Overview

Lesson Procedure

60-75 minutes of class time across 5 phases.

1. Warm-Up5-10 minutes
2. Direct Instruction20 minutes
3. Guided Practice15 minutes
4. Independent Practice15-20 minutes
5. Closure5-10 minutes

1. Warm-Up5-10 minutes

   Project the prompt and give students three minutes to write.

   Warm-Up Prompt

   "Two accounts describe the day your school's team won a championship. One is a player's diary entry written that night. The other is a chapter in a history of the school written forty years later. Name two things both accounts would probably agree on, and two ways they would probably differ. Why would they differ?"

   Collect answers on the board in two columns, same and different. Students usually agree the score and the date would match, while the diary would give feelings and small moments and the history would give the win's meaning for the school. Name the skill: to compare and contrast treatments of one topic is to ask what each source includes, what it emphasizes and what it concludes, and then to explain the differences by who wrote it, when, from what evidence and for what purpose.

2. Direct Instruction20 minutes

   Part 1: The comparison grid. A primary source comes from the time of the events: a document, letter, diary or chronicle written by someone who lived through them or close to them. A secondary source is a later account that studies and explains the events, usually by drawing on primary sources. A treatment is the way a source handles the topic: what it tells, what it leaves out, what it stresses and how it judges. Students copy the grid and fill in one column per source.

   Comparison grid for sources on one topic

   Row	Question to ask of each source	What to write
   Type and date	Primary or secondary? When was it written, and how long after the events?	Type, date, distance in years
   Includes	Which events, people and details does it give?	Two or three details, quoted
   Emphasizes	What does it dwell on, repeat or describe most vividly?	The detail with the most space or the strongest words
   Explains and judges	Why, according to it, did things happen? Who is praised or blamed?	Its explanation and its verdict, quoted
   Rests on	What evidence does it use or name (documents, witnesses, records)?	The evidence, or "not stated"

   Part 2: Two primary sources. Give the background in three sentences: in 1215, many English barons (the great landholders who held their lands directly from the king) rebelled against King John over heavy payments and arbitrary treatment. On 27 April 1215, the Monday after the octave of Easter, they met at Brackley and sent him their demands. In June, John met them at Runnymede, a meadow by the Thames between Windsor and Staines, and granted the charter later called Magna Carta, the Great Charter. Read T1, from a chronicle by Roger of Wendover, a monk of St Albans who died in 1236, and then T2, six chapters of the charter itself in a 1905 translation. Diagram 1 shows when each source on this page was written.

   1[...] On the Monday next after the octaves of Easter, the said barons assembled in the town of Brackley; and when the king learned this, he sent the archbishop of Canterbury, and William Marshal earl of Pembroke, with some other prudent men, to them to inquire what the laws and liberties were which they demanded. The barons then delivered to the messengers a paper, containing in great measure the laws and ancient customs of the kingdom, and declared that, unless the king immediately granted them and confirmed them under his own seal, they would, by taking possession of his fortresses, force him to give them sufficient satisfaction as to their before-named demands. The archbishop with his fellow messengers then carried the paper to the king, and read to him the heads of the paper one by one throughout. The king when he heard the purport of these heads, derisively said, with the greatest indignation, "Why, amongst these unjust demands, did not the barons ask for my kingdom also? Their demands are vain and visionary, and are unsupported by any plea of reason whatever." And at length he angrily declared with an oath, that he would never grant them such liberties as would render him their slave. The principal of these laws and liberties, which the nobles required to be confirmed to them, are partly described above in the charter of king Henry, and partly are extracted from the old laws of king Edward, as the following history will show in due time.

   [...]

   2King John, when he saw that he was deserted by almost all, so that out of his regal superabundance of followers he scarcely retained seven knights, was much alarmed lest the barons would attack his castles and reduce them without difficulty, as they would find no obstacle to their so doing; and he deceitfully pretended to make peace for a time with the aforesaid barons, and sent William Marshal earl of Pembroke, with other trustworthy messengers, to them, and told them that, for the sake of peace, and for the exaltation and honour of the kingdom, he would willingly grant them the laws and liberties they required; he also sent word to the barons by these same messengers, to appoint a fitting day and place to meet and carry all these matters into effect. The king's messengers then came in all haste to London, and without deceit reported to the barons all that had been deceitfully imposed on them; they in their great joy appointed the fifteenth of June for the king to meet them, at a field lying between Staines and Windsor. Accordingly, at the time and place pre-agreed on, the king and nobles came to the appointed conference, and when each party had stationed themselves apart from the other, they began a long discussion about terms of peace and the aforesaid liberties. There were present on behalf of the king, the archbishops, Stephen of Canterbury, and H. of Dublin; [...] Those who were on behalf of the barons it is not necessary to enumerate, since the whole nobility of England were now assembled together in numbers not to be computed. At length, after various points on both sides had been discussed, king John, seeing that he was inferior in strength to the barons, without raising any difficulty, granted the underwritten laws and liberties, and confirmed them by his charter as follows: [...]

