Allen Boyer, Mark Nicholls

The Rise and Fall of Treason in English History (eBook, PDF)

• Format: PDF

Produktbeschreibung

This book explores the development and application of the law of treason in England across more than a thousand years, placing this legal history within a broader historical context.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Taylor & Francis
• Seitenzahl: 340
• Erscheinungstermin: 1. Februar 2024
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781003846116
• Artikelnr.: 69600345

Autorenporträt

Allen Boyer is a graduate of Vanderbilt University and the University of Virginia School of Law, and he earned his doctorate at the University of St Andrews. As a lawyer, he served as senior appellate counsel at the New York Stock Exchange Division of Enforcement. In a parallel career, he has published numerous articles on legal history, and five books, notably Sir Edward Coke and the Elizabethan Age and Rocky Boyer's War.

Mark Nicholls is a Fellow, and former President, Librarian and a Tutor of St John's College Cambridge. He has published extensively on British conspiracies and succession politics. His books include Investigating Gunpowder Plot (1991), A History of the Modern British Isles 1529-1603 (1999) and, with Penry Williams, Sir Walter Raleigh in Life and Legend (2011).

Inhaltsangabe

Introduction 1. Origins to 1066 2. Treason at the King's Discretion, 1066-1352 3. The Great Statute of Treason and its Aftermath: 1352-1500 4. An Ultimate Weapon of State: Treason in Tudor England 5. The World Turned Upside Down: A Crisis of Treason, 1600-1700 6. Treason in the Eighteenth Century 7. The Death of Treason

Rezensionen

"According to the Great Statute of Treasons, 1352, which is still on the statute book, treason consists of 'Compassing the Death of the King, Queen, or their eldest Son; violating the Queen, or the King's eldest Daughter unmarried, or his eldest Son's Wife; levying War; adhering to the King's Enemies; killing the Chancellor, Treasurer, or Judges in Execution of their Duty'. Allen Boyer (an American attorney and historian) and Mark Nicholls (a Cambridge academic) have what at first appears a straightforward project: to trace the path followed by English law for more than a millennium in categorising, criminalising and penalising treasonable acts. They conclude that treason as a crime has had its day: 'Today, dangers inherent in the prosecution of treason manifestly outweigh the advantages, and the absurdity of a 21st-century state deriving weighty and drastic legal conclusions from a 14th-century statute has become ever more obvious' . . . .

[Yet] Boyer and Nicholls's parting reflection merits attention: while high treason may no longer be a sensible juridical tool . . . the last thirty years have brought 'a chill wind'. 'Authoritarianism and intolerance,' they suggest, 'are on the rise, assuming many guises. Intolerance and fear breed societies in which paranoia flourishes, informers settle to their work, in which the need for an unchallenged authority seems compelling. Under these conditions the old pulse starts to beat again. Treason twitches and bestirs itself.'"

Sir Stephen Sedley, "Boil the Cook," London Review of Books, 18 July 2024 (Vol. 46/14).

"The book offers 'a framing narrative which takes the story of English treason from its Anglo-Saxon roots right up until yesterday... This long story [of treason] needs to be told, because treason is too often seen in the snapshot of a particular moment... We try 'to give a picture of English treason almost before the word "treason" existed', move on 'through the Norman Conquest, into the medieval period, where the word itself began to appear and it became an articulated crime', and then range far beyond."

James Sewry, "In Conversation with Mark Nicholls," The Historian, Summer 2024 (Issue 162)

"A work on treason in the British Isles over the last 1,000 years is a must read...We see a shift - the important thing for those in power is to protect their own control over information flows, even such things as revelations in the media or memes in social media. Boyer and Nicholls note that treason laws no longer appear to be considered a legally useful tool. Accusations of treason require that during the trial one discusses what is in the country's interest. Easier then to assume that certain things must not be said - because they are "secret" or "false". But it should be noted that this study can also be read as pure relaxation - it is filled with fascinating stories of how the laws have been twisted throughout history, such as when Henry VIII enforced that murder by poison should be considered treason. The punishment? To be boiled to death."

Boris Benulic, Epoch Times (11 September 2024)

The Rise and Fall of Treason in English History has been cited to the United States Supreme Court, in an amicus brief for TikTok Inc. v. Merrill Garland, on page 5 of Matthew Steilen, a constitutional lawyer and legal historian's brief:

"In essence, a bill of attainder was a means of convicting someone by bill in the legislature. . . . Legal treatises on which the [Constitution's] framers relied also drew a comparison between "attainder" and the Latin attinctus, or "stained," reflecting a view that bills of attainder were reserved for the most infamous traitors. Allen Boyer & Mark Nicholls, The Rise and Fall of Treason in English History 98-110 (2024).

https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/24/24A587/335324/20241216201945437_Steilen%20Amicus%20Brief.pdf