Talk:Treason Act 1397

Treason Act 1351
I'm afraid I rather doubt that Samuel Rezneck knows more about the law than William Blackstone, especially when Sir Matthew Hale appears to agree with Blackstone here: Hale's History of Pleas of the Crown (1800 ed.) vol. 1, chapter 12, page 91 -- "The several treasons hereby declares are these - 1. The compassing of the death of the king, queen, or prince, and declaring the same by an overt-act." Then in chapter 13, page 108, he goes into explaining overt acts at great length. Richard75 (talk) 23:03, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Unfortunately, this is one matter in which almost all of the recent, and by that I mean within the last 60 years, historiography has made clear that Blackstone, and I suppose Hale, misread the 1352 statute. J. G. Bellamy, in his authoritative text "The Law of Treason in England" (Cambridge University Press, 1970) states, "It is not true that Richard (II) 'added four new points of treason to the statute of 1352' as has been suggested... Only compassing the king's deposition or compassing to render up liege homage were novel. It has been argued the omission of the words "overt deed" was the reason for the new act. This view is based on a misreading of the 1352 statute." (p. 114; added emphasis my own.) He continues on pages 122-3 to further expound on the various mis-readings of the laws, and he eventually concurs with Rezneck's readings of the 1352 and 1397 statutes. Normally, I would, of course, concede to Blackstone, on no other ground but his being the authority he very much so is. But on this particular statute, I do believe that the reading to which we ought now to tend is Bellamy's. (Apologies for not signing — forgot I had changed my signature.) Mrlimmer2 (talk 03:05, 19 June 2013 (UTC))


 * Even if the modern view is right, in an article about the 1397 legislation isn't the view which prevailed in 1397 more important than the view held hundreds of years later? If Parliament in 1397 thought that their bill meant the same thing as the 1351 act then why did they pass it? Richard75 (talk) 11:13, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

The thing is, the view in 1397 was that the bill reiterated and expanded upon the treasonous crimes set up by the Statute of 1352 (1351 by the old dating system that has the new year on Easter). Bellamy addresses this point, actually: "In the second parliament of 1397, preparatory to an appeal of treason being brought against the Lords Appellant of 1388, a new law of treason was enacted.(Stat. Realm, II, 98-9.) Like the declaration of 1388 and the one of 1397 against Haxey but unlike the statute of 1352 this act was particular not general. It was not really concerned with any future treason, only with the particular misdeeds which had been committed by the Lords Appellant and which the king was keen to label as treasonable. Thus those who compassed or purposed the king's death or to depose him or to renounce their liege homage and those who raised men and rode against the king in open war within the realm were to be judged guilty of high treason. These were the very deeds which the Lords Appellant were supposed to have perpetrated in the period before and after their insurrection at Harringay in 1387. Two of the treasons, compassing the king's death and levying war, were included in the statute of 1352 which in 1388 at least was still regarded as the primary law on treason. (This is where the note I previously cited is, on the overt act being a misreading) Why then did Richard II rehearse these crimes?... It is probable that it has much to do with the penalties for being declared a traitor that were expanded in Richard's law. The 1397 Statute decides that the traitor should lose not only the fee simple and the lands held by others to their use, as had been specified by the Lords Appellant in 1388, but in addition should lose fee simple, the lands held to their own use and fee tail as well." (J. G. Bellamy, "The Law of Treason in England", (Cambridge University Press, 1970), p. 114.) So, the misinterpretation occurred in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries, not in the fourteenth, when the political ramifications would have been abundantly clear. Mrlimmer2 (talk 14:23, 19 June 2013 (UTC))