   1[...] We have also granted to all freemen of our kingdom, for us and our heirs forever, all the underwritten liberties, to be had and held by them and their heirs, of us and our heirs forever.

   [...]

   2No scutage nor aid shall be imposed in our kingdom, unless by common counsel of our kingdom, except for ransoming our person, for making our eldest son a knight, and for once marrying our eldest daughter; and for these there shall not be levied more than a reasonable aid. In like manner it shall be done concerning aids from the citizens of London.

   [...]

   3And the citizens of London shall have all their ancient liberties and free customs, as well by land as by water; furthermore, we decree and grant that all other cities, boroughs, towns, and ports shall have all their liberties and free customs.

   [...]

   4No freeman shall be arrested, or detained in prison, or deprived of his freehold, or outlawed, or banished, or in any way molested; and we will not set forth against him, nor send against him, unless by the lawful judgment of his peers and by the law of the land.

   [...]

   5To no one will we sell, to no one will we refuse or delay, right or justice.

   [...]

   6Moreover, all the aforesaid customs and liberties, the observance of which we have granted in our kingdom as far as pertains to us towards our men, shall be observed by all of our kingdom, as well clergy as laymen, as far as pertains to them towards their men.

   • Compare and contrast two primary sources (T1 paragraph 1, T2 paragraphs 1 and 4)

     Wendover calls the demands the "laws and liberties, which the nobles required to be confirmed to them." The charter grants its liberties "to all freemen of our kingdom" (T2 paragraph 1) and promises that "No freeman shall be arrested, or detained in prison" except "by the lawful judgment of his peers and by the law of the land" (T2 paragraph 4).

     Result: Compare: both treat the liberties as a grant the king confirms in writing (Wendover: he "granted the underwritten laws and liberties, and confirmed them by his charter"; the charter: "We have also granted"). Contrast: the chronicle frames them as the nobles' demands, while the charter's own words name a wider group, all freemen, and give each of them the same protection against arrest. ("Freemen" was still a limited group in 1215: it left out the unfree peasants.) The difference comes from purpose: Wendover tells the story of a quarrel, while the charter is a legal grant that must say whom it covers.

   • A primary source that judges (T1 paragraph 2)

     Wendover writes that John "deceitfully pretended to make peace for a time" and that at Runnymede he granted the liberties "without raising any difficulty," because he was "inferior in strength to the barons."

     Result: Being close to the events does not make a source neutral. Wendover includes a motive (deceit) that he could not have seen, and he emphasizes John's weakness: "scarcely retained seven knights." When students compare this with later sources, they should record Wendover's judgment as part of his treatment, not as a plain fact.

   Part 3: Is a chronicle a primary source? A gray area. This page labels the two chronicles primary, as most classroom guides do, and there are good reasons: they are the earliest narrative accounts, written in the same century by monks who could draw on living witnesses and on letters and documents that reached their abbey. But the label deserves care, and students should hear both sides. As far as we know, Roger of Wendover was not at Runnymede; he wrote at St Albans, and his chronicle was finished only by the time of his death in 1236. He also reports motives, such as John's deceit, that he could only infer. Historians often separate record sources, such as the charter itself and John's writs, which were part of the events, from narrative sources, such as chronicles, which tell about the events afterward and depend on what the writer heard. A chronicle is fully primary evidence for what people of its own time believed and said about the events, and a secondhand report for exactly what happened on a given day. Some historians therefore call chronicles near-contemporary sources rather than simply primary ones. Neither view is wrong: the page keeps the common label, and students should weigh each chronicle by its date and by how its author could have known what he reports.

