"It belongs in a museum!"
Posted on 09/26/2007 5:49:54 AM PDT by newzjunkey
A 13th-century copy of the Magna Carta, a milestone of English freedom, will be offered for sale in New York in December, Sotheby's auction house said Tuesday.
The vellum manuscript owned by the Perot Foundation is estimated to sell for $20 million to $30 million, Sotheby's said.
The document was on display at the National Archives in Washington for more than 20 years until last Thursday.
King John was forced by barons to agree to the charter in 1215. It guaranteed that freemen would not be imprisoned or deprived of property without due process, including a right to a speedy trial before a jury.
Versions of the Magna Carta were issued in 1216, 1217, 1225 and 1264 by John's son, King Henry III.
The copy offered by Sotheby's for sale on Dec. 10 is dated 1297, the year it was incorporated into the statute rolls of King Edward I.
Discovered among the Brudenell family records in England in 1974, the copy is one of only four remaining of the 1297 charter.
H. Ross Perot bought the copy in 1984 and loaned it to the National Archives. It was first exhibited in 1985.
Seems as though everything is for sale these days.
Sad.
Stopped in for a moment. Let’s see if someone from a wealthy oil producing country in the ME buys it. To own something like that would mean as much to them as building a mosque over the Vatican.
Not interested. I’ll holding my bid for the original.
Maybe they will read it and be overcome by enough kindness to turn their dictatorship into a democracy or even a republic.
If I owned it and loaned for 22 years and could get 30 million for it I’d sell it too, after making a photocopy.
or Britain's.
‘or Britain’s.’
We’ve got the one that matters - though they weren’t big on paragraphs and punctuation back then!
http://www.bl.uk/treasures/magnacarta/magna_5.html
"Know ye that we, unto the honour of Almighty God, and for the salvation of the souls of our progenitors and successors, Kings of England, to the advancement of holy Church, and amendment of our Realm, of our meer and free will, have given and granted to all Archbishops, Bishops, Abbots, Priors, Earls, Barons, and to all freemen of this our realm, these liberties following, to be kept in our kingdom of England for ever."
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