Worksheet

Four Clauses from Runnymede: Reading the Magna Carta

Grade 7 civics: source four adapted Magna Carta clauses, apply them to new cases and trace how common law and Parliament began to limit English kings.

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Aligned toCIV.7.1

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Format: Interactive · Printable
Grade: Grade 7
Subject: Social Studies
Question types: Fill in the blank, Multiple choice, Matching, Circle the answer, Sorting, Short answer

About this worksheet

What students practice

Students source an adapted excerpt of the Magna Carta by its author, date, purpose and limits.
Students apply Magna Carta clauses to new cases about taxes, imprisonment and justice.
Students explain how common law and Parliament added new limits on English rulers.

How to use

Read the sourcing note before the excerpt so students know who wrote it and why. Work through the first section together, then let students finish the timeline section and the final claim on their own.

Curriculum

C3 Framework standard covered

CIV.7.1

Explain how the Magna Carta, Parliament and English common law began to limit the power of rulers.

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Four Clauses from Runnymede: Reading the Magna Carta

Source an adapted excerpt, then trace how courts and Parliament kept limiting the king.

Source the excerpt

Read the sourcing note and the excerpt. Then answer the questions.

Sourcing note. The Magna Carta ("Great Charter") was written in Latin and sealed by King John of England at Runnymede, a meadow beside the River Thames, in June 1215. John had lost most of his family's lands in France and had demanded heavy payments from his barons to fight wars to win them back. In May 1215 rebel barons captured London, and John agreed to the charter to make peace. Within a few months he asked Pope Innocent III to cancel it, the pope did so, and war broke out again. When the charter was written, only a minority of English people were "free men"; many peasants were unfree, bound to work a lord's land.

Excerpt: Four Clauses (adapted from an English translation of the Magna Carta, 1215)

Clause 12. No special tax for war shall be demanded in our kingdom without the general consent of the kingdom, except to pay a ransom to free us, to make our eldest son a knight, or to pay for the first marriage of our eldest daughter.

Clause 39. No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or have his land or rights taken, or be outlawed or exiled, or harmed in any other way, nor will we move against him or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land.

Clause 40. To no one will we sell, to no one will we deny or delay, right or justice.

Clause 61. The barons shall choose twenty-five barons of the kingdom. If we or any of our officials break any part of this charter and do not correct it within forty days, the twenty-five barons, together with the whole community of the land, may seize our castles, lands and possessions until the wrong is corrected.

Based on the sourcing note, why did King John agree to the charter?

A. He wanted to share power with the peasants of England.
B. Rebel barons held London, and he needed to make peace.
C. The pope ordered him to accept it.
D. He had won back his lands in France and could afford it.

The barons pressed for clause 12. Using the sourcing note, what did they most likely want it to do?

A. End the payment to free the king if he were captured
B. Give the barons the right to start wars in France
C. Stop the king from demanding war payments without their agreement
D. Make the king pay the barons for serving in his army

A historian says clause 39 protected fewer people in 1215 than it seems to today. Which detail from the page best supports her?

A. The charter was written in Latin, not English.
B. The charter was sealed in a meadow beside the River Thames.
C. Clause 61 named twenty-five barons to watch the king.
D. It protected only "free men," and many peasants were unfree.

Match each case from England in the 1200s to the clause that deals with it.

A sheriff refuses to hear a knight's case unless the knight pays him first.
The king locks up a merchant for years with no trial.
The king demands a new war tax without asking the kingdom.
The king has broken a promise in the charter and still has not fixed it after two months.

A. Clause 39
B. Clause 40
C. Clause 12
D. Clause 61

After 1215: courts and Parliament

Read the passage and the timeline. Then answer the questions.

From Charter to Courts and Parliament

1Even before the Magna Carta, England's courts were changing. King Henry II, who ruled from 1154 to 1189, sent royal judges to travel around the kingdom hearing cases. Their decisions were remembered and followed when similar cases came up later, so more and more of the same law applied everywhere in England. This became known as the common law, because it was common to the whole kingdom. Groups of local men, early juries, told the judges what they knew about crimes in their area.

2The pope's cancellation did not end the charter. After King John died in 1216, the advisers of his young son, Henry III, issued it again in shorter forms, and the version of 1225 was copied and read aloud for centuries. Each new version kept the promise that no free man would be imprisoned except by lawful judgment or the law of the land, and copies were sent to be kept in cathedrals and read out in public.

3Kings still needed money for wars, and the barons wanted a say in how it was raised. In 1265 Simon de Montfort, a baron who had rebelled against Henry III, called a parliament that included not only nobles and church leaders but also knights from the counties and representatives from the towns. In 1295 King Edward I called a parliament with the same groups to approve taxes. Over the next century, Parliament split into a House of Lords and a House of Commons, and it claimed the right to approve new taxes.

4These limits grew slowly. Kings still held great power, and many later rulers tested or ignored the rules. Yet each step, from judges who followed earlier decisions, to a charter that put the king under the law of the land, to a Parliament whose consent was needed for taxes, made it harder for one ruler to act alone. Centuries later, lawmakers in England and in the American colonies pointed to the Magna Carta when they argued that no ruler stands above the law.

Limiting the English Crown: A Timeline
Date	Event
1154–1189	Henry II sends judges around England
1215	King John seals the Magna Carta
1216	John dies; the charter is reissued
1225	Henry III issues the lasting version
1265	De Montfort's parliament meets
1295	Edward I's parliament approves taxes

Sort each detail by the development it belongs to.

Judges follow earlier decisions in similar cases.Towns send representatives to approve taxes.Twenty-five barons may act if the king breaks his word.Royal judges travel from place to place.Knights from the counties sit beside nobles.No free man is imprisoned except by lawful judgment.

Common law	Magna Carta	Parliament

Use the timeline. About how many years passed between the sealing of the Magna Carta and the parliament called by Edward I? years

The pope canceled the Magna Carta within months. Using paragraph 2 and the timeline, why do historians still treat it as a turning point?

A. Later kings reissued it, and it was read aloud for centuries.
B. It gave English peasants the right to vote.
C. The pope later wrote a new version himself.
D. King John obeyed it for the rest of his long reign.

Underline the sentence from paragraph 3 that best shows how Parliament gained a lasting way to limit the king.

Kings still needed money for wars, and the barons wanted a say in how it was raised.In 1295 King Edward I called a parliament with the same groups to approve taxes.Over the next century, Parliament split into a House of Lords and a House of Commons, and it claimed the right to approve new taxes.

How did common law, as paragraph 1 describes it, make it harder for a ruler or a local lord to treat people unfairly?

A. Judges followed earlier decisions, so similar cases were decided in similar ways.
B. The king decided most cases himself in London.
C. Each lord could write his own laws for his own lands.
D. Juries were made up of barons from London.

10.

Claim: The Magna Carta mattered more for what later generations did with it than for what it did in 1215. Do you agree or disagree? Give two pieces of evidence from the sourcing note, the excerpt, the passage or the timeline, and explain your reasoning.