Features · Across the Water · September 2026
Americans are taught that freedom was won from Britain. The fuller story is stranger and more hopeful. For eight hundred years, people on both sides of the Atlantic have held power to account by borrowing each other’s charters, courts and courage. The First Amendment is where America went furthest, and the question it answered, whether rights bind lawmakers as well as kings, is the one both nations face again today.
Three things · Two shores · Madison’s gap · The relay · Where we stand · Reasons for hope · The Runnymede Principles · What we don’t claim · Sources
Three things most people don’t know
1215
The first demand for a written limit on the king was made in a church that later became home to the lawyers. In January 1215, armed barons confronted King John at the New Temple in London and demanded an enforceable charter. He refused. Five months later he sealed Magna Carta at Runnymede. Temple Church ↗
1765
The Sons of Liberty were named in Parliament. During the Stamp Act debate, the British MP Isaac Barré defended the colonists as “sons of liberty.” Within months, the American movement resisting the Stamp Act had taken his phrase as its name. Britannica ↗
1946
The “special relationship” was born in a speech about free speech. At Fulton, Missouri, Winston Churchill traced a “joint inheritance” through Magna Carta and the Declaration of Independence, and said it meant “that freedom of speech and thought should reign.” Minutes later he coined the phrase. Speech text ↗
The story of liberty in the English-speaking world is not one of two rival nations. It is one long argument, carried on across the water, about who holds power over free people, and what that power may never touch.
Two shores · 1215 to 2027
Britain in navy, America in red, shared milestones in both. Follow the years down the line and you can watch an idea leave one shore, change, and come back stronger. Every entry links to its source.
Runnymede
“No free man shall be seized, imprisoned, dispossessed, outlawed, exiled or ruined in any way, nor in any way proceeded against, except by the lawful judgement of his peers and the law of the land. To no one will we sell, to no one will we deny or delay right or justice.” Those words, clauses 39 and 40, are still on the statute book in England, and they are the root of due process in the American Constitution. UK Parliament ↗ Constitution Annotated ↗
The Temple
The Pope annulled Magna Carta within weeks. William Marshal, regent for the boy king Henry III, reissued it under his own seal in 1216 and again in 1217. He is buried in the Temple Church, beside his son, who had been one of the rebel barons. Temple Church ↗
Virginia
The First Charter of Virginia promised settlers and their descendants all the “liberties, franchises, and immunities” of anyone born in England. Many members of the Middle Temple were involved in founding the Virginia Company. Library of Congress ↗ Middle Temple ↗
London
In 1608 King James I granted the Temple to the lawyers outright. His own Chief Justice, Sir Edward Coke of the Inner Temple, insisted the king was bound by law. “Magna Carta,” Coke said, “is such a fellow that he will have no sovereign.” The bronze doors of the U.S. Supreme Court show him barring James I from the “King’s Court,” making the court independent of the executive. Middle Temple ↗ Supreme Court ↗ Coke quoted in Hansard ↗
The Old Bailey
William Penn was prosecuted for preaching his Quaker faith on a London street. “Where is that common-law?” he asked the court. The jury refused to convict, even under threat, and Bushel’s Case established the independence of the jury. Religion, speech and assembly, three of the First Amendment’s five freedoms, were on trial in a single English courtroom. Library of Congress ↗
Philadelphia
Penn took the lesson with him. In 1687 he published The Excellent Privilege of Liberty and Property, the first edition of Magna Carta printed in the New World. Library of Congress ↗
New York
The printer John Peter Zenger was tried for seditious libel, an English doctrine under which truth was no defense. His lawyer, Andrew Hamilton, called to the bar at Gray’s Inn in London, persuaded the jury to acquit. The verdict shaped the founding generation’s commitment to a free press. NY Courts ↗ National Constitution Center ↗
London
The government answered a newspaper, The North Briton No. 45, with a general warrant that named no one. John Wilkes sued and won. The court called such warrants “totally subversive of the liberty of the subject.” In 1768 Boston’s Sons of Liberty wrote to praise him, and the case became a foundation of America’s Fourth Amendment. Constitution Annotated ↗ Sons of Liberty to Wilkes ↗
House of Commons
Isaac Barré told Parliament the colonists were “sons of liberty.” The Stamp Act passed anyway, 205 to 49. Across the ocean, the phrase became a name. Our American Revolution ↗
Westminster
Repealing the Stamp Act, Parliament passed the Declaratory Act the same day, asserting its power to bind the colonies “in all cases whatsoever.” No written limit stood above Parliament itself. That is the gap Americans would later close. Declaratory Act ↗
Philadelphia
Five Middle Templars signed the Declaration of Independence. Seven Middle Templars were among the 39 signers of the Constitution in 1787. The American founding was argued in the language of English law, turned against a Parliament that had placed itself above it. Middle Temple ↗ Temple Church ↗
New York, First Congress
