If you think only the British are excited about the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta in two yearsâ?? time, then think again.
In America, the document sealed by King John on June 15, 1215, is treated with near-religious reverence. The rights sought from the king by English barons and freemen found their way into the American Bill of Rights and the Constitution. Those rights find an echo, too, in every set of instructions given by every American judge to every American jury, from Maine to Albuquerque.
When two early copies of the Magna Carta, from Lincoln and Hereford cathedrals, go on tour around America early next year, they will be treated like rock stars, with rock-star levels of security. Itâ??s estimated that the copy on show in Houston, Texas, will be seen by one-and-a-half million people.
When David Letterman stumped David Cameron on the Late Show last year by asking him what Magna Carta meant, he wasnâ??t just trying to wrong-foot him. He was also signalling quite how well-known the Magna Carta was to millions of prime-time evening viewers in America. (It means Great Charter, by the way.)
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