3. Guided Practice15 minutes

   T3 and T4 are secondary sources: David Hume's History of England, first published in 1762, and John Richard Green's History of the English People, first published in 1877. Both historians knew the chronicles; Hume's footnotes cite Matthew Paris, whose chronicle copies and expands Wendover's. Work through the two examples with the class, then have pairs fill in the grid for T3 and T4 beside T1.

   1[...] The king was left at Odiham, in Hampshire, with a poor retinue of only seven knights; and after trying several expedients to elude the blow, after offering to refer all differences to the pope alone, or to eight barons, four to be chosen by himself, and four by the confederates, he found himself at last obliged to submit at discretion.

   2A conference between the king and the barons was appointed at Runnemede, between Windsor and Staines; a place which has ever since been extremely celebrated on account of this great event. The two parties encamped apart, like open enemies; and after a debate of a few days, the king, with a facility somewhat suspicious, signed and sealed the charter which was required of him. This famous deed, commonly called the Great Charter, either granted or secured very important liberties and privileges to every order of men in the kingdom; to the clergy, to the barons, and to the people.

   [...]

   3These were the principal articles, calculated for the interest of the barons; and had the charter contained nothing further, national happiness and liberty had been very little promoted by it, as it would only have tended to increase the power and independence of an order of men who were already too powerful, and whose yoke might have become more heavy on the people than even that of an absolute monarch. But the barons, who alone drew and imposed on the prince this memorable charter, were necessitated to insert in it other claused of a more extensive and more beneficent nature: they could not expect the concurrence of the people without comprehending, together with their own, the interest of inferior ranks of men; and all provisions, which the barons, for their own sake, were obliged to make, in order to insure the free and equitable administration of justice, tended directly to the benefit of the whole community. The following were the principal clauses of this nature.

   1But cling as such men might to John, they clung to him rather as mediators than adherents. Their sympathies went with the demands of the barons when the delay which had been granted was over and the nobles again gathered in arms at Brackley in Northamptonshire to lay their claims before the King. Nothing marks more strongly the absolutely despotic idea of his sovereignty which John had formed than the passionate surprise which breaks out in his reply. "Why do they not ask for my kingdom?" he cried. "I will never grant such liberties as will make me a slave!" The imperialist theories of the lawyers of his father's court had done their work. Held at bay by the practical sense of Henry, they had told on the more headstrong nature of his sons. Richard and John both held with Glanvill that the will of the prince was the law of the land; and to fetter that will by the customs and franchises which were embodied in the barons' claims seemed to John a monstrous usurpation of his rights. But no imperialist theories had touched the minds of his people. The country rose as one man at his refusal. At the close of May London threw open her gates to the forces of the barons, now arrayed under Robert Fitz-Walter as "Marshal of the Army of God and Holy Church." Exeter and Lincoln followed the example of the capital; promises of aid came from Scotland and Wales; the northern barons marched hastily under Eustace de Vesci to join their comrades in London. Even the nobles who had as yet clung to the king, but whose hopes of conciliation were blasted by his obstinacy, yielded at last to the summons of the "Army of God." Pandulf indeed and Archbishop Langton still remained with John, but they counselled, as Earl Ranulf and William Marshal counselled, his acceptance of the Charter. None in fact counselled its rejection save his new Justiciar, the Poitevin Peter des Roches, and other foreigners who knew the barons purposed driving them from the land. But even the number of these was small; there was a moment when John found himself with but seven knights at his back and before him a nation in arms. Quick as he was, he had been taken utterly by surprise. It was in vain that in the short respite he had gained from Christmas to Easter he had summoned mercenaries to his aid and appealed to his new suzerain, the Pope. Summons and appeal were alike too late. Nursing wrath in his heart, John bowed to necessity and called the barons to a conference on an island in the Thames, between Windsor and Staines, near a marshy meadow by the river side, the meadow of Runnymede. The king encamped on one bank of the river, the barons covered the flat of Runnymede on the other. Their delegates met on the 15th of June in the island between them, but the negotiations were a mere cloak to cover John's purpose of unconditional submission. The Great Charter was discussed and agreed to in a single day.

   • One scene in three sources: how fast did John give way? (T1 paragraph 2, T3 paragraph 2, T4)

     Wendover: the two sides "began a long discussion," and John granted the terms "without raising any difficulty." Hume: "after a debate of a few days, the king, with a facility somewhat suspicious, signed and sealed the charter." Green: "The Great Charter was discussed and agreed to in a single day," and "the negotiations were a mere cloak to cover John's purpose of unconditional submission."

