Apparently not. It was Tony Hancock who asked: "Does Magna Carta mean nothing to you? Did she die in vain?"
The answer seems to be that, contrary to his worries, the sacrifice was not for nothing. A poll for BBC History magazine has found that enthusiasm for a national day marking the agreement of the great charter at Runnymede on June 15 1215 tops that for all other suggestions.
The detail of medieval agreement can seem obscure to us now, but legislators in later centuries used it to implement principles that are not, such as habeas corpus.
There is, it has to be said, some scepticism. The England Project blog, the kind that agitates for an English parliament, considers it "a strange choice", since the barons' contract with King John "doesn't signify anything particularly British in origin". It was not until almost 500 years later that the 1707 Act of Union created a single kingdom of Great Britain.
Still, June 15 has a lot going for it. The revolutionary acts of Thomas Jefferson and friends and the stormers of the Bastille were not timed with the leisure pursuits of future generations at the front of their minds, but the Americans and French seem to have had the right idea in having their national days on July 4 and 14.
Midsummer is a splendid time of year. If June 15 is as close as we can go, then so be it.