Introducing the Bill of Rights, James Madison observed that Britain’s declaration of rights restrained only the Crown, and that “their Magna Charta does not contain any one provision for the security of those rights” Americans cared about most: the press and conscience. The First Amendment filled that gap. Read more below ↓
Court of King’s Bench
Thomas Paine, born in England and a voice of American independence, was convicted in absentia of seditious libel for Rights of Man. He was defended by the barrister Thomas Erskine, and convicted while he was in France. UK National Archives ↗
Newcastle & Maryland
Frederick Douglass, on a speaking tour of Britain and Ireland, could not safely return home. English Quakers Anna and Henry Richardson raised £150 and bought his freedom. Private citizens of one country supplied the remedy the other country’s law denied. Gilder Lehrman Institute ↗
Inner Temple & Ahmedabad
Mohandas Gandhi was called to the bar by the Inner Temple in 1891. Tried for sedition in 1922, he told the court: “Affection cannot be manufactured or regulated by law.” The Inn struck him off. In 1988 it restored him. Inner Temple ↗ Trial statement ↗
New York, Washington & Fort Knox
Lincoln Cathedral’s 1215 Magna Carta crossed the Atlantic for the first time for the 1939 World’s Fair, then stayed for safety when war came. When America entered the war, the Library of Congress evacuated it to Fort Knox along with the Declaration and the Constitution. President Roosevelt joked that the Library of Congress would keep it safe from “the King John of modern days” — the executive branch. Library of Congress ↗
Off Newfoundland
In the Atlantic Charter, the United States and the United Kingdom declared that they “respect the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live.” Colonial leaders carried those words to London and held Britain to them. UWE Bristol research ↗
Paris
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, whose drafting committee was chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt, protects the freedom “to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.” Both countries later bound themselves to the same words in a treaty, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. UDHR ↗ UN Treaty Collection ↗
Runnymede
The American Bar Association raised the rotunda at Runnymede: “To commemorate Magna Carta, symbol of freedom under law.” ABA delegations returned to renew the pledge in 1971, 1985 and 2000. Inscriptions ↗
U.S. Capitol
For the Bicentennial, Parliament lent Congress one of the four original 1215 charters. Britain’s delegation said Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration and the Constitution had “mingled to form a common heritage.” The American reply named among the ties “a common devotion to the ideals of freedom of speech, freedom of the press.” And: “Our special relationship transcends time and distance.” Hansard ↗
London & Washington
British writers and scientists campaigned to end “libel tourism,” winning the Defamation Act 2013. Congress passed the SPEECH Act in 2010, barring U.S. courts from enforcing foreign libel judgments that fall short of the First Amendment. English PEN ↗ SPEECH Act summary ↗
London
Two centuries after Madison named the gap, a British think tank asked the question in reverse: “If the UK wanted to enact something like the First Amendment, what would the resulting statute look like?” The Adam Smith Institute’s model Free Speech Bill is its answer, offered for British citizens and Parliament to debate. Adam Smith Institute ↗
Runnymede, July 28
The next date on the timeline is ours to write. See the Runnymede Principles ↓
Madison’s gap · June 8, 1789
What the British tradition secured
What America added
James Madison, House of Representatives, June 8, 1789. The Founders’ Constitution ↗
Why this matters in 2026. This is not a story of a free country and an unfree one. It is a difference in design. One tradition trusts an elected legislature to protect liberty. The other says there are some things no legislature may do. Almost every speech dispute between the two countries today comes back to that difference, and understanding it is the start of a respectful conversation instead of a shouting match.
The relay · how the idea kept travelling
Liberty did not only flow outward from London. It came back, changed. Henry David Thoreau, heir to the American strand, wrote Civil Disobedience. Gandhi, a barrister of the Inner Temple, read it in South Africa. “Why, of course I read Thoreau,” he told an American reporter in 1931. “I actually took the name of my movement from Thoreau’s essay.” Source ↗
Martin Luther King Jr. called Gandhi “the guiding light of our technique of nonviolent social change” and travelled to India in 1959. Stanford King Institute ↗
In 1964, facing a possible death sentence, Nelson Mandela told a South African court: “The Magna Carta, the Petition of Rights, and the Bill of Rights are documents which are held in veneration by democrats throughout the world.” In the same statement he praised “the American Congress, that country’s doctrine of separation of powers, as well as the independence of its judiciary.” Statement from the dock ↗
The lesson for us: the tradition belongs to whoever takes it up. It has been used against the very powers that wrote it down, again and again.
Where we stand · 2026
The divide today is not between a free country and an unfree one. It is the question Madison raised in 1789: do rights restrain only the executive, or the legislature as well? In 2026, both governments are being tested on it.