     Result: Compare: all three agree that John yielded because he had no choice ("inferior in strength," "obliged to submit at discretion," "bowed to necessity"), and all three mention that he was left with about seven knights. Contrast: they disagree on the length of the talks (long, a few days, a single day) and on what John's easy consent meant. Hume turns Wendover's "without raising any difficulty" into suspicion; Green turns it into surrender. The secondary sources reuse a primary detail and give it different meanings (Diagram 2 records this and three other points).

   • How a secondary source reworks a primary quotation (T1 paragraph 1, T4)

     Wendover reports John's reply at Brackley: "Why, amongst these unjust demands, did not the barons ask for my kingdom also?" and says he "angrily declared with an oath, that he would never grant them such liberties as would render him their slave." Green writes: "Why do they not ask for my kingdom?" he cried. "I will never grant such liberties as will make me a slave!"

     Result: Green includes the same reply but shortens it, turns Wendover's reported oath into a direct quotation, and leaves out "Their demands are vain and visionary." He also adds an interpretation Wendover does not give: the reply shows "the absolutely despotic idea of his sovereignty which John had formed." Contrast in treatment: Wendover records an angry king; Green uses the scene as evidence for a theory about John's view of kingship.

4. Independent Practice15-20 minutes

   Students read T5, Green on the meaning of the charter, and T6, from William Sharp McKechnie's 1905 commentary on Magna Carta, and add both to their comparison grid before they take the quiz. The question to keep in mind: whose charter was it, the barons' or the nation's, and how does each source on the page answer?

   1Copies of it were made and sent for preservation to the cathedrals and churches, and one copy may still be seen in the British Museum, injured by age and fire, but with the royal seal still hanging from the brown, shrivelled parchment. It is impossible to gaze without reverence on the earliest monument of English freedom which we can see with our own eyes and touch with our own hands, the great Charter to which from age to age men have looked back as the groundwork of English liberty. But in itself the Charter was no novelty, nor did it claim to establish any new constitutional principles. The Charter of Henry the First formed the basis of the whole, and the additions to it are for the most part formal recognitions of the judicial and administrative changes introduced by Henry the Second. What was new in it was its origin. In form, like the Charter on which it was based, it was nothing but a royal grant. In actual fact it was a treaty between the whole English people and its king. In it England found itself for the first time since the Conquest a nation bound together by common national interests, by a common national sympathy. In words which almost close the Charter, the "community of the whole land" is recognized as the great body from which the restraining power of the baronage takes its validity. There is no distinction of blood or class, of Norman or not Norman, of noble or not noble. All are recognized as Englishmen, the rights of all are owned as English rights. Bishops and nobles claimed and secured at Runnymede the rights not of baron and churchman only but those of freeholder and merchant, of townsman and villein. The provisions against wrong and extortion which the barons drew up as against the king for themselves they drew up as against themselves for their tenants. Based too as it professed to be on Henry's Charter it was far from being a mere copy of what had gone before. The vague expressions of the old Charter were now exchanged for precise and elaborate provisions. The bonds of unwritten custom which the older grant did little more than recognize had proved too weak to hold the Angevins; and the baronage set them aside for the restraints of written and defined law. It is in this way that the Great Charter marks the transition from the age of traditional rights, preserved in the nation's memory and officially declared by the Primate, to the age of written legislation, of Parliaments and Statutes, which was to come.

   [...]

   2The rights which the barons claimed for themselves they claimed for the nation at large. [...]

   1Two crucial stages in these negotiations were clearly reached on Monday the 15th (the date borne by Magna Carta itself) and on Friday the 19th (the day on which John in more than one writ stated that peace had been concluded). What happened exactly on each of these two days is, however, to some extent, matter of conjecture. It is here maintained, with some confidence, that on Monday the substance of the barons’ demands was provisionally accepted and that the Articles were then sealed; while on Friday this arrangement was finally confirmed and Magna Carta itself, in several duplicates, was sealed.

   [...]

   2John, on his part, would naturally try a policy of evasions and delays; and, when these were clearly useless, would then endeavour to secure modifications of the terms offered. These tactics met with no success. His opponents demanded a plain acceptance of their plainly expressed demands. Before nightfall, John, overawed by their firmness and by the numbers of the armed force behind them, was constrained to surrender. Leaving minor points of detail to be subsequently adjusted, he provisionally accepted the substance of the long list of reforms put before him by the barons, on the understanding that they would renew their allegiance and give him some security that they would keep the peace. In proof of this bargain, the heads of the agreement were rapidly engrossed on parchment to the number of forty-nine, and the great seal was impressed on the wax of the label, where it may still be seen.

