# Magna Carta, 1297 (the Perot-Rubenstein copy)
> Royal Chancery of Edward I of England - 12 October 1297
> Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/artworks/royal-chancery-of-edward-i/magna-carta-1297-perot-copy/
> Published by Servola Systems GmbH. Last verified: 2026-09-27
## Tombstone
- **Artist:** Royal Chancery of Edward I of England
- **Date:** 12 October 1297
- **Medium:** Latin manuscript in a chancery hand on parchment, with the royal seal of Edward I in natural wax on a parchment tag
- **Dimensions:** Approximately 370 x 420 mm, plus a 32 mm fold at the foot; margins of 10 mm (left), 28 mm (top) and 15 mm (right); the seal itself is small, about 22 mm wide
- **Object type:** Manuscript
- **Period:** English, late thirteenth century, reign of Edward I
- **Current location:** National Archives Building, Washington, DC, West Rotunda Gallery (David M. Rubenstein Gallery)
- **Attribution:** accepted
## Summary
One of only four surviving originals of the 1297 confirmation of Magna Carta, the version of the charter that Edward I entered onto England's official Statute Rolls and that has functioned as living law, not merely historical relic, ever since. It is the only 1297 original ever to have left England, the only one ever in private hands, and - since Ross Perot bought it in 1983-84 - the only one in the United States.Rediscovered among the Brudenell family papers at Deene Park in the 1970s, it was bought by Perot for 1.5 million US dollars and lent to the National Archives from 1985. The Perot Foundation sold it at Sotheby's on 18 December 2007 for 21.3 million dollars to David M. Rubenstein, who immediately returned it to the National Archives on permanent loan and later gave 13.5 million dollars toward the gallery that now houses it.This is not the 1215 Magna Carta of popular memory - a different, more famous, and legally superseded text. It is the 1297 confirmation, the version that entered statute law and that historians identify as the specific text that reached the framers of the US Constitution and Bill of Rights.
## Provenance
Every link carries a grade. `documented` means a cited source supports it, `disputed` means the identification is argued but not established, `unknown` means we have no owner for that span and have not bridged it.
- **1297** Crown of England, issued to an unrecorded original recipient `[documented]` (origin)
Sealed 12 October 1297 in the name of Edward I, then in Flanders, as one of a chancery run of exemplifications sent out to the counties to be read aloud and entered into local record, part of the process by which the 1297 Confirmatio Cartarum placed Magna Carta onto England's Statute Rolls. The docket 'tradatur Rogero Hodelyn de Neuport' shows this particular exemplar was formally delivered for proclamation, but the original recipient institution or sheriff is not named in any source consulted.
- **1297-prior to 1983** Brudenell family of Amersham, Buckinghamshire, later of Deene Park, Northamptonshire `[disputed]` (gap and family holding)
Sotheby's own 2007 catalogue graded this link exactly, and this record follows that grading rather than smoothing it: 'certainly since the nineteenth century, probably since the seventeenth century, and perhaps since the fourteenth century, the property of the Brudenell family.' Popular accounts compress this into 'the Brudenell family owned it for centuries' or 'since the 18th century', but the earliest secure documentation is nineteenth-century; everything before that is Sotheby's own graded probability, not a documented chain of individual owners. The manuscript was rediscovered among family papers at Deene Park in the 1970s (commonly cited as 1974 or 1975) when it was found catalogued in the county record office at Northampton, prompting the family to seek a buyer.
- **1983-2007** The Perot Foundation (H. Ross Perot) `[documented]` (purchase)
Sotheby's 2007 catalogue provenance states the Perot Foundation's ownership 'since 1983'; contemporary US press (the Washington Post, September 1984) covered the purchase as news the following year, and most later reporting cites 1984. This record treats the transaction as agreed and completed in 1983 per the auction house's own provenance statement, publicly reported in 1984, and flags the year discrepancy rather than picking one silently. The price is consistently reported at 1.5 million US dollars, paid to the Brudenell family. It was a private sale, not a public auction. Perot lent the document to the National Archives from 1985, where he gave the keynote address at a Constitution Day naturalization ceremony on 17 September 1985.
- **2007-12-18** David M. Rubenstein `[documented]` (auction sale)
Sold by the Perot Foundation at Sotheby's, New York, 18 December 2007, lot 1, auctioneer David Redden. Hammer price 19,000,000 US dollars; with buyer's premium the total came to 21.3 million US dollars (variously rounded in press reports to 21.3m or, less precisely, to 21m). Rubenstein has described bidding by phone from a side room after arriving late to the pre-sale reception and being told the document was likely to leave the country if he did not act.
