Rulers Mark 800-Year Magna Carta Milestone

The Queen has led celebrations of the 800th anniversary of the signing of the Magna Carta at Runnymede in Surrey.

Joined by the Duke of Edinburgh, Princess Anne and Prince William, the monarch is at the site where the treaty between tyrannical King John and his rebellious barons was agreed.

The Duke of Cambridge launched the celebrations by unveiling an art installation, called The Jurors, which symbolises one of the Magna Carta's most important clauses.

It involves 12 bronze chairs arranged facing each other, inspired by the 39th clause, which gives the right to a jury trial.

Each chair is decorated with images and symbols relating to past and continuing struggles for freedom, rule of law and equal rights.

It features a loudhailer belonging to gay rights campaigner Harvey Milk, the first openly gay person to be elected to public office in California.

Before the Duke arrived, Mr Locke said: "It's a very complex piece of work. If you look at it, you will see certain things in it. The piece is something that reveals itself in layers.

"The Magna Carta is a precious document and commemorating it with a bronze piece - that's a precious thing. This is a piece for people, this is for regular people."

David Cameron was left stumped in 2012 when asked on the Letterman show what Magna Carta translated into English as - Great Charter.

But he gave a speech to mark the anniversary , during which he said fundamental reforms to UK human rights laws are required to "safeguard the legacy" of the charter.

He said its principle is "as relevant today as it was then" and remains "sewn into the fabric of our nation, so deep we barely even question it" but will complain that the notion of human rights in Britain eight centuries on has been "distorted and devalued".

"It falls to us in this generation to restore the reputation of those rights - and their critical underpinning of our legal system," he said.

"It is our duty to safeguard the legacy, the idea, the momentous achievement of those barons. And there couldn't be a better time to reaffirm that commitment than on an anniversary like this.

"So on this historic day, let's pledge to keep those principles alight."

Despite the Prime Minister's involvement in the events, he has advocated the abolition of the modern Human Rights Act, and withdrawing Britain from the obligations of the European Convention on Human Rights.

But his former attorney general, Dominic Grieve, said: "There is something that we need to learn from the charter, which is that if you want other people to respect rights, you yourself have got to respect those rights," he said.

"I happen to believe that although it's not perfect, both the European Convention and the Human Rights Act are working pretty well."