“Magna Carta is the background of all that we have” — Calvin Coolidge, per Catherine Palfrey Baldwin in “And Men Wept: An American Book for Americans,” p.72.

Happy 807th Birthday, Oh Magna Carta! As Coolidge carefully points out, however, in his Prize Essay in 1895: “the confirmation of the Magna Carta by Edward I…” Henry III deserves the credit for following the guidance of his older advisors to reaffirm the Charter but it was Edward I The Longshanks who confirmed its solidity in English — and by extension — American law. God bless England and God bless America!