Political Moderation

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We British see ourselves as fair and moderate. We trust in the impartial application of the law to ensure a fair society. We see extremism, whether political or religious, as very un-British. But in fact, if we look at our history, the British were pioneers of political extremism. Take Magna Carta - the founding document of the British Constitution. In 1215 it guaranteed all of us the right to trial by jury and prevented the king from imprisoning us or taking our property away simply because he felt like it. Up until then, it was unheard of for a king to sign a document that limited his own power. In 1649, we became the first nation to put our own monarch on trial and then execute him for crimes committed against his own people. Today it’s difficult to appreciate how radical a measure that was when King Charles I, God's anointed, was executed at Whitehall. Many believed divine retribution would surely follow. Just 40 years later, his son James II was chased off the throne for being a Catholic, in the so-called Glorious Revolution in 1688. His successors were William and Mary who signed the Bill of Rights, another trailblazing document - it predates the American Bill of Rights by a hundred years. The Bill of Rights guaranteed the British people and parliament rights that most European countries wouldn’t get for another hundred or two hundred years and then only with terrible violence and upheaval
From the History Channel podcast 'Things that make us British?'
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