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Secondary sourceBook1645

England's Birth-Right Justified

John Lilburne · 1645

A 1645 pamphlet by Leveller John Lilburne that invoked Magna Carta as a charter of every Englishman's rights.

Shows how Magna Carta's legend was reused in 1645 to argue for the rights of ordinary English people.

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Title page of a printed 1645 pamphlet, 'England's Birth-Right Justified' by John Lilburne, with a black margin at left. Text is in black letter and italic serif type. Below the title is a dense paragraph and a section beginning with a large decorated initial 'N'. A catalog number, R14715, is handwritten in pencil at bottom left.
John Lilburne, England's Birth-Right Justified, 1645. British Library.

About this source

What it is

This is a printed pamphlet from 1645, written by John Lilburne, a leader of the radical political movement known as the Levellers. It is held by the British Library.

Why it matters

Lilburne used the idea of Magna Carta to argue that ordinary English people, not just nobles, had ancient legal rights. This shows how, centuries after it was written, Magna Carta's meaning was reshaped and used by political reformers to demand freedoms for common people, far beyond what the original 1215 charter actually promised.

Look closer

  • Why would a political campaigner in the 1640s want to connect his demands to a document from 1215?
  • What does the title page's design tell you about who the pamphlet was meant to reach?
  • How might Lilburne's version of Magna Carta differ from what the charter actually said?

This book is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Magna Carta on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

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