   [...]

   3The general conclusion to be derived from this survey is that, while much praise may be due to the baronial leaders for their comparatively liberal interest in the rights of others, they are scarcely entitled to the excessive laudation they have sometimes received. The rude beginnings of many features which have since come into prominence in English institutions (such as the conceptions of patriotism and nationality and the principles of equality before the law and the tender regard for the rights of the humble) may possibly be found in the germ in some parts of the completed Charter; but the Articles of the Barons were what their name implies, a baronial manifesto, seeking chiefly to redress the private grievances of the promoters, and mainly selfish in motive.

   4Yet, when all deductions have been made (and it has seemed necessary to do this with emphasis in order to redress the false balance created by the exaggerations of enthusiasts), the Great Charter still stands out as a prominent landmark in the sequence of events which have led, in an unbroken chain, to the consolidation of the English nation, and to the establishment of a free and constitutional form of polity upon a basis so enduring that, after more than eight centuries of growth, it still retains the vigour and the buoyancy of youth.

5. Closure5-10 minutes

   Exit ticket: On an index card, finish two sentences: "Two sources that agree about ___ are ___ and ___, because both ___." and "Two sources that differ about ___ are ___ and ___, probably because ___." Collect the cards and sort them by topic to open the next lesson.

   Teacher note on the texts and their language: The passages are quoted exactly as printed, including old spellings and terms ("Runnemede"; "villein," a peasant bound to a lord's land, in T5) and the misprint "claused" in T3. T7 uses the religious insults of a medieval chronicle ("the sons of Belial," "these abominable bandits") for the king's advisers, and T8 omits, at the marked [...], a comparison with British armies protecting a "Turkish Sultan" and the ruler of Hyderabad, written in the imperial language of Green's time. For dates, the charter itself is dated 15 June 1215; Pope Innocent III annulled the charter in August 1215, and it was reissued in revised form in 1216, 1217 and 1225. Students may ask which source is "right": answer that the task is to explain why they differ, and that later historians, like McKechnie, test earlier accounts against the records.

   Homework passages. Matthew Paris's addition to Wendover's chronicle on King John after Runnymede (T7), and Green's account of the same days (T8), used for the homework problems.

   1[...] on the instigation of the devil, who by old custom is jealous of the prosperity of mankind, the sons of Belial, like wicked freebooters, who love war rather than peace, whisperingly instilled their words of discord in the ears of the king: for they said gruntingly and with much laughter and derision, 'Behold this is the twenty-fifth king in England;—lo! he is not now a king, nor even a petty king, but a disgrace to kings; he had better be no king at all than be one of this kind. Behold a king without a kingdom, a lord without a domain; a worthless man and a king contemptible to his people. Alas! wretched man, and slave of the lowest degree, to what a wretched state of slavery have you fallen? You have been a king, now you are the scum of the people; you have been the greatest, now are you the least. Nothing is more unfortunate than to have been fortunate.' And thus arousing his anger they fanned the fire into a general conflagration.

   [...]

   2The too credulous king then, at the whisperings of these abominable bandits, whom, according to custom and to his own injury, he had too freely entertained, giving up his own natural subjects, changed his mind and inclined his heart to the very worst devices; for it is easy to turn a wavering man, and one prone to evil it is easy to hurry headlong into wickedness. The king then deeply sighing, conceived the greatest indignation, and began to pine away himself, giving vent to lamentations and complaints. 'Why,' said he, 'did my mother bring me forth, unhappy and shameless woman that she was? Why was I nursed on her knees, or suckled at her breast? Would that I had been slain rather than suffered to grow to manhood.' He then commenced gnashing his teeth, scowling with his eyes, and seizing sticks and limbs of trees, began to gnaw them, and after gnawing them to break them, and with increased extraordinary gestures to show the grief or rather the rage he felt. And on that very night he at once secretly prepared letters and sent to Philip Marc constable of the castle of Nottingham, a native of Poictou, and to all his foreign-born subjects, in whom his soul most confided, ordering them to supply their castles with provisions, surround them with trenches, garrison them, and to prepare cross-bows and engines, and to make arrows; telling them, however, to do this cautiously and without open blustering, lest the barons should happen to find it out and prevent the anger of the king from proceeding further. [...]

