The Times May 30, 2006
If only Britain had thought of something like Magna Carta . . .
By Alan Hamilton
The Magna Carta.
THE Americans have Independence Day, the French have Bastille Day and every year on November 28 the Albanians commemorate liberation from the Ottoman Empire in 1912.
Almost every country in the world has its National Day, often to celebrate the throwing-off of some old colonial yoke. Two of the very few that have no patriotic holiday allowing citizens a day off to bask in their own identity are the Democratic Republic of Congo and the United Kingdom.
If we were to have one it ought to be on June 15, according to a survey carried out by BBC History magazine. That is the day in 1215 that the English barons forced King John to sign Magna Carta, the first tentative step from absolute monarchy to the will of the people.
More than a quarter of the 5,000 readers polled voted for this milestone in English constitutional history. It beat other popular suggestions, including the victories of Nelson and Wellington, the Second World War, the birth of Churchill, the abolition of slavery, the First Reform Act and Cromwell’s republic.
Magna Carta curbed the power of the monarch, safeguarded the Church and gave ordinary people rights under common law. Although not regarded as enormously significant at the time, it set down basic ideas of liberty, democracy and constitutionalism which, after 800 years, are taken for granted.
But as a cause for celebration of the modern British State, it has one big flaw: it is not British. Linda Colley, British-born Professor of History at Princeton University and author of a book on British identity after the 1707 Treaty of Union, said: “The problem with a Magna Carta Day is that this was originally very much an ENGLISH, not a British, significant event.”
The patron saints’ days celebrated in the four parts of the UK are clearly useless as excuses for a united nationhood. Burns Night in Scotland and Battle of the Boyne Day, a public holiday in Ulster, will patently not do either. And the Celtic Fringe will certainly not accept July 30, the date of the 1966 World Cup Final.
We need something like Spanish National Day (October 12), which marks Columbus’s discovery of America, or Australia Day (January 26), commemorating the date on which the first English ship sailed into Sydney Cove. The trouble with Britain is that, at a mere 299 years, it’s such a new nation (although each constituent nation is ancient). Give us another couple of centuries and we’ll think of something British.
NATIONAL DAY: TOP TEN DATES
Contender for Britain's National Day.
June 15
Magna Carta, signed by King John in 1215
May 8
VE-Day, 1945
June 6
D-Day, 1944
November 11
Armistice Day, 1918
October 21
Nelson’s victory at Trafalgar, 1805
March 25
Abolition of the slave trade, 1807
June 18
Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo, 1815
November 30
Birth of Churchill, 1874
May 19
Cromwellian republic established, 1649
June 7
Reform Act passed, 1832
Source: BBC History magazine
If only Britain had thought of something like Magna Carta . . .
By Alan Hamilton
The Magna Carta.
THE Americans have Independence Day, the French have Bastille Day and every year on November 28 the Albanians commemorate liberation from the Ottoman Empire in 1912.
Almost every country in the world has its National Day, often to celebrate the throwing-off of some old colonial yoke. Two of the very few that have no patriotic holiday allowing citizens a day off to bask in their own identity are the Democratic Republic of Congo and the United Kingdom.
If we were to have one it ought to be on June 15, according to a survey carried out by BBC History magazine. That is the day in 1215 that the English barons forced King John to sign Magna Carta, the first tentative step from absolute monarchy to the will of the people.
More than a quarter of the 5,000 readers polled voted for this milestone in English constitutional history. It beat other popular suggestions, including the victories of Nelson and Wellington, the Second World War, the birth of Churchill, the abolition of slavery, the First Reform Act and Cromwell’s republic.
Magna Carta curbed the power of the monarch, safeguarded the Church and gave ordinary people rights under common law. Although not regarded as enormously significant at the time, it set down basic ideas of liberty, democracy and constitutionalism which, after 800 years, are taken for granted.
But as a cause for celebration of the modern British State, it has one big flaw: it is not British. Linda Colley, British-born Professor of History at Princeton University and author of a book on British identity after the 1707 Treaty of Union, said: “The problem with a Magna Carta Day is that this was originally very much an ENGLISH, not a British, significant event.”
The patron saints’ days celebrated in the four parts of the UK are clearly useless as excuses for a united nationhood. Burns Night in Scotland and Battle of the Boyne Day, a public holiday in Ulster, will patently not do either. And the Celtic Fringe will certainly not accept July 30, the date of the 1966 World Cup Final.
We need something like Spanish National Day (October 12), which marks Columbus’s discovery of America, or Australia Day (January 26), commemorating the date on which the first English ship sailed into Sydney Cove. The trouble with Britain is that, at a mere 299 years, it’s such a new nation (although each constituent nation is ancient). Give us another couple of centuries and we’ll think of something British.
NATIONAL DAY: TOP TEN DATES
Contender for Britain's National Day.
June 15
Magna Carta, signed by King John in 1215
May 8
VE-Day, 1945
June 6
D-Day, 1944
November 11
Armistice Day, 1918
October 21
Nelson’s victory at Trafalgar, 1805
March 25
Abolition of the slave trade, 1807
June 18
Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo, 1815
November 30
Birth of Churchill, 1874
May 19
Cromwellian republic established, 1649
June 7
Reform Act passed, 1832
Source: BBC History magazine