- **2007-present** David M. Rubenstein, on permanent loan to the National Archives, Washington, DC `[documented]` (loan and display)
Rubenstein placed the document on loan to the National Archives immediately after the sale; it returned to public display on 12 March 2008. In 2010 he and the Archives announced a full re-encasement, executed jointly by National Archives conservation staff and the Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) at a cost of 322,800 US dollars, replacing a 1985 encasement designed by Dr Nathan Stolow. The re-encased document was previewed to press on 2 February 2012 and returned to public view on 17 February 2012 in a new titanium-framed case with an inert argon atmosphere, built on the design used for the 2003 re-encasement of the Charters of Freedom. Separately, in 2011 Rubenstein gave 13.5 million US dollars to the Foundation for the National Archives to build the David M. Rubenstein Gallery, which opened 10 December 2013 and now houses the document; this gift funded the gallery and conservation, and is distinct from the 21.3 million dollar purchase price.
## Auction results
Hammer and buyer's premium are stated separately. Where a source conflates them this record says so.
- **2007-12-18** Sotheby's, The Magna Carta, New York, single-lot sale, Sotheby's sale number N08461, per the house's own sale page ('Sale Number: N08461', '18 December 2007 - New York', '1 lots')., lot 1. CONFIRMED against the house's own lot page.
- Estimate: USD 20,000,000 - 30,000,000. CONFIRMED VERBATIM this run: the Sotheby's lot page prints '20,000,000 - 30,000,000 USD' and the sale page repeats it. Previously carried without a house citation.
- Hammer: USD 19,000,000. UNCHANGED and NOT confirmed by the house. Sotheby's publishes no hammer for this lot; the figure remains on the record's existing basis, the winning bid as given by Rubenstein and contemporaneous reporting.
- With premium: USD 21,300,000 total including buyer's premium, unchanged and not confirmed by the house: the house's own lot page reads 'Log in to view results' and the sale page reads 'Log in to view sale total' where those figures would be, so this total rests on press authority rather than a house-published figure.
- Sotheby's lot page was read in full: full physical description, condition report and provenance paragraph, though the result and sale total sit behind a login that was not crossed. The provenance paragraph reads, verbatim: 'Provenance: since 1983 the property of the Perot Foundation, until recently deposited in the National Archives in Washington. Prior to 1983, certainly since the nineteenth century, probably since the seventeenth century, and perhaps since the fourteenth century, the property of the Brudenell family of Amersham Buckinghamshire and later of Deene Park Northamptonshire.' This confirms at the primary source that Sotheby's own catalogue dates the Perot Foundation's ownership from 1983, against the 1984 given by contemporary US press - the discrepancy is between the house and the press, and neither is preferred here. It also names two family seats, Amersham in Buckinghamshire and later Deene Park in Northamptonshire, not named by any source currently on the record, which bears on the open question of which Brudenell sold the document.
- **1983** Private treaty sale (not a public Sotheby's auction), Sale of the Brudenell family's Magna Carta to H. Ross Perot
- Hammer: USD 1,500,000
- With premium: Not applicable; a private sale, no published buyer's premium
- Recorded here as a market transaction rather than a public auction result. Sotheby's 2007 catalogue dates the Perot Foundation's ownership from 1983; US press covered the purchase in September 1984, and most later sources cite 1984 as the purchase year. This record could not resolve which date reflects the actual transfer versus its public announcement, and reports the discrepancy rather than picking one.
## Exhibitions
- On loan from the Perot Foundation, National Archives Building, Washington, DC, 1985-2007
- Returned to display after the Rubenstein sale, prior to re-encasement, National Archives Building, Washington, DC, 2008-2012
- On display in the newly re-encased case, later moved into the purpose-built David M. Rubenstein Gallery (opened 10 December 2013), National Archives Building, Washington, DC, West Rotunda Gallery, 2012-present
## Open questions
- Was the Perot Foundation's ownership acquired in 1983, as Sotheby's own catalogue states, or 1984, as US press reported at the time and most later sources repeat? This record could not resolve the discrepancy.
- Which named member or members of the Brudenell family actually sold the document in 1983-84? No source consulted names the seller beyond 'the Brudenell family' or a general reference to relatives of the 7th Earl of Cardigan, who died without surviving legitimate issue in 1868.
- Who was the underbidder at the 18 December 2007 Sotheby's sale, and how close was the contest? No source consulted names any bidder other than Rubenstein.
