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In times of intellectual and moral confusion, a myth has arisen that poisons minds and spreads like dogma in the classrooms of the West: the Magna Carta of 1215. This English document, elevated to the status of a pinnacle of “progress,” is celebrated as the first great limitation on the absolute power of monarchs. We are told that it paved the way for the recognition of constitutional citizenship, freedom, and justice. However, this statement, repeated without critique in liberal circles, does not withstand the weight of history and truth. When compared to the Spanish fueros system, the insufficiency and danger of that English pact become apparent, with consequences as devastating as they are invisible to many.
The Deception of the Magna Carta
The Magna Carta is presented as the first limit on the absolute power of the monarch, a claim that reveals a superficial examination. Far from being a document of justice, this merely pragmatic pact was an agreement between King John and a group of barons to secure their feudal privileges. It did not seek the Common Good but rather the defense of particular interests, veiled with the apparent intent to control royal abuses. This agreement, restricted to establishing control systems founded on these interests, had no transcendent moral foundation but was merely a matter of convenience. The nobility was not driven by religious principles or a desire for just order but by the need to balance the king’s power with their own ambitions.
The most alarming aspect of this myth is that centuries before the Magna Carta, in the Iberian Peninsula, the fueros already existed—true pacts based on Natural and Divine Law that limited the monarch’s power not for the interests of a group but to guarantee justice and the Common Good. While the Magna Carta focused on a universal agreement within English territory, the Hispanic fueros were concrete pacts, specific to each community, with deep respect for the traditions, customs, and characteristics of each smaller society. Most importantly, they were rooted in the Spiritual Order and Catholic Unity, so that they not only limited political power but also oriented it toward fulfilling Divine Law.
Liberal Drift and Parliamentary Sovereignty
Over time, the Magna Carta laid the foundation for a much more dangerous process: the gradual usurpation of sovereignty by Parliament. This original pact between monarch and nobility became the embryo of liberal constitutionalism, where Parliament, not God, became the true legitimizer of power. No longer was it about an authority delegated by God, as Hispanic Christendom always understood, but about an authority legitimized by earthly institutions. Thus, the seed of revolution was sown: sovereignty no longer belonged to God but was seized by man, represented in Parliament.
This process culminated in Henry VIII’s break with the Catholic Church, an act of rebellion sanctioned by Parliament itself. Here, the natural consequence of the system born from the Magna Carta was clearly seen: if the divinely rightful power of the king is subjected to Parliament, then Parliament is the ultimate source of power and can also act as an authority to legitimize a separation from Revealed Truth and Natural Law. It was precisely this shift in authority from God to Parliament that allowed England to separate from the Church, legitimizing a decision that would never have been conceivable under the Hispanic system, where throne and altar remained united in the defense of Eternal Truth.
The Fueros: Expression of Justice and Natural Order
In contrast, the Hispanic fueros, dating back at least to the 9th century, were a manifestation of the Natural Order and Christian pactism. The fueros did not arise from pragmatic or circumstantial agreements but from a deep understanding that political power must be subordinated to God’s Law and the Common Good of Christian communities. Many of the earliest fueros had as their fundamental purpose the settlement of reconquered territories, in a logic of evangelization and territorial conquest within the framework of a crusade, where the strengthening of Christian kingdoms was inseparable from the defense of the Faith. Far from being mere limitations on royal power, the fueros represented the harmony of authority with the particular needs of each kingdom or community. They adapted to concrete realities, respecting the identity and autonomy of various peoples, always within the framework of Catholic Unity.
Let us therefore beware of anachronistic distortions. Hispanic political traditionalism does not advocate limiting the king’s power merely out of opposition to absolutism. It is not a matter of power for power’s sake, as in the English case, where Parliament rises above the king and, over time, above God Himself. Carlism, on the contrary, has always defended a government rooted in Truth, a government that, while limited in certain respects, is always so in accordance with the demands of the Common Good and the Natural Order as manifested in each specific society. It is a holy government, not merely theoretical, because it does not respond to abstract ideologies but to the living and tangible reality of Christian communities, just as the fueros did.
The Betrayal of Liberalism and Moral Relativism
The logic that gave life to the Magna Carta and later to liberal constitutionalism has led to the moral relativism that prevails today in postmodern nations. In Christendom and Hispanic traditionalism, only God is sovereign, and all human authority must recognize and submit to His law. However, the Magna Carta implicitly acknowledges Parliament’s sovereignty, which already represented a fundamental shift. This displacement culminated during the Enlightenment with the concept of popular sovereignty, represented in Parliament, which rises as the arbiter of good and evil. By wresting sovereignty from God and transferring it to human hands, laws are no longer oriented towards Truth and Justice but conform to the whims of secular power. Today, liberal democracies are characterized by approving anti-life and anti-family legislation that tramples on Natural Law and contradicts the order willed by God. The aberrations we suffer in current legislation, such as abortion, euthanasia, and unnatural marriage, are direct consequences of having established Parliament as the arbiter of morality, forgetting that only God is the sole and true legislator.
Faced with this chaos, it is urgent to remember the Hispanic Model based on Divine Justice, not human consensus. The fueros bear witness to a society that knew how to order its political and social life according to eternal truths, while the English model, with its inclination towards parliamentary power, opened the door to secularization and relativism that today corrode the very fabric of nations.
The fueros not only limited the power of the monarch but did so from a deep understanding of the Common Good and Natural Law—not to corrupt the crown, as happened in England, but to strengthen a kingdom that, rooted in the Catholic Faith, knew how to serve God and souls as Justice demands.
For God, Fatherland, and King: Long live the Fueros of the Spains!
Javier Gutiérrez Fernández-Cuervo, Círculo Tradicionalista Leandro Castilla
Translated by the Gremio San Jerónimo
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