Feel free to use this tree. Apparently, that's just what twenty-five bellicose barons and the 'baddest' King of England, John, did this very time 792 years ago , as the first Magna Carta, or 'Great Charter', was sealed,purportedly on this very spot beneath this ancient yew which is probably older than England itself.
Could it have been more than mere coincidence that led to me driving just seven miles or so from my home to the pleasant village of Wraysbury, in the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead, on the 'official' birthday of the present sovereign- which this year was just one day after the anniversary of that monumental event in British history? Maybe, but as I waited for the friends who'd invited me to meet them here to arrive from another Thameside location some twenty miles further west, my mind was filled with thoughts of just what that historic event meant for individual liberty, but also with loftier remembrance of a liberty that no prince or premier, nation or natterer has power to grant.
Magna Carta set out on paper, if not in stone, the nearest thing England has ever had to a 'Bill of Rights'- although it was never intended to be this and in fact failed initially to achieve its purpose of averting a minor civil war. Later revisions and constant reference to it as precedent however, mean it now forever vindicates the freedom of the individual citizen under law. No more could men be accused of wrongdoing and cast into the hands of unaccountable and tyrannical monarchy, nor their liberties and property be taken from them, without the fair trial of their peers and due process of law. The charter's two most famous provisions are as clear as the nose on Bad King John's face:
'No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions ... except by the lawful judgement of his peers.'
'To no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay right or justice.'
No wonder Magna Carta has proved to be a proof text for the world's most significant democracies ever since. Politicians may come and go- as Tony Blair will do, funnily enough, on my birthday later this month. There is ample reminder at present both sides of the 'pond' of how their practices often reek as much as the now stagnant pools of water where once Old Father Thames flowed either side of Magna Carta Island. But the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary are rightly seen as much as the crucial accessories of just society, as crown and sceptre are the tangible symbols of constitutional monarchy in the present day United Kingdom. Saturday 16th June 2007 turned out to be a day when I realised I am still very proud to be British, once all the media meddling and false witness about our national life is discounted.
King John had abused his assumed divine right to the extent that his barons would have no more of it, but a June day in 1215 ensured that no future monarch could ever get away with such a display of contempt for what we would today call 'human rights'. And yet, unjust imprisonment is still the fate of all too many in an unending stream of justice-starved regimes in the 21st century world. So many of these poor souls, only standing up for what they believe, have never had a fair trial. Were it not for the tireless efforts of Amnesty International et al, many of them would never have the hope of liberty.
Yet true liberty is surely more than a freedom from physical chains, it is a freedom of mind, body and spirit which no monarch can decree or celebrate with earthly honours, as the latest recipients of "gongs" will have done yesterday in Her Majesty's Birthday Honours List. Among them was (Sir) Salman Rushdie, who receives a knighthood nearly two decades after his seminal work The Satanic Verses put a price on his head from one particularly harsh interpretation of Islamic teaching.
Religion has been the object of so much abuse, torment and misapplication through the eight centuries since King John swore his oath before twenty-five bellicose barons on an English summer afternoon, that it can almost make his calamitous acts seem like kindergarten antics by comparison.
Yet 'true' religion - or as many prefer to describe it, faith- remains the only real solution to man's enduring mis-treatment not just of his fellow human beings, but of the natural world itself. After taking a somewhat roundabout route to get to the object of our search today, my arboriphile friends and I were able to gaze in wonder at the sight of a natural specimen which existed centuries before environmentalists came to this spot to launch a 'green' magna carta, or those who assumed the mantel of the great and the good got together in Germany for an ultimately rather ineffectual G8 summit as they sought to grapple with the world's pressing issues of the moment.
Only one man ever really got to grips with the earth's real problem- and he did it by hanging on a tree in agony and finally giving up his life, because of all the awfulness of our human nature. Yet like the freshness of a summer rainstorm on the long, lingering hours of daylight at this time of year in England's green and pleasant land, Jesus Christ drained our stagnant places by that death. At Easter he rose again, and in the next forty days until he ascended to his rightful throne, he showed, nay proved, to people of faith that there is more to life than meets even the most discerning eye.
The National Trust, of which I'm a member can work wonders with Runnymede, Ankerwycke, Churchill's Chartwell and many hundred other historic places, but only trusting in Jesus, I believe, can change hearts of stone into hearts of love. And indeed, this is all that God, requires of us in a precious prophetic passage given to Micah probably even before that Berkshire yew was a bird-carried seed:
He has showed you, O man, what is good.
And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.
I will try to post to this blog more again soon, at least monthly, but meanwhile you might like to check out some of the links on the right where you can find some of my other writing and the contributions of other websites I find both informative and inspirational.
The Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face to shine upon you, and give you peace.
No comments:
Post a Comment