English Bill Of Rights 1689

The penalties for treason in medieval life and literature W. R. J. Barron Treason appears to have fascirated the middle ages. As the most fundamental felony, it struck at the roots of feudal society through a complex of crimes: compassing or plotting the death of the sovereign, betraving his realm to an enemy, counterfeiting his coinage or falsifying his sognalure, seducing his wife or the wife of his son and heir. The basis of the felony 'vas the samz — betrayal of trust by an attack upon the security of the state, its administrative or economic validily, or the legitimacy of the succession — whether directed against the king or some lesser liege lord, and the law made no absolute distanction between high and petty treason. Both demanded exemplary punishment and drawing, hanging, emascutation, disembowelling, beheading, and quartering were employed in various combinations, In rare and aggravated cases flaying alive seems to have been included. This paper, though surveying the legal, moral, and symbolic bases of the penalties for treasen, concentrates on the evidence for flaping, which has largely been ignored. It reviews and analyses the legal, historical, and literary records af this exceptional penalty. The frequex.y with which it occurs in literature, and the varied thematic use made of it to express abhorrence of treason, illustrates the significance which that crime ha…