   1There remained only one question, and that the most difficult of all; the question how to secure this order which the Charter established in the actual government of the realm. It was easy to sweep away the immediate abuses; the hostages were restored to their homes, the foreigners banished by a clause in the Charter from the country. But it was less easy to provide means for the control of a king whom no man could trust. By the treaty as settled at Runnymede a council of twenty-five barons were to be chosen from the general body of their order to enforce on John the observance of the Charter, with the right of declaring war on the king should its provisions be infringed, and it was provided that the Charter should not only be published throughout the whole country but sworn to at every hundred-mote and town-mote by order from the king. "They have given me five-and-twenty over-kings," cried John in a burst of fury, flinging himself on the floor and gnawing sticks and straw in his impotent rage. But the rage soon passed into the subtle policy of which he was a master. After a few days he left Windsor; and lingered for months along the southern shore, waiting for news of the aid he had solicited from Rome and from the Continent. It was not without definite purpose that he had become the vassal of the Papacy. While Innocent was dreaming of a vast Christian Empire with the Pope at its head to enforce justice and religion on his under-kings, John believed that the Papal protection would enable him to rule as tyrannically as he would. The thunders of the Papacy were to be ever at hand for his protection [...]. His envoys were already at Rome, pleading for a condemnation of the Charter. The after action of the Papacy shows that Innocent was moved by no hostility to English freedom. But he was indignant that a matter which might have been brought before his court of appeal as overlord should have been dealt with by armed revolt, and in this crisis both his imperious pride and the legal tendency of his mind swayed him to the side of the king who submitted to his justice. He annulled the Great Charter by a bull in August, and at the close of the year excommunicated the barons.

Differentiation Strategies

Assessment Guidance

1. Question 1 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Green writes that the charter was "a treaty between the whole English people and its king" (T5 paragraph 1). Which source on this page most directly disagrees with this treatment?

   AT1, because Wendover says the king granted the liberties freely BT6, because McKechnie calls the articles a baronial manifesto CT2, because chapter 13 grants liberties only to London DT8, because Green later says the Pope annulled the charter in August

2. Question 2 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   On which point do Hume (T3 paragraph 3) and Green (T5) agree?

   AThe barons acted out of generous concern for the whole nation BThe charter's terms were agreed in a single day of talks CThe charter's benefits reached people beyond the barons DThe charter created constitutional principles never seen before

3. Question 3 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   How does Hume explain why the charter contains clauses that help people other than the barons (T3 paragraph 3)?

   AThe barons needed the people's support, so they included their interests BThe king insisted on clauses protecting the poor against the barons CThe Pope required the charter to protect every rank of men DThe clergy wrote those clauses without the barons' knowledge

4. Question 4 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   McKechnie writes that at Runnymede John "would naturally try a policy of evasions and delays" before he gave way (T6 paragraph 2). Which other source on this page describes John's tactics before he gave in most similarly?

   AT3: Hume says John tried "several expedients to elude the blow" BT4: Green says the charter was agreed to in a single day CT2: the charter promises that justice will not be delayed DT7: Paris says John secretly wrote to his castle commanders that night

5. Question 5 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Green says the charter "was discussed and agreed to in a single day" (T4). How does McKechnie's treatment in T6 compare?

   AIt agrees fully: everything was settled and sealed on 15 June BIt disagrees fully: nothing was agreed until 19 June CIt says the talks went on for several weeks of daily meetings at Runnymede DThe main terms were accepted on day one; the charter was sealed 19 June

6. Question 6 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   What does McKechnie concede to writers who praise the barons (T6 paragraph 3)?

   AThat the barons wanted equality before the law for every Englishman BThat some praise is due for their fairly liberal interest in others' rights CThat the barons' articles were written for the whole nation DThat the barons refused to protect their own tenants from the king's officers

7. Question 7 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Green says that "In words which almost close the Charter, the 'community of the whole land' is recognized" (T5 paragraph 1). What kind of evidence is he using here?

   AA later historian's opinion BA chronicler's description of the crowd at Runnymede CThe wording of the charter itself, a primary source DThe king's private letters after the meeting

8. Question 8 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Green says the barons secured the rights "of freeholder and merchant, of townsman and villein" (T5 paragraph 1). Which chapter printed in T2 best supports the part about townsmen?

