attainder, Acts of
attainder, Acts of. These were unpleasant political weapons whereby the accused was denied a proper trial and the normal laws of evidence could be set aside. In form they were bills of Parliament, passed by both Houses and receiving the royal assent: life, property, and titles were all forfeit. Parliamentary indictment was used against the Despensers, favourites of Edward II, and during the Wars of the Roses, Lancastrians and Yorkists in turn used attainders against their opponents. Thomas Cromwell was attainted in 1540 without being heard in his own defence. The attainder of Strafford, after his impeachment had broken down, was a crucial episode in the power struggle before the Civil War and Charles I's assent was both imprudent and shabby. In 1689 the Jacobite Parliament at Dublin used attainder wholesale against the supporters of William III. One of the last attainders in England was against Sir John Fenwick for plotting to assassinate William III, but there was uneasiness at the method of proceeding. Ormond and Bolingbroke were deprived by Acts of attainder in 1715 after they had fled rather than face impeachments. Accusations which did not demand death, such as the bill against Francis Atterbury, bishop of Rochester, in 1722, were known as bills of pains and penalties.
J. A. Cannon
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attainder, Acts of