were retrospectively written up into a grant by scribes working in the royal
chancery. Many copies of this grant, which later became known as Magna Carta, were sent out to bishops, sheriffs and other officials throughout the country. We don’t know exactly how many were issued, but four now survive, one in Lincoln, one in Salisbury and two here in the British Library.
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Both copies of Magna Carta in the British Library came from the enormous collection of manuscripts amassed by Sir Robert Cotton who died in 1631. Exactly a century later, in 1731, there was a disastrous fire at Ashburnham House in Westminster where his library was then housed. Many rare and valuable manuscripts were destroyed or damaged in the fire, and unfortunately one of Cotton’s two copies of Magna Carta was caught up in the blaze.
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'Magna Carta' means 'The Great Charter'. In 1215 it was known as the Charter of Liberties, but when it was confirmed in 1217, the clauses dealing with the law of the royal forest were taken out and put into a separate document known as 'The Charter of the Forest'. After that, people began to refer to
