Sunday, June 15, is the 810th anniversary of the day in 1215 that rotten King John put his seal to the sheet of parchment known as Magna Carta at Runnymede in England. It wasn’t the first charter issued by an English monarch pledging to subordinate his power to the law (custom), yet it has had a staying power like no other in the imagination of people worldwide. This is especially ironic when you consider that at John’s request, Pope Innocent III nullified the charter just 11 days later and excommunicated the rebellious barons who forced it on him. (Further ironies: the charter had been drafted by the learned archbishop of Canterbury, Stephen Langton, whom the Pope had selected over John’s objection, and the charter affirmed the autonomy of the church.)

With the nullification, the civil war resumed between king and landholders who had grown tired of his taxes for wars in France (which he had lost along with vast properties) and other impositions. In the end, however, the barons more or less triumphed, as John’s successors, starting with his nine-year-old son, reissued the charter, albeit in revised editions. The principle that an English king was not a law unto himself would stand. While Magna Carta did not immediately raise the curtain on a libertarian, or even classical liberal, future, it may be said to have gotten the ball rolling, even if that was no part of anyone’s intention.

As I’ve mentioned before, the story of Magna Carta is instructive precisely because of its unintended consequences. This has been long noted, for example, by John Millar (1735-1801), a student of Adam Smith, a figure of the Scottish Enlightenment in his own right, and author of the multivolume An Historical View of the English Government, From the Settlement of the Saxons in Britain to the Revolution in 1688 (1787). The judge and literary critic Francis Jeffrey wrote in 1804 that Millar’s “leading principle” was that institutions evolve “spontaneously from the situation of the society.” “Instead of gazing, therefore, with stupid amazement, on the singular and diversified appearances of human manners and institutions,” Jeffrey wrote, “Mr. Millar taught his pupils to refer them all to one simple principle, and to consider them as necessary links in the great chain which connects civilized with barbarous society.” (From Mark Salber Phillips’s introduction to Liberty Fund’s 2006 edition of Millar’s book.)

Regarding Magna Carta, in book 2, chapter 1, Millar wrote, “The character of John … is universally known, as a compound of cowardice, tyranny, sloth, and imprudence. This infatuated king was involved in three great struggles, from which it would have required the abilities of his father [Henry II], or of his great grandfather [Henry I, son of William the Conqueror], to extricate himself with honour; but which, under his management, could hardly fail to terminate in ruin and disgrace.” …

Finally, we come to the law of unintended consequences. Millar says students of history “will easily see that the parties concerned in [the procurement “these great charters”] were not actuated by the most liberal principles; and that it was not so much their intention to secure the liberties of the people at large, as to establish the privileges of a few individuals.”

He summed up:

A great tyrant on the one side, and a set of petty tyrants on the other, seem to have divided the kingdom; and the great body of the people, disregarded and oppressed on all hands, were beholden for any privileges bestowed upon them, to the jealousy of their masters; who, by limiting the authority of each other over their dependants, produced a reciprocal diminution of their power. But though the freedom of the common people was not intended in those charters, it was eventually secured to them; for when the peasantry, and other persons of low rank, were afterwards enabled, by their industry, and by the progress of arts, to emerge from their inferior and servile condition, and to acquire opulence, they were gradually admitted to the exercise of the same privileges which had been claimed by men of independent fortunes; and found themselves entitled, of course, to the benefit of that free government which was already established. The limitations of arbitrary power, which had been calculated chiefly to promote the interest of the nobles, were thus, by a change of circumstances, rendered equally advantageous to the whole community as if they had originally proceeded from the most exalted spirit of patriotism. [Emphasis added.]

The power of apparent precedent worked in the common people’s favor; a small measure of liberty was parlayed into a larger measure, despite the efforts of the privileged classes.

When the commons, in a later period, were disposed to make farther exertions, for securing their natural rights, and for extending the blessings of civil liberty, they found it a singular advantage to have an ancient written record, which had received the sanction of past ages, and to which they could appeal for ascertaining the boundaries of the prerogative. This gave weight and authority to their measures; afforded a clue to direct them in the mazes of political speculation; and encouraged them to proceed with boldness in completing a plan, the utility of which had already been put to the test of experience. The regulations, indeed, of this old canon, agreeable to the simplicity of the times, were often too vague and general to answer the purposes of regular government; but, as their aim and tendency were sufficiently apparent, it was not difficult, by a proper commentary, to bestow upon them such expansion and accommodation as might render them applicable to the circumstances of an opulent and polished nation. [Emphasis added.]

Can classical liberals today roll back government power by appealing to “an ancient written record, which had received the sanction of past ages”? That is a tall order, considering who now reigns, but we must try, mustn’t we?