Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (4th ed, 1770, vol IV).djvu/216

 PUBLIC BOOK IV.

trimonii fitbfifts ; and if fhe kills fuch divorced hufoand, me is a traiuefs w. And a clergyman is underflood to owe canonical obe- ..icnce, to the bifhop who ordained him, to him in whofe dio- cefe he is beneficed, and alfo to the metropolitan of fuch fuffra- gan or diocefan bifhop : and therefore to kill any of thefe is petit treafon x. As to the reft, whatever has been faid, or re- mains to be obferved hereafter, with refpect to wilful murder, is alfo applicable to the crime of petit treafon, which is no other than murder in it's moft odious degree : except that the trial mall be as in cafes of high treafon, before the improve- ments therein made by the ftatutes of William III y ; and alfo except in it's punifhment.

THE punihment of petit treaon, in a man, is to be drawn and hanged, and, in a woman, to be drawn and burned z: the idea of which latter punihment eems to have been handed down to us from the laws of the antient Druids, which condemned a woman to be burned for murdering her hufband *; and it is now the uual punihment for all orts of treaons committed by thoe of the female ex b. Perons guilty of petit, treaon were firt debarred the benefit of clergy by tatute 12 Hen. VII. c. 7.

i Hal. P. C. 381. * i Hal. P. C. 382. 3 Inft. 311. Hid. * Caeiar de bell. Gall. I. 6. c. 18,
 * Foft. 337. v See pag. 93.