Talk:Magna Carta: The True Story Behind the Charter

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The article’s sourcing

Careful attention needs to be paid to making sure that Starkey’s work is accurately presented. At times the synopsis section mixes quotes from reviews and those of Starkey, without distinguishing between the two. For example Starkey argues that even though the barons who forced King John to sign the charter were "practical men of their time, not constitutional lawyers", the results of their demands had great political implications that "resonate through the ages". Starkey does not use the phrase "practical men of their time, not constitutional lawyers", that was used by Marcus Tanner in his review in The Independent. In the same sentence we have a snippet from Starkey, but "resonate through the ages" doesn’t tell the whole story. At this point he is specifically referring to clauses 39 and 40 and tempers the note about their ‘resonance’ with the statement “But even they are not quite as gloriously far-reaching as we like to think”, going on to explain why. He also attributes these clauses to King John, rather than the barons.

Starkey’s argues that the Magna Carta is a foundational stone of the rule of law: the phrase ‘rule of law’ doesn’t appear in Starkey’s book or in Lucy Mangan’s review in The Guardian which is used as a reference for this. What is meant by ‘rule of law’ in this instance and is it backed up by the sources?

Starkey never once uses the phrase ‘executive power’ in his book, or mentions either France’s Ancien Regime or Tsarist Russia. These again derive from the Tanner review (not commenting whether they are valid points) but the current article indicates they are Starkey’s views, prefacing that particular paragraph with ‘Starkey argues that…’.

This also happens with the text Starkey makes the case that Magna Carta is a very important document as a basis for constitutions because of his view that states tends towards "arrogance, corruption and conflict with its people". This quote comes from Mangan, but the way it is used in the article implies Starkey said it himself. Unfortunately, Mangan’s review is of the TV series the book accompanied, not the book itself. That is not at all clear in the article. As far as I can tell he doesn’t even use the word arrogance in the book, and corruption is mentioned only once, and then it is in reference to the way the phrasing of the Charter of Liberties issued by Henry I. It makes sense to address the TV series and book together, but the article should not conflate the two.

As well as making sure not to misattribute analysis by reviewers as Starkey’s own views, we also need to ensure that the reviews themselves are accurately represented. The article states that Starkey writes that this symbolised a great British capacity to find peaceful compromise in politics (emphasis mine). The review cited specifically says English not British. Richard Nevell (talk) 18:07, 3 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The article states He argues that the meadow at “Runnymede was chosen precisely because it could not do so, as the surrounding land was too wet and boggy. It is unclear what could not be done. Richard Nevell (talk) 19:08, 3 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Feel free to edit it then. :) Gd123lbp (talk) 12:53, 6 November 2020 (UTC) Thankyou for your recent edits, this is much better. I am still learning on wikipedia so I am trying to get the facts from articles and reviews to form the article, but that is difficult sometimes. Gd123lbp (talk) 18:49, 6 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]