Legal History
Magna Carta Returns to National Archives
The National Archives invited reporters to see the unveiling of the Magna Carta yesterday, a document back in its possession thanks to the generosity of a lawyer who founded a private equity firm.
David Rubenstein, who founded The Carlyle Group, bought a 710-year-old copy of the document for $21.3 million at auction in December. “I have always believed that the three most important documents were the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and the Magna Carta,” he said at the time.
Rubenstein told the Washington Post the document is on permanent loan to the archives. He said his business success “made me really feel that I owed a lot to our country, and I wanted to repay it in a modest way.”
