treason

treason For centuries the evolution of the law of treason was to extend the number of offences and the ferocity of the punishment. High treason was a crime against the state which meant, in practice, against the monarch. Alfred's law declared that a man's life and property were forfeit if he plotted against the king. Edward I set the precedent for hideous punishments when Dafydd ap Gruffydd at Shrewsbury in 1283 was drawn to the gallows on a sledge, hanged, cut down while alive, disembowelled, and his head and limbs exhibited in different towns. Edward III's statute of 1352, which became the basic definition, made it treason to encompass the death of the king, or to violate the queen, the king's eldest daughter (if unmarried), or the king'seldest son's wife. After the Peasants' Revolt in 1381 it was made treasonable to start a riot, Henry V made it treason to clip the coinage, and Henry VI to extort money by threatening to burn down a house. The scope of treason was widened still further by ‘constructive treason’, which allowed judges to ‘interpret’ the Act of 1352. The Tudors added more than 60 treason statutes. Henry VIII made it treason to deny his royal supremacy, or to refuse to admit it, and each of his marriages, separations, or divorces was buttressed by a fresh treason law. His daughter Elizabeth made it treason to declare her a heretic or usurper.

Mitigating legislation was slow in making its appearance. An Act of 1695 allowed the defendant counsel, a copy of the indictment five days before the trial, and declared that two direct witnesses were necessary. In 1814 Romilly succeeded in carrying an Act not to cut traitors down still alive and disembowel them, though the Lords insisted that they should still be quartered.