the ruler’s insistence upon arbitrary taxes, as well as his confiscatory policies, not to mention the ruler’s conflict with the Jews. Ultimately, the house of representatives passed a bill that the ruler could not veto, and for a time, it seemed that the conflict was resolved. Does that sound sort of familiar? Yes, no, maybe? From Inventing Freedom by Daniel Hannan: On June 15, 1215, in a field near Windsor an event of truly planetary significance took place. For the first time, the idea that governments were subject to the law took written, contractual form. The king [King John] put his seal to a document that, from that day to this, has been seen as the foundational charter of Anglosphere liberty: Magna Carta. Unfortunately, within six months, King John disregarded the Great Charter (or Magna Carta) and plunged England into the civil war that the barons (precursors to England’s representative house of Parliament) sought to avoid. But, as Mr. Hannan stated in Inventing Freedom, “Just as that war seemed to be on the point of stalemate, the providentially bad monarch (King John) rendered one last service to England by dying opportunely in Newark Castle in October 1216 (almost certainly of dysentery, and sadly not, as one source claims, from a surfeit of peaches).” The Magna Carta’s Everlasting Impact From the President By D. Kenyon “Ken” Williams Jr. D. Kenyon “Ken” Williams Jr. is a shareholder and director at Hall Estill in Tulsa. 918-594-0519 kwilliams@hallestill.com (continued on page 66)
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