In Britain
The Online Safety Act 2023 lets a regulator impose large fines on platforms, including platforms based outside the UK, over how they handle users’ speech. According to Big Brother Watch, more than 62,000 people in the UK were arrested for communications offences over five years, and 12,292 were convicted. Big Brother Watch ↗
In September 2026, a U.S. federal court dismissed a challenge brought by two American websites against Britain’s regulator, ruling that it had no jurisdiction. Reuters ↗
In America
In July 2026, a federal judge blocked a State Department visa policy aimed at social-media researchers, finding that it likely violated the First Amendment. Reuters ↗
The First Amendment binds Washington just as much as it shields Americans from London. Our coalition began with a case about our own government.
The common thread
In both countries, pressure on speech now works mostly through private platforms rather than through courts. It is the modern form of the general warrant, the power Britain’s own judges struck down in 1763.
Why we don’t discuss pending cases. Where a case is still before a court, in either country, we report only what is on the public record. Fair trials on both sides of the Atlantic are part of the liberty this page defends.
Reasons for hope
2009–2013
A British civil-society campaign and an American law together ended “libel tourism,” producing new legislation in both countries.
2024
The High Court required U.S. assurances that First Amendment protections would apply before it would allow an extradition to go ahead.
2025
Britain backed away from demanding access to Americans’ encrypted data.
2026
Parliament’s All-Party Group on Freedom of Speech has officers from more than one party.
2026
In March 2026, the Adam Smith Institute, a London think tank, published a model Free Speech Bill asking what a British First Amendment would look like. Its stated aim: “to recognise and restore the ancient liberty of free speech.” Restoration is the oldest argument in this tradition, and it is in our name.
The Runnymede Principles · a working draft
Each people is sovereign over its own law. No government may censor across the water what the other people’s law protects. Free citizens of both nations may speak, publish, petition and assemble together, regardless of frontiers.
Each nation’s speech law belongs to its own people and its own legislature.
Atlantic Charter, 1941
No regulator or court should reach speech that was lawful where it was spoken, in either direction.
UDHR Art. 19 · SPEECH Act, 2010
No government should coerce private platforms or intermediaries to suppress lawful speech.
Wilkes v. Wood, 1763 · the JAWBONE Act
Citizens must have a real remedy against officials who violate these rights.
Magna Carta, cl. 40: “to no one will we deny or delay right or justice”
The right to petition those in power, and to gather to do it, is common to both traditions and should be exercised together.
Bill of Rights, 1689 · First Amendment, 1791
Organizations in each country sign separately, and each speaks only for itself. Endorsing the Principles is not membership in the coalition and does not commit anyone to our other positions.
To add your organization, email coalition@restorethe1st.com with your organization’s name, country, and the name of the person authorizing the endorsement. We list signatories only after confirming them.
United States
Restore the First (founding signatory)
United Kingdom
Open for endorsement.
July 28, 2027 marks 70 years since the American Bar Association dedicated the memorial at Runnymede. Get occasional updates as the Principles and the anniversary take shape.
What you can do
In the United States
In the United Kingdom
Independent UK organizations run their own campaigns on these issues. They are listed here for information only and are not affiliated with Restore the First unless stated.
What we don’t claim
Not a claim that Magna Carta created modern rights. In 1215 it was a settlement among a king and powerful barons, and its “free men” were a narrow class. Its reputation as a charter of liberty was built later, by lawyers like Coke and by the people who used it. That is the point: liberty was won by interpretation and struggle.
Not the “Crown Temple” theory. Claims that American lawyers secretly serve the British Crown through the Temple, or that “BAR” stands for a “British Accredited Registry,” are false. “Bar” refers to the physical barrier in a courtroom. Snopes ↗
Not “lawful rebellion.” Clause 61 of the 1215 charter gave a right of enforcement only to 25 named barons, and it was dropped when the charter was reissued. Modern claims built on it have been consistently rejected by courts.
Not an endorsement of any party or government. Restore the First takes no position on British elections or parties and accepts no money from any government. This page is historical and educational.
Where the numbers come from. Counts of American signers trained at the Inns of Court come from the Middle Temple and Temple Church. Admission to an Inn did not always mean study in London; some Americans were admitted but trained at home. Sources differ on the Declaration count (the Temple Church lists six Inner and Middle Templars; the Middle Temple lists five of its own members). We use the Inn’s own figures.
Status. The 2026 developments on this page reflect the public record as of September 25, 2026. We will update them as courts and legislatures act.
Sources and image credits
Every factual statement on this page links to its source where it appears. Key primary texts: Magna Carta clauses (UK Parliament); Bill of Rights 1689; Declaratory Act 1766; Madison, June 8, 1789; Churchill at Fulton, 1946; Bicentennial speeches, 1976.
Images: Runnymede memorial photo by Mark, CC BY 2.0. Magna Carta 1215, British Library Cotton MS Augustus II.106, public domain. Temple Church exterior, public domain. Middle Temple Hall photo by steve_w, CC BY 2.0. North Briton No. 45 engraving, Isaac Barré portrait (Gilbert Stuart), John Trumbull’s Declaration of Independence, Thomas Paine engraving (National Portrait Gallery), Frederick Douglass portrait (Samuel J. Miller) and Gandhi in London (1906): public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.