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THE 42 INDEX

Public index · History

Magna Carta Clause 42

XLII

Recorded

1215 Magna Carta, Clause XLII. Freedom to leave and return to the kingdom. Dropped from later reissues.

The 1215 Magna Carta in the British Library, dense Latin script on a pale parchment sheet.

Manuscript · British Library · PUBLIC DOMAIN

The 1215 charter’s forty-second clause lets a man leave and come home by land and water, saving allegiance. Later reissues omit it. Sequential numbering of a famous settlement, not a mystic 42.

Charters

Two famous 42nds

Sequential numbering of long instruments. Runnymede is not San Francisco. Neither is a wink. Both are real designations on texts the world already kept.

  • XLIIMagna Cartahere

    1215. Leave and return. Later reissues drop the clause.

  • Art. 42UN Charter

    1945. Chapter VII force. If 41 is not enough.

What it supports

Magna Carta Project Latin and English of Clause 42 / XLII. National Archives 1215 text. Liceat unicuique de cetero exire de regno nostro. Dropped from 1216 onward.

What it does not

Not modern UK statute. Not proof John or the barons chose 42 as a symbol. Charters with dozens of clauses necessarily contain a forty-second. Strength is designation plus a famous charter plus the later omission.

ExactnessDesignation

Form42

Unitclause

Strengthhard

When1215-06-15

Hung18 September 2026

Source

Magna Carta Project · 1215 Clause 42

Owner

THE 42 INDEX