Magna Carta, above all, assumes residual freedom – in other words, that what is not expressly prohibited is legal. The rights we take for granted today – uncensored newspapers, habeas corpus, regular elections, equality between men and women, jury trials – trace their genesis back to that June day in 1215. Though we call them universal we are, in truth, being polite. To the extent that they have become universal, it is as a result of a series of military victories by the English-speaking peoples. Suppose that the Second World War or the Cold War had ended differently; there’d be nothing universal about them then.