brits

BRITS AT THEIR BEST

As you know, Parliament is now considering the EU's Lisbon Treaty, which if approved will end the independence of the British people. In what has been described as sheer stupidity or deliberate treachery, Parliament is on the verge of approving the treaty. The members of the House of Lords - the Lords Temporal and the Lords Spiritual as they are called - will vote on it shortly. The Lords Spiritual -the bishops and archbishops - have a special responsibility to the people. The bishop's special responsibility springs from a special history which may be little known even to the bishops. In a recent letter to each of them, we wrote

Dear Bishop,
Bishops helped to frame the Charter of Liberties in AD 1100, establishing the radical principle that no person is above the law, not even the king.

St Dunstan wrote the Coronation Oath and established the covenant between the sovereign and the people whereby the sovereign swears to give justice to the people.

Archbishop Anselm and the bishops and abbots met in 1102 at the Council of Westminster and declared an end to slavery in England because they believed that God wanted his children to be free.

Archbishop Stephen Langton reminded the knight-barons in 1213 that the Charter of Liberties (which had slipped from memory) protected a person's right to justice according to the laws of St Edward the Confessor. When King John refused to confirm the Charter, the knight-barons revolted. Many bishops and abbots joined them and – an overlooked fact – so did the merchants, artisans and working class people of London. Archbishop Langton refused to obey the Pope’s order to excommunicate the rebels, and he declined to surrender the strategically important castle of Rochester to King John. Among other rights in Magna Carta, Langton defended the people’s right to common lands.
Read full article here www.britsattheirbest.com

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