A COPY of Magna Carta has turned out to be a genuine duplicate from 1300. But all the media interest won’t stop patriotic Brits believing strange things about it. Things like this…
Magna Carta invented democracy
Magna Carta is only tenuously linked to democracy, and was more about using the law to protect the rights of nobles and lesser landowners. Peasants, the majority of the population, could f**k off. Luckily historical accuracy doesn’t bother gammons, so Magna Carta was a stunning British achievement like the 1966 World Cup. Get in, King John!
There’s one priceless Magna Carta
Magna Carta was was basically a boring legal document various people needed to read, so there were quite a few copies, at least 43 initially. So obviously if you find one in your loft don’t use it to get the barbecue started. But it’s not a proper one-off priceless relic like The Lost Ark and there’s no evidence of it melting Nazis, so it’s a bit overrated, frankly.
The Americans copied it for their constitution
Yeah, those dumb Yanks had to crib their constitution off our excellent Magna Carta. Actually Americans mostly just borrowed the idea of limiting the power of the state. But this is bafflingly complex and unnecessary detail for patriotic British pub bores, and anyway they’ve already moved on to hilarious and highly original jokes about America being late for WW2.
Britain is responsible for the rule of law
Magna Carta promoted the general idea of people being equal under the law and the right to a fair trial by your peers. The reality was a bit different for the aforementioned peasants, and Jews, who the Magna Carta actively discriminated against. So if gammons want to claim Magna Carta invented the modern legal system they’d better find some evidence. Maybe a passage that says: ‘And ye witness shall angrily retorteth, “Verily, ye cannot handle the truthe!”’
It proves we’re better than other countries
To be honest, limiting the power of a potentially tyrannical monarch is hardly a genius-level idea, certainly not compared to, say, ready meals. Nor does it give you bragging rights. Italy invented the radio, but Italians can’t go around saying: ‘You other nationalities are a bunch of non-radio-inventing arseholes. Where was your radio in 1895, you Swedish twats?’ Well, Italians could do that, but they’d look like wankers.
Magna Carta is about free speech
Gammons would dearly like to believe their right to free speech, currently being trampled underfoot by woke bastards, is somehow enshrined in Magna Carta. It’s not. It can be argued it was instrumental in the development of the concept of rights, but it’s not going to do you much good if the cops come round to warn you about posting racist crap on X again. It’s a shame computers weren’t around in the 13th century, though, because those scribes copying it out by hand would have loved select all, copy and paste.
You can just make up history
This is not true, although if you don’t mind living in an ill-informed bubble there’s nothing really stopping you. Gammons already have a totally idealised view of WW2 and the British Empire, so they may as well get this wrong as well. Does Magna Carta contain the fireball spell Merlin used to distract the dragon so St George could stab it in the heart? Why not?
