Joining the Dames of the Magna Charta

King John signing the Magna Charta in 1215

Who hasn't heard of the Magna Charta, but at the same time has no idea what it is all about?


 The Magna Charta resulted from the peace made between King John of England and about sixty of his rebelling barons in 1215. After preliminary negotiations with the barons through the Archbishop of Canterbury, Stephen Langton, as go-between, the King and his party met the barons on 15 June in a meadow known as Runnemede next to the Thames River. After several days of face-off discussions on the 19th the document language was agreed upon and the barons elected 25 of their number to be "Sureties", holding title to a few of the King's properties, including the Tower of London, to guarantee the King's compliance with the laws and liberties of the Magna Charta. at the same time has no idea what it is all about.  

When Englishmen left their homeland to establish colonies in the New World, they brought with them charters guaranteeing that they and their heirs would "have and enjoy all liberties and immunities of free and natural subjects." Scant generations later, when these American colonists raised arms against their mother country, they were fighting not for new freedoms but to preserve liberties that dated to the 13th century.

When representatives of the young republic of the United States gathered to draft a constitution, they turned to the legal system they knew and admired--English common law as evolved from Magna Carta. The conceptual debt to the great charter is particularly obvious: the American Constitution is "the Supreme Law of the Land," just as the rights granted by Magna Carta were not to be arbitrarily canceled by subsequent English laws.

This week I mailed my application to the National office of the Dames of the Magna Charta, along with my sister Christine's and her daughter Joann's applications.  Chris has spent about 8 years researching our family (William Cole) back to one of the barons who lived in 1215 and served under King John.    One of my friends, a member of the Dames of the Magna Charta, Alabama Division, proposed us for membership.  


The next step in joining this prestigious society is to have our applications accepted and offered a formal invitation to join (that's when we send in $200 application fee).