The Magna Carta Barons and me

The Magna Carta Barons, also known as the Magna Carta sureties, were 25 Barons appointed under clause 61 of the Magna Carta to monitor King John's conduct and make sure he kept to the conditions of the charter. Clause 61 contained a commitment from John that he would "seek to obtain nothing from anyone, in our own person or through someone else, whereby any of these grants or liberties may be revoked or diminished". Whilst the names of the Barons weren't actually given in the Magna Carta itself, they do appear in four other sources from around the time. These barons were clearly highly-influential and powerful people with the ability (and men-at-arms) to enforce actions on the King himself. Not all the Magna Carta Barons have living descendents; indeed, only 17 are known currently to have living descendents. The remaining 8 barons either died with no issue, or their descendent lines expired within 4 generations.

In this page I show the links discovered so far between my own family tree and these 17 Magna Carta Barons. It is interesting that all the pedigrees I have found to date lie on my grandmother Pamela Bryans' side of the tree; I have found no links on my grandfather Maurice Johnson's side; the Johnson side of the tree stems almost entirely from sturdy merchant families in Yorkshire who eventually blink out into oscurity in the early 17th century. Thus the 'Gateway Great-Grandparent' in every case is either Pamela's mother or father.

As you will see below, there are only two true 'paths' to the barons

1. Mitchell→Turner→Worthington→Whichcote→Bosvile→Hastings→le Bigod (see Pedigree 2)
2. Bryans→Lonsdale→Steer→Fretwell→Gylby→FitzWilliam→Clarell→Scrope→Strathbogie→Ferrers→Verdun→Clare (see Pedigree 5)

All other lines are branches off these two.