Editing Treason (section)

===United Kingdom===
{{Main|High treason in the United Kingdom}}
{{See also|Petty treason|Treason felony}}
[[File:Execution of thomas armstrong 1683.jpg|right|thumb|upright=1.15|Engraving depicting the execution of [[Sir Thomas Armstrong]] in 1684 for complicity in the [[Rye House Plot]]; he was [[hanged, drawn and quartered]].]]

The British law of treason is entirely [[statutory]] and has been so since the [[Treason Act 1351]] (25 Edw. 3 St. 5 c. 2). The Act is written in [[Anglo-Norman language|Norman French]], but is more commonly cited in its English translation.

The Treason Act 1351 has since been amended several times, and currently provides for four categories of treasonable offences, namely:

* "when a man doth compass or imagine the death of our lord the King, or of our lady his Queen or of their eldest son and heir" (following the [[Succession to the Crown Act 2013]] this is read to mean the eldest child and heir);
* "if a man do violate the King's companion, or the King's eldest daughter unmarried, or the wife of the King's eldest son and heir"<ref>As was widely pointed out in the press at the time, if the allegations that [[James Hewitt]] had an