- Did the Perot Foundation's proceeds from the 2007 sale in fact go toward wounded Iraq-war veterans' medical costs, medical research and public education as stated at the time of sale? This record has found the stated intention but no independent later accounting confirming disbursement.
- Who took the photograph of the document used on the National Archives' own featured-documents exhibit page (the source of this record's lead image) - National Archives staff, or a photograph supplied by the Perot Foundation during its 1985-2007 loan? The credit line on the current version of that page reads only 'Presented courtesy of David M. Rubenstein', which describes the loan, not photographic authorship.
## Sources
- [1] The National Archives (UK), 'Magna Carta, 1297', education resource on the National Archives' own 1297 exemplification (DL10/197), for the confirmation's text and its status as re-grant of the 1225 charter.
- [2] US National Archives, 'Magna Carta' featured document exhibit page, for the 1297 confirmation's entry into the Statute Rolls and its constitutional legacy claims.
- [3] Parliament House, Canberra, 'The Magna Carta (Great Charter), 1297', for the four-surviving-originals count and the broader 1297 exemplification process.
- [4] Sotheby's New York, sale N08461, lot 1, 'The Magna Carta', 18 December 2007, e-catalogue entry: full graded provenance statement, physical description (dimensions, seal, condition, hand), and the USD 20-30 million estimate.
- [5] The Washington Post, 'Magna Carta Purchase', 27 September 1984, contemporaneous coverage of Perot's purchase.
- [6] US National Archives, Prologue blog, 'Constitution Day 1985 and Ross Perot's Magna Carta', 16 September 2019: the Deene Park rediscovery, Perot's 1984 purchase and motivation, and his 1985 Constitution Day appearance at the National Archives.
- [7] Constitution Education Fund Australia, 'How did Australia come to own an original 1297 Magna Carta?', for comparative detail on the sibling 1297 exemplar's own rediscovery and sale, used here only as corroborating context for how these documents surface and change hands.
- [8] NPR, 'Magna Carta Copy Sells At Auction For $21.3 Million', 18 December 2007.
- [9] CBC News, 'Magna Carta sold for $21.3M to U.S. businessman', 18 December 2007.
- [10] U.S. News & World Report, 'So How Do You Buy the Magna Carta? Billionaire David Rubenstein Explains', 11 December 2013, for the hammer bid of USD 19 million versus the USD 21.3 million total, and Rubenstein's own account of the auction room.
- [11] University of Chicago Magazine, 'Chartered Philanthropy', for Rubenstein's account of learning of the sale and deciding to bid, and his 'down payment on my obligation to repay my country' remark.
- [12] US National Archives, press release nr08-71, 'Magna Carta Returns to Display at the National Archives', 2008, for the 12 March 2008 return to public display and Rubenstein's loan.
- [13] US National Archives, press release nr10-112, '1297 Magna Carta on Loan to NARA to be Re-encased', 30 June 2010, for the re-encasement announcement, the USD 322,800 cost, the NIST partnership, and the 1985 Stolow encasement it replaced.
- [14] US National Archives, press release 2012-116, 'Exclusive Press Preview of Newly Re-encased 1297 Magna Carta at the National Archives', for the 2 February 2012 press preview, attendees, and the 17 February 2012 public reopening.
- [15] Washington Post, 'David M. Rubenstein gives $13.5 million to the National Archives for a new gallery and expanded visitor services', 20 June 2011, and US National Archives Prologue blog, 'The Rubenstein Gallery: Five Years of Celebrating Citizens' Rights', 10 December 2018, for the gallery gift, its purpose, and the 10 December 2013 opening.
- [16] US National Archives, press kit, '1297 Magna Carta Encasement Project', image gallery, for official conservation photography credits (Sheri Hill for the National Archives; Mark Luce for NIST) documenting the 2010-2012 re-encasement.
- [17] Al Jazeera, 'Magna Carta copy sold for $21m', 19 December 2007, for the Perot Foundation's stated charitable purpose in selling and its planned use of proceeds.
- [18] The Chronicle of Philanthropy, 'Foundation Puts Rare Magna Carta Up for Sale to Benefit Charity', for the Perot Foundation's stated intended uses of the sale proceeds, including medical research, public education and assistance to wounded Iraq war veterans and their families.
- [19] Wikimedia Commons, 'File:Magna Carta (1297 version with seal, owned by David M Rubenstein).jpg', sourced to the National Archives' own 'featured documents' exhibit page, archives.gov, uploaded 5 November 2007 - the image used as the lead plate for this record.
- [20] sothebys.com, web page cited for the Sotheby's sale of 2007-12-18.
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