Baron G. Alexander Virden
and Baron Bandit de Orleans
(I'm on the right)
Baron G.
Alexander Virden
Writer/Director
University of New Orleans Film
School
UCLA Fiction Writers Program
1998 New Orleans Museum of Art
Film Series: A Dream of Love
1999 New Orleans Film
Festival: Get em' Rowdy
Baron Virden is a
Magna Charta Baron. Descendant of William D'
Albini, Lord of Belvoir Castle, Leicestershire.
The Magna Charta
Barons: Baron Albini was one of the twenty-five
who challenged King John, in 1215, to wrest from
him the crushed liberties of his Anglo Saxon
subjects.
In the meadow of
Runnemede they assembled, dauntless and
determined. The place chosen had for generations
been a favorite meeting place of kings in council.
Runnemede was, in 1215, already a memorable spot.
Here under an ancient and venerated oak, whose
boughs and branches had looked down on ceremonies
of Druids, at a spot where the Saxon kings had
been wont to gather their people about them to
discuss questions of more than usual importance.
On the side of the
Barons, came the Marshall of their army, Robert
Fitz Walter, and a great concourse of the nobility
of England. With the King came in all some
four-and-twenty persons of any note, most of whom
despised him, and were merely his advisors in
form.
The Barons embodied
their demands in the form of a Royal Grant,
scrupulously respecting constitutional usages, and
when the draft was read out to him by Stephen
Langton, Cardinal Archbishop of Canterbury-a true
English patriot for all that he was appointed by a
foreign Pope without consultation of the English
Church-John swore furiously, the tradition goes
that "they might as well ask for the kingdom
at once." But the only alternative indeed,
was the loss of his kingdom, and on that great
day, and in that great company, the King conceded,
solemnly confirmed and set his seal to the Magna
Charta by which he pledged himself:
1) to maintain the Church in it
rights;
2) to relieve the Barons of
oppressive obligations as vassals of the crown--of which the
Barons, in their turn, pledged themselves to relieve their
vassals, the people;
3) to respect the liberties of
London and all other cities and boroughs;
4) to protect foreign merchants
who came to England;
5) to imprison no man without a
fair trial; and
6) to sell, delay, or deny
justice to none.
Further the five-and-twenty of
their body should be a lawful committee to watch the keeping of
the charter and make war upon him if he broke it.
Source: Somerset Chapter
Magna Charta Barons.
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