King John, and the clergy and the barons, loyal and rebel, assembled in the Temple from time to time in 1214 and 1215, as issues of great moment in our history were taking place: indeed as our history was being made. At that time, when the king was not occupying the Tower of London, royal business was transacted in the then New Temple, and here the rival parties to an imminent civil war gathered. The Round Church had been completed and consecrated a few years earlier. As a church it is hallowed ground, and has been for over eight centuries. For lawyers, too, the Temple Church is hallowed ground, whatever our individual faiths may be, because with every justification this ancient church can be claimed as the mother church of the common law. Magna Carta and the Temple, and the Temple Church and religion, are inextricably intertwined.

There was not one Magna Carta. We readily overlook that there were four, one in 1215, the second in 1216, the third in 1217, and the fourth in 1225. Their terms were not the same. Thereafter Magna Carta was never amended, but it was frequently confirmed by future kings in a representative organisation which came to be known as Parliament. Almost certainly, the king's seal was not affixed to the 1215 document until 19 June, although the date on the document itself is 15 June. The 1215 Charter was not called Magna Carta or the Great Charter. None of the charters was signed by anyone. The first was sealed by King John. In 1216 and 1217 the infant King Henry III sealed nothing. The charters were issued under the seal of William Marshal, the chosen regent of the boy king's minority, and the papal legate. The effigy of William Marshal, who became a Knight Templar in the days immediately before his death in 1219, is found in the Temple Church. Without him it is very seriously doubtful whether any of us would be celebrating the events of the early thirteenth century.