For the eight hundredth anniversary of the Magna Carta, the University of Virginia Press presents the first paperback edition of The Road from Runnymede by A. E. Dick Howard, originally published in 1968. In this volume, Howard explores the ways in which Magna Carta's concepts, most notably due process, have been absorbed and put into practice by English and especially American society. He goes on to show how the idea of constitutional government evolved in America, moving beyond the foundations laid by Magna Carta to adapt itself to the new republic's needs.

"Magna Carta and the Rule of Law examines the Great Charter's origins and influence, based on the most current knowledge and research. Distinguished scholars explore the Charter's fascinating story through a series of distinct lenses." -- BOOK COVER.

本书为2015年在北京大学举行的第三届中英英国史学术交流研讨会论文精选，中英双方学者就英国中世纪的遗产及对后来历史发展的影响展开了精彩论述。反映了英国史研究的学术前沿进展。

Sir John Denham (1614/15–1669) Reassessed shines new light on a singular, colourful yet elusive figure of seventeenth-century English letters. Despite his influence as a poet, wit, courtier, exile, politician and surveyor of the king's works, Denham, remains a neglected figure. The original essays in this interdisciplinary collection provide the sustained modern critical attention his life and work merit. The book both examines for the first time and reassesses important features of Denham's life and reputations: his friendship circles, his role as a political satirist, his religious inclinations, his playwriting years, and the personal, political and literary repercussions of his long exile; and offers fresh interpretations of his poetic magnum opus, Coopers Hill. Building on the recent resurgence of scholarly interest in royalists and royalism, as well as on Restoration literature and drama, this lively account of Denham's influence questions assumptions about neatly demarcated seventeenth-century chronological, geographic and literary boundaries. What emerges is a complex man who subverts as well as reinforces conventional characterisations of court wit, gambler and dilettante.

An expanded edition of a classic study of the Magna Carta interprets the events of 1215 and the Charter itself in the context of the law, politics and administration of England and Europe in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

"Dan Jones has an enviable gift for telling a dramatic story while at the same time inviting us to consider serious topics like liberty and the seeds of representative government." —Antonia Fraser From the New York Times bestselling author of The Plantagenets, a lively, action-packed history of how the Magna Carta came to be—by the author of Powers and Thrones. The Magna Carta is revered around the world as the founding document of Western liberty. Its principles—even its language—can be found in our Bill of Rights and in the Constitution. But what was this strange document and how did it gain such legendary status? Dan Jones takes us back to the turbulent year of 1215, when, beset by foreign crises and cornered by a growing domestic rebellion, King John reluctantly agreed to fix his seal to a document that would change the course of history. At the time of its creation the Magna Carta was just a peace treaty drafted by a group of rebel barons who were tired of the king's high taxes, arbitrary justice, and endless foreign wars. The fragile peace it established would last only two months, but its principles have reverberated over the centuries. Jones's riveting narrative follows the story of the Magna Carta's creation, its failure, and the war that subsequently engulfed England, and charts the high points in its unexpected afterlife. Reissued by King John's successors it protected the Church, banned unlawful imprisonment, and set limits to the exercise of royal power. It established the principle that taxation must be tied to representation and paved the way for the creation of Parliament. In 1776 American patriots, inspired by that long-ago defiance, dared to pick up arms against another English king and to demand even more far-reaching rights. We think of the Declaration of Independence as our founding document but those who drafted it had their eye on the Magna Carta.

King John is one of those historical characters who needs little in the way of introduction. If readers are not already familiar with him as the tyrant whose misgovernment gave rise to Magna Carta, we remember him as the villain in the stories of Robin Hood. Formidable and cunning, but also cruel, lecherous, treacherous and untrusting. Twelve years into his reign, John was regarded as a powerful king within the British Isles. But despite this immense early success, when he finally crosses to France to recover his lost empire, he meets with disaster. John returns home penniless to face a tide of criticism about his unjust rule. The result is Magna Carta – a ground-breaking document in posterity, but a worthless piece of parchment in 1215, since John had no intention of honoring it. Like all great tragedies, the world can only be put to rights by the tyrant’s death. John finally obliges at Newark Castle in October 1216, dying of dysentery as a great gale howls up the valley of the Trent.