Treason is the crime of attacking a state authority to which one owes allegiance. This typically includes acts such as participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to overthrow its government, spying on its military, its diplomats, or its secret services for a hostile and foreign power, or attempting to kill its head of state. A person who commits treason is known in law as a traitor.
In English history, the penal laws were a series of laws that sought to enforce the State-decreed religious monopoly of the Church of England and, following the 1688 revolution, of Presbyterianism in Scotland, against the continued existence of illegal and underground communities of Catholics, nonjuring Anglicans, and Protestant nonconformists. The Penal laws also imposed various forfeitures, civil penalties, and civil disabilities upon recusants from mandatory attendance at weekly Sunday services of the Established Church. The penal laws in general were repealed in the early 19th-century due to the successful activism of Daniel O'Connell for Catholic Emancipation. Penal actions are civil in nature and were not English common law.
The Witchcraft Acts were a historical succession of governing laws in England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, and the British colonies on penalties for the practice, or—in later years—rather for pretending to practice witchcraft.
The Acts of Supremacy are two acts passed by the Parliament of England in the 16th century that established the English monarchs as the head of the Church of England; two similar laws were passed by the Parliament of Ireland establishing the English monarchs as the head of the Church of Ireland. The 1534 Act declared King Henry VIII and his successors as the Supreme Head of the Church, replacing the Pope. This first Act was repealed during the reign of the Catholic Queen Mary I. The 1558 Act declared Queen Elizabeth I and her successors the Supreme Governor of the Church, a title that the British monarch still holds.
Under the law of the United Kingdom, high treason is the crime of disloyalty to the Crown. Offences constituting high treason include plotting the murder of the sovereign; committing adultery with the sovereign's consort, with the sovereign's eldest unmarried daughter, or with the wife of the heir to the throne; levying war against the sovereign and adhering to the sovereign's enemies, giving them aid or comfort; and attempting to undermine the lawfully established line of succession. Several other crimes have historically been categorised as high treason, including counterfeiting money and being a Catholic priest.
Succession to the British throne is determined by descent, sex, legitimacy, and religion. Under common law, the Crown is inherited by a sovereign's children or by a childless sovereign's nearest collateral line. The Bill of Rights 1689 and the Act of Settlement 1701 restrict succession to the throne to the legitimate Protestant descendants of Sophia of Hanover who are in "communion with the Church of England". Spouses of Catholics were disqualified from 1689 until the law was amended in 2015. Protestant descendants of those excluded for being Roman Catholics are eligible.
The Act of Supremacy 1558, sometimes referred to as the Act of Supremacy 1559, is an Act of the Parliament of England, which replaced the original Act of Supremacy 1534, and passed under the auspices of Elizabeth I. The 1534 Act was issued by Elizabeth's father, Henry VIII, which arrogated ecclesiastical authority to the monarchy, but which had been repealed by Mary I. Along with the Act of Uniformity 1558, the Act made up what is generally referred to as the Elizabethan Religious Settlement.
The Treasons Act 1571 was an Act of the Parliament of England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. It restored the provisions of the Treasons Act 1534, which had been passed by Parliament during the reign of her father, King Henry VIII, and then repealed by the Treason Act 1547 at the beginning of the reign of her half-brother, King Edward VI.
The Regency Acts are Acts of the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed at various times, to provide a regent in the event of the reigning monarch being incapacitated or a minor. Prior to 1937, Regency Acts were passed only when necessary to deal with a specific situation. In 1937, the Regency Act 1937 made general provision for a regent, and established the office of Counsellor of State, a number of whom would act on the monarch's behalf when the monarch was temporarily absent from the realm or experiencing an illness that did not amount to legal incapacity. This Act, as modified by the Regency Acts of 1943 and 1953, forms the main law relating to regency in the United Kingdom today.
The Treasons Act 1534 or High Treason Act 1534 was an Act of the Parliament of England passed in 1534, during the reign of King Henry VIII.
The Treachery Act 1940 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom effective during World War II to facilitate the prosecution and execution of enemy spies, suspended afterwards, and repealed in 1968 or 1973, territory depending. The law was passed on 23 May 1940, in the month after Nazi Germany invaded France and Winston Churchill became prime minister.
The Treason Act 1702 is an Act of the Parliament of England, passed to enforce the line of succession to the English throne, previously established by the Bill of Rights 1689 and the Act of Settlement 1701.
The Treason Act 1842 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It was passed early in the reign of Queen Victoria. The most recent person to be convicted under the Act was Jaswant Singh Chail, on 3 February 2023, and he was sentenced to nine years in prison on 5 October 2023. He was the first person in more than 40 years to be convicted under the act.
The Escape of Traitors Act 1572, full title An Act against such as shall conspire or practice the enlargement of any prisoner committed for high treason, was an Act of Parliament of the Parliament of England enacted during the reign of Elizabeth I.
The Habeas Corpus Suspension Act 1745 was an Act of Parliament of the Parliament of Great Britain passed on 18 October 1745, and formally repealed in 1867. It made various provisions for arresting and imprisoning those suspected of treason during the Second Jacobite Rising. The Act was continued in force by a second Act of the same title and by a third act the next year before expiring.
The Treason Act (Ireland) 1537 is an Act of the former Parliament of Ireland which adds several offences to the law of treason in Ireland. It was repealed in the Republic of Ireland in 1962.
The Succession to the Crown Act 1707 is an act of Parliament of the Parliament of Great Britain. It is still partly in force in Great Britain.
The Treason Act 1554 was an Act of the Parliament of England. It is not to be confused with two other Acts about treason passed in the same year, 1 & 2 Ph. & M. cc. 9 and 11.
An act against Jesuits, seminary priests, and such other like disobedient persons, also known as the Jesuits, etc. Act 1584, was an Act of the Parliament of England passed during the English Reformation. The Act commanded all Roman Catholic priests to leave the country within 40 days or they would be punished for high treason, unless within the 40 days, they swore an oath to obey the Queen. Those who harboured them, and all those who knew of their presence and failed to inform the authorities, would be fined and imprisoned for felony, or if the authorities wished to make an example of them, they might be executed for treason.
