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Rh show the lengths to which the theory of treason was carried. It was not treason to repair a statue of the emperor which had decayed from age, to hit such a statue with a stone thrown by chance, to melt down such a statue if unconsecrated, to use mere verbal insults against the emperor, to fail in keeping an oath sworn by the emperor or to decide a case contrary to an imperial constitution. Treason was one of the publica judicia, i.e. one of those crimes in which any citizen was entitled to prosecute. The law deprived the accused in a charge of treason of his ordinary remedy for malicious prosecution, and also took from him the privilege (which those accused of other crimes generally possessed) of immunity from accusation by women or infamous persons, from liability to be put to the torture, and from having his slaves tortured to make them testify against him (see ). The punishment from the time of Tiberius was death (usually by beheading) and confiscation of property, coupled with complete civil disability. A traitor could not make a will or a gift or emancipate a slave. Even the death of the accused, if guilty of treason of the gravest kind, such as levying war against the state, did not extinguish the charge, but the memory of the deceased became infamous, and his property was forfeited as though he had been convicted in his lifetime.

English Law.—The law of England as to treason corresponds to a considerable extent with Roman law; in fact, treason is treated by Blackstone as the equivalent of the crimen laesae majestatis. The history of the crime in the two systems agrees in this that in both the law was settled by legislation at a comparatively early period, and subsequently developed by judicial construction. In both, too, there were exceptional features distinguishing this crime from other offences. For instance, at common law treason was not bailable (except by the king’s bench) nor clergy able, could not be cleared by sanctuary, and did not admit of accessories before or after the fact, for all were principals, nor could a married woman plead coercion by her husband. To stand mute and refuse to plead did not save the lands of the accused, as it did in felony, so that the peine forte et dure (see ) was unnecessary in treason. These severities were due to the conception of treason as a breach of the oath of allegiance. Other differences introduced by statute will be mentioned later. In some cases a statute simply affirmed the common law, as did the Treason Act 1351 to a great extent, and as did an act of 1534, depriving those accused of treason of the benefit of sanctuary. How far the Roman law was consciously imitated in England it is impossible to determine. It was certainly not adopted to its full extent, for many acts were majestas which were never high treason, even in the most despotic periods. Treason was the subject of legislation in many of the pre-Conquest codes. The laws of Alfred and Æthelred punished with death any one plotting against the life of the king. The Leges Henrici Primi” put anyone slaying the king’s messenger in the king’s mercy. The crime was shortly defined by Glanvill, and at a greater length by Britton, and by Bracton, who follows Roman law closely.

The offence of high treason was not precisely defined by the common law (1 Hale, 76), and until the passing of the Treason Act 1351 depended much on the opinions of the king and his judges. That statute appears to be the answer to a petition of the Commons in 1348 (1 Hale, 87), praying for a definition of the offence of accroaching royal power, a charge on which several persons—notably Gaveston and the Despensers—had suffered. The offences made high treason by the statute which still remain are these: (1) to compass or imagine the death of the king, the queen or their eldest son and heir; (2) to violate the king’s companion, or his eldest daughter unmarried, or the wife of his eldest son and heir; (3) to levy war against the king in his realm, or be adherent to the king’s enemies in his realm, giving them aid and comfort in the realm or elsewhere (perduellio); (4) to slay the chancellor, treasurer, or the king’s justices of the one bench or the other, justices in eyre, or justices of assize, and all other justices assigned to hear and determine, being in their places doing their offices. In all cases of treason not specified in the statute the justices before whom the case came are to tarry without going to judgment until the cause has been showed and declared before the king and his parliament whether it ought to be judged treason or felony. The statute, so far as it defines the offence of high treason, is still law.

The statute also treated as high treason forgery of the great or privy seal, counterfeiting the king’s coin and importing counterfeits thereof. These offences are now felonies. It also defined petty treason (now merged in wilful murder) as the slaying of a master by his servant, a husband by his wife, or a prelate by a man secular or religious owing him allegiance. The act of 1351 protects only the king’s life, and its insufficiency was supplemented in periods of danger by legislation, often of a temporary nature. Under Richard II. many new offences were made treason, but the acts creating these new treasons were repealed at the earliest opportunity by the parliaments of his successors. The reign most prolific in statutory additions to the law of treason was that of Henry VIII. Legislation in this reign was little more than a register of the fluctuating opinions of the monarch. Thus, by one act of 1534 it was treason not to believe Mary illegitimate and Elizabeth legitimate; by another act of 1536 it was treason to believe either legitimate; by an act of 1543 it was treason not to believe both legitimate. Another act of this reign (1545) shows that a class of men'like the Roman delatores must have been called into existence by all the new legislation. The act made it felony to make anonymous charges of treason without daring to appear in support of them before the king or council. These acts were repealed in 1553 (1 Mar. st. 1. 1.  1.) and the act of 1351 was made the standard of the offence.

Besides the acts of 1351 and 1553 the following statutes are still in force with respect to the substantive law of treason. By an obscurely penned statute of 1495 (11 Hen. VII. 1.  1) persons serving the king for the time being in war are not to be convicted or attainted of treason; see Steph., ''Dig. Cr. Law'' (6th ed.), article 56. This statute has been held not to apply in British South Africa.

By an act of 1571 (13 Eliz. 2) as a counterblast to papal attacks on the right of Elizabeth to the English crown, it was declared that persons using in England papal bulls offering absolution and reconciliation to persons forsaking their due obedience to the English crown should be punishable as traitors. The penalties were abolished in 1846, but the acts against which the statute was aimed were declared to be still unlawful (see Steph., Dig. Cr. Law, 6th ed., p. 45n.). By an act of 1702 (1 Anne st. 2. 21  3) it is treason to endeavour to hinder the next successor to the crown from succeeding, and by the Succession to the Crown Act 1707 it is treason maliciously, advisedly and directly by writing or printing to maintain and affirm that any person has a right to the crown otherwise than according to the Acts of Settlement and Union, or that the crown and parliament cannot pass statutes for the limitation of the succession to the crown.

By an act of 1796, made perpetual in 1817, the definition of treason is extended so as to include plots within or without Great Britain to cause the death or destruction, or any bodily harm tending to the death, destruction, maiming, or wounding, imprisonment or restraint of the king, if such plots are expressed by publishing any printing or writing, or by any overt act or deed. Since that date no new forms of treason have been created. There are many instances of offences temporarily made treason at different times. A