“According to the Great Statute of Treasons, 1352, which is still on the statute book, treason consists of ‘Compassing the Death of the King, Queen, or their eldest Son; violating the Queen, or the King’s eldest Daughter unmarried, or his eldest Son’s Wife; levying War; adhering to the King’s Enemies; killing the Chancellor, Treasurer, or Judges in Execution of their Duty’. Allen Boyer (an American attorney and historian) and Mark Nicholls (a Cambridge academic) have what at first appears a straightforward project: to trace the path followed by English law for more than a millennium in categorising, criminalising and penalising treasonable acts. They conclude that treason as a crime has had its day: ‘Today, dangers inherent in the prosecution of treason manifestly outweigh the advantages, and the absurdity of a 21st-century state deriving weighty and drastic legal conclusions from a 14th-century statute has become ever more obvious’ . . . . [Yet] Boyer and Nicholls’s parting reflection merits attention: while high treason may no longer be a sensible juridical tool . . . the last thirty years have brought ‘a chill wind’. ‘Authoritarianism and intolerance,’ they suggest, ‘are on the rise, assuming many guises. Intolerance and fear breed societies in which paranoia flourishes, informers settle to their work, in which the need for an unchallenged authority seems compelling. Under these conditions the old pulse starts to beat again. Treason twitches and bestirs itself.’”Sir Stephen Sedley, "Boil the Cook," London Review of Books, 18 July 2024 (Vol. 46/14)."The book offers ‘a framing narrative which takes the story of English treason from its Anglo-Saxon roots right up until yesterday... This long story [of treason] needs to be told, because treason is too often seen in the snapshot of a particular moment... We try 'to give a picture of English treason almost before the word "treason" existed', move on 'through the Norman Conquest, into the medieval period, where the word itself began to appear and it became an articulated crime', and then range far beyond."James Sewry, "In Conversation with Mark Nicholls," The Historian, Summer 2024 (Issue 162)“A work on treason in the British Isles over the last 1,000 years is a must read…We see a shift – the important thing for those in power is to protect their own control over information flows, even such things as revelations in the media or memes in social media. Boyer and Nicholls note that treason laws no longer appear to be considered a legally useful tool. Accusations of treason require that during the trial one discusses what is in the country's interest. Easier then to assume that certain things must not be said - because they are "secret" or "false". But it should be noted that this study can also be read as pure relaxation – it is filled with fascinating stories of how the laws have been twisted throughout history, such as when Henry VIII enforced that murder by poison should be considered treason. The punishment? To be boiled to death.”Boris Benulic, Epoch Times (11 September 2024)“This fascinating new book charts the law of treason throughout more than 1,500 years of English history. It is a well-presented volume (also available as an e-book) with a useful, up-to-date bibliography. This is a welcome new intervention in the field; medievalists will know of John Bellamy’s work on medieval and Tudor use of treason law, but both of his volumes were published in the 1970s. More recent studies have dealt with period-specific contexts, such as D. Alan Orr’s study of treason in the English Civil War (2002). Here, though, Allen Boyer and Mark Nicholls demonstrate how the law of treason operated within a broader legal and political context, drawing out themes which recurred over the centuries, such as the balance between punishment and mercy, and the language of the 1352 Treason Act. The book is organised as a chronological narrative in seven chapters (three medieval, and one each on the Tudor period, the Civil War, the eighteenth century and the modern period), but with helpful thematic sub-headings. This chronological approach does lead to occasional repetition (for example about the paucity of sources in the chapters on medieval and early modern contexts). It also means that there is little room to analyse subtleties of language, genre and audience in their primary sources, in the way that Paul Strohm (whom the authors quote in the introduction, p. 6) does so successfully. However, the present volume represents a considerable scholarly achievement.”Helen Lacey, The English Historical Review“It is not just an introduction, whose chapters might beneficially be assigned to students; for the historian, it provides a trustworthy reference to current thinking across a wide period. Bellamy gets a companion, if not a replacement. This should make the book an important source for some time to come.”Matthew Steilen, University at Buffalo School of Law"Allen Boyer and Mark Nicholls’ broad overview of the rise and fall of treason in English history is...to be welcomed. It will be a boon to scholars, even those who already know quite a bit about the topic, because few possess a synoptic vision over such a vast swathe of time. Treason is where law and politics meet: The law of treason itself has always been shaped by political considerations."Tim Harris, Brown UniversityThe Rise and Fall of Treason in English History has been cited to the United States Supreme Court, in an amicus brief for TikTok Inc. v. Merrill Garland, on page 5 of Matthew Steilen, a constitutional lawyer and legal historian’s brief:"In essence, a bill of attainder was a means of convicting someone by bill in the legislature. . . . Legal treatises on which the [Constitution's] framers relied also drew a comparison between “attainder” and the Latin attinctus, or “stained,” reflecting a view that bills of attainder were reserved for the most infamous traitors. Allen Boyer & Mark Nicholls, The Rise and Fall of Treason in English History 98-110 (2024). https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/24/24A587/335324/20241216201945437_Steilen%20Amicus%20Brief.pdf