   AChapter 40 (T2 paragraph 5), on selling or delaying justice BChapter 13 (T2 paragraph 3), on the liberties of London and other towns CChapter 39 (T2 paragraph 4), on arrest and imprisonment DChapter 1 (T2 paragraph 1), on the grant of liberties to all freemen

9. Question 9 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Hume says the charter secured liberties "to every order of men in the kingdom" (T3 paragraph 2) and then that its principal articles were "calculated for the interest of the barons" (paragraph 3). How do these two statements fit together?

   AHume contradicts himself, so his treatment cannot be compared BParagraph 3 is a quotation from Wendover that Hume rejects CParagraph 2 is about the clergy alone, not about the barons DParagraph 2 describes the charter's reach; paragraph 3 its main aim

10. Question 10 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    How do Green (T5) and McKechnie (T6 paragraph 4) compare in their final judgment of the charter's importance?

    ABoth see it as a landmark on the road to English freedom BBoth say it had little lasting importance CGreen calls it a landmark and McKechnie calls it a failure DMcKechnie calls it a landmark and Green calls it a mere copy

11. Question 11 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Green writes that "in itself the Charter was no novelty" (T5 paragraph 1). Which primary source on this page treats the barons' demands in a similar way?

    AT2 chapter 12, which lets the king take aids whenever he wishes BT1, which traces the demands to "the charter of king Henry" and older laws CT7, which says the king's advisers mocked him as the twenty-fifth king DT2 chapter 60, which extends the liberties to the barons' tenants

12. Question 12 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    McKechnie writes that at Runnymede "the heads of the agreement were rapidly engrossed on parchment to the number of forty-nine" (T6 paragraph 2). Which detail in a primary source on this page shows the barons already had written demands before Runnymede?

    AThe barons "delivered to the messengers a paper" (T1 paragraph 1) BThe king sent "trustworthy messengers" to London (T1 paragraph 2) C"To no one will we sell" right or justice (T2 paragraph 5) DThe king "secretly prepared letters" to his castles that night (T7 paragraph 2)

13. Question 13 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Which detail does Hume include (T3 paragraph 1) that Wendover's account in T1 does not?

    AJohn was left with only a handful of knights BJohn gave way because the barons were stronger CJohn offered to refer the quarrel to the Pope or to eight barons DThe meeting place lay between Windsor and Staines

14. Question 14 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Green writes that "It is impossible to gaze without reverence on the earliest monument of English freedom" (T5 paragraph 1). McKechnie writes of "the exaggerations of enthusiasts" (T6 paragraph 4). What does this contrast show?

    AGreen is writing a primary source and McKechnie a secondary one BMcKechnie is correcting admiring treatments like Green's CBoth authors doubt that the charter mattered much in the end DMcKechnie is quoting Green's words with approval

15. Question 15 of 20 · Short Answer

    Compare and contrast how Green (T4) and McKechnie (T6 paragraphs 1-2) treat John's acceptance of the barons' terms. Give one point they share and one difference, with a quotation from each.

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16. Question 16 of 20 · Short Answer

    Hume (T3) and McKechnie (T6) both doubt that the barons acted for the whole nation. Compare how each makes this case, and contrast their final verdicts on the charter.

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17. Question 17 of 20 · Short Answer

    Green says that "The provisions against wrong and extortion which the barons drew up as against the king for themselves they drew up as against themselves for their tenants" (T5 paragraph 1). Does the wording of the charter in T2 support this treatment? Quote the chapter you use.

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18. Question 18 of 20 · Short Answer

    The three historians on this page (T3, T4-T5, T6) treat the barons' motives differently. Give two reasons, drawn from the texts or their dates, that could explain the differences.

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19. Question 19 of 20 · Short Answer

    This page labels T7, Matthew Paris's addition to Wendover's chronicle, a primary source. For a historian asking what King John actually did in the days after Runnymede, how well does that label fit? Use the date of T7, how Paris could have known what he reports, and one quoted detail from T7.

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20. Question 20 of 20 · Short Answer

    Write a paragraph comparing and contrasting how one primary source (T1 or T2) and two secondary sources (T3, T4-T5 or T6) treat the question of whose rights the charter protected. Cite at least three paragraphs.

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These standards connect to RH.9-10.9: prerequisites to review first, parallel standards at the same level, and next steps that build on it.

Standard text: Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy. © Copyright 2010. National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and Council of Chief State School Officers. All rights reserved.