Treason - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition treason

Definition :

Treason [fr. trahir, Fr., to betray; proditio, Lat.], or leze-majesty, an offence against the duty of allegiance, and the highest known crime, for it aims at the very destruction of the commonwealth itself. Five species of treason are declared by the Treason Act, 1351, or 'Statute of Treasons' (25 Edw. 3, st. 5, c. 2), as follows:-

(1) When a man doth compass or imagine the death of our lord the king (a queen regnant is within these words), of our lady his queen or of their eldest son and heir.

(2) If a man do violate the king's companion (i.e., his wife), or the king's eldest daughter unmarried, or the wife of the king's eldest son and heir.

(3) If a man do levy war against our lord the king in his realm. (After a battle has taken place, it is termed bellum percussum; before it, bellum levatum.)

(4) If a man be adherent to the king's enemies in his realm, giving to them aid or comfort in the realm or elsewhere.

(5) If a man slay the chancellor, treasurer, or the king's justices assigned to hear and determine, being in their places during their offices.

The following species have been created by subsequent statutes:-

If any person shall endeavour to deprive or hinder any person, being the next in succession to the crown, according to the limitations of the (English) Act of Settlement (12 & 13 Wm. 3, c. 2), from succeeding to the crown, and shall maliciously and directly attempt the same by any overt act, 1 Anne, st. 2, c. 17, s. 3.

If any person shall maliciously, advisedly, and directly, by writing or printing, maintain and affirm that any other person hath any right or title to the crown of this realm, otherwise than according to the Act of Settlement, or that the kings of this realm, with the authority of Parliament, are not able to make laws and statutes, to bind the crown and the descent thereof, 6 Anne, c. 7.

By 36 Geo. 3, c. 7, made perpetual by 57 Geo. 3, c. 6, compassing the death or injury of the king, and expressing the same in writing or by any overt act, is made treason.

Treason must be prosecuted within three years from its commission, if committed within the realm, except in the case of a designed assassination of the sovereign, 7 & 8 Wm. 3, c. 3.

Treason committed out of the king's Dominions is, by 35 Hen. 8, c. 2, triable in the K.B.D., and the Act is one of the enactments by virtue of which a Bill of Indictment may still be preferred before a grand jury of the County of London and Middlesex; see (English) Administration of Justice (Misc. Prov.) Act, 1933 (23 & 24 Geo. 5, c. 36), s. 1 (4), and Sch. I.

The punishment of a convicted traitor is death by hanging, the ignominious adjuncts of drawing on a hurdle and quartering, etc. (as to which see 54 Geo. 3, c. 146), having been abolished, along with for-feiture and attainder, by the Forfeiture Act, 1870. By the Treason Act, 1842, as read with s. 30 of the Interpretation Act, 1889, treason consisting in the imagining bodily harm to the king in that kind is triable just as murder is. By the same Act firing at the king or striking him is punishable with whipping. The Crown can, however, direct that the traitor be beheaded: see Treason Act, 1814, ss. 1 and 2.

Means the offence of attempting to overthrough the government of the State to which one owes allegiance, either by making war against the State or by materially supporting its enemies, Black's Law Dictionary, 7th Edn., p. 1506.