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Secondary sourcePainting19th century

King John Granting Magna Carta

Ernest Normand (painting); engraver unknown · 19th century

A colour engraving from Cassell's History of England, after a painting by Ernest Normand, showing King John on a throne granting the charter.

It shows King John granting Magna Carta on a throne, as a later artist imagined the 1215 charter.

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Colour illustration in an arched frame of a medieval king seated on a throne with a sword across his knees, under a red canopy with gold lions. Richly dressed courtiers and clergy stand around, and a clerk kneels at the steps holding a scroll.
King John granting the Magna Carta, after a painting by Ernest Normand, from Cassell's History of England, Vol. I.

About this source

What it is

This is a colour illustration in an arched frame, engraved for Cassell's History of England, Volume I. It is based on a painting by Ernest Normand. The engraver is not named. It shows a medieval king seated on a throne with a sword across his knees, under a red canopy with gold lions. Richly dressed courtiers and clergy stand around him, and a clerk kneels at the steps holding a scroll. The record gives the upload date 2015, but the engraving itself comes from a nineteenth-century history.

Why it matters

The image is a later interpretation of the granting of Magna Carta in 1215. It was made for a popular history book in the nineteenth century, and it shows how Victorian readers imagined King John and his court. The painting it copies reflects the artist's choices about how to present royal power, with the king on a throne and the clergy and courtiers surrounding him.

Look closer

  • What does the throne, sword and canopy suggest about how the king wanted to be seen?
  • Why might the artist show a kneeling clerk holding a scroll?
  • Whose point of view is missing from this scene of the charter being granted?

This painting 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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