A group of protesters cited the Magna Carta yesterday when they ‘seized’ Edinburgh Castle yesterday.
Police were called to the incident at around 5pm on Tuesday after around 30 demonstrators gathered at the historic Scots landmark.
One video showed protesters citing 'article 61' the Magna Carta as a way to ‘take back’ Edinburgh Castle.
It is claimed that group sought to “remove and expose the corrupt political & admiral system”.
Police say that one man was arrested and a police officer was injured in the incident yesterday.
But what article 61 of the Magna Carta? And is it applicable in Scotland?
What is the Magna Carta?
The Magna Carta, which is Latin for the ‘great charter’, is the name given to a series of royal charters issued during the 13th century following disputes between King John and a group of rebel barons.
Its purpose served to limit the power of the monarch and enshrine certain rights.
The first ever Magna Carta was drawn up in 1215, but it was quickly declared null and void by the Pope on the ground that it had interfered with the authority of the King, and a civil war broke out in England.
It was reissued in a number of different forms over the following years, before another version was produced in 1225 - which is the version that gives the basis of the common law today.
Much of the contents of the Magna Carta have been repealed in the centuries since.
The Magna Carta was created hundreds of years before the Act of the Union so officially not a Scottish document - but it did form the basis for laws across the UK.
What is 'article 61' of the Magna Carta?
It states: “The barons shall elect twenty-five of their number to keep, and cause to be observed with all their might, the peace and liberties granted and confirmed to them by this charter.
“If we, our chief justice, our officials, or any of our servants offend in any respect against any man, or transgress any of the articles of the peace or of this security, and the offence is made known to four of the said twenty-five barons, they shall come to us - or in our absence from the kingdom to the chief justice - to declare it and claim immediate redress.
“If we, or in our absence abroad the chief justice, make no redress within forty days, reckoning from the day on which the offence was declared to us or to him, the four barons shall refer the matter to the rest of the twenty-five barons, who may distrain upon and assail us in every way possible, with the support of the whole community of the land, by seizing our castles, lands, possessions, or anything else saving only our own person and those of the queen and our children, until they have secured such redress as they have determined upon. Having secured the redress, they may then resume their normal obedience to us.”
There are a total of 63 clauses outlined in the Magna Carta. Only four of them are still valid, according to the UK Parliament website.
Clause 61 is not included in these as it was not included in newer versions of the Magna Carta and never applied to English law.
In fact, this section of the Magna Carta only applied to the group of barons that were in dispute with King John.
The clause was never intended to be used as an excuse for the general public to rebel.
Can ‘article 61’ of Magna Carta get you out of Covid restrictions?
Fact checking website Full Fact investigated this after a Liverpool business owner cited the same section of the Magna Carta when telling police that he did not plan to shut his business amid a new lockdown order in November last year.
The website wrote: “This is all incorrect. Clause 61 of the 1215 Magna Carta set out rules for 25 specific barons. It did not allow the general population to rebel, and it was also removed from subsequent versions of the document.”
