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Highlights for June 15
Following a revolt by the English nobility against his rule, King John puts his royal seal on the Magna Carta, or "Great Charter." The document, essentially a peace treaty between John and his barons, guaranteed that the king would respect feudal rights and privileges, uphold the freedom of the church, and maintain the nation's laws. Although more a reactionary than a progressive document in its day, the Magna Carta was seen as a cornerstone in the development of democratic England by later generations.
John was enthroned as king of England following the death of his brother, King Richard the Lion-Hearted, in 1199. King John's reign was characterized by failure. He lost the duchy of Normandy to the French king and taxed the English nobility heavily to pay for his foreign misadventures. He quarreled with Pope Innocent III and sold church offices to build up the depleted royal coffers. Following the defeat of a campaign to regain Normandy in 1214, Stephen Langton, the archbishop of Canterbury, called on the disgruntled barons to demand a charter of liberties from the king.
In 1215, the barons rose up in rebellion against the king's abuse of feudal law and custom. John, faced with a superior force, had no choice but to give in to their demands. Earlier kings of England had granted concessions to their feudal barons, but these charters were vaguely worded and issued voluntarily. The document drawn up for John in June 1215, however, forced the king to make specific guarantees of the rights and privileges of his barons and the freedom of the church. On June 15, 1215, John met the barons at Runnymede on the Thames and set his seal to the Articles of the Barons, which after minor revision was formally issued as the Magna Carta.
The charter consisted of a preamble and 63 clauses and dealt mainly with feudal concerns that had little impact outside 13th century England. However, the document was remarkable in that it implied there were laws the king was bound to observe, thus precluding any future claim to absolutism by the English monarch. Of greatest interest to later generations was clause 39, which stated that "no free man shall be arrested or imprisoned or disseised [dispossessed] or outlawed or exiled or in any way victimised...except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land." This clause has been celebrated as an early guarantee of trial by jury and of habeas corpus and inspired England's Petition of Right (1628) and the Habeas Corpus Act (1679).
In immediate terms, the Magna Carta was a failure--civil war broke out the same year, and John ignored his obligations under the charter. Upon his death in 1216, however, the Magna Carta was reissued with some changes by his son, King Henry III, and then reissued again in 1217. That year, the rebellious barons were defeated by the king's forces. In 1225, Henry III voluntarily reissued the Magna Carta a third time, and it formally entered English statute law.
The Magna Carta has been subject to a great deal of historical exaggeration; it did not establish Parliament, as some have claimed, nor more than vaguely allude to the liberal democratic ideals of later centuries. However, as a symbol of the sovereignty of the rule of law, it was of fundamental importance to the constitutional development of England. Four original copies of the Magna Carta of 1215 exist today: one in Lincoln Cathedral, one in Salisbury Cathedral, and two in the British Museum.
1933 Machine Gun Kelly turns to kidnapping
George "Machine Gun" Kelly's first attempt at kidnapping an Indiana businessman is foiled when his wife, Kathryn, gets drunk in a Fort Worth, Texas, bar and blabs their plan to a couple of men who turn out to be private detectives who make sure that the intended victim's home is protected by security guards. Undeterred, Kelly abducted his first victim, millionaire oilman Charles Urschel, the next month and collected $200,000 in ransom before being captured by the FBI.
Although Machine Gun Kelly had a reputation as a big-time criminal and his name remains well known to this day, his only true accomplishment was in the field of publicity-and most of that credit goes to his wife. The real George Kelly was only a small-time bootlegger in Texas and Oklahoma and had never even carried a gun until he met Kathryn.
After falling in love with Kelly when she was 23, Kathryn orchestrated the supposed suicide of her second husband in 1927. She then bought Kelly a new machine gun and nagged him until he agreed to practice using it. She would go to bars and hang out with local mobsters, handing out spent cartridges from Kelly's machine gun. While George was away recovering from an illness, Kathryn told everyone that he was robbing banks.
In 1931, Kelly was arrested for smuggling and got a year in Leavenworth federal prison. Kathryn used the opportunity to spread even more rumors about his robbery exploits. Kelly began to get in on the act after discovering that a tough reputation made things easier for him in jail.
When Kelly was released, Kathryn showed him newspaper clippings about Bonnie and Clyde and Pretty Boy Floyd and hectored him into joining a bank-robbery gang. But his career in bank robbery was anything but impressive: he helped hit a few small banks in the South before giving it up. That's when Kathryn convinced him that kidnapping was where real money could be made. Although the timing wasn't exactly ideal-the murder of Charles Lindbergh's baby in 1932 had made kidnapping a capital offense-Kelly agreed. After collecting the ransom for Urschel, George and Kathryn fled to Chicago, where they spent the money as fast as they could.
Meanwhile, the FBI quickly located their accomplices, Albert Bates and Harvey Bailey, and, shortly thereafter, arrested George and Kathryn. Both the Kellys received life sentences. George died in prison 21 years later, but Kathryn lived to see parole in 1958.
If you have other Birthdays or events to add for this day please E-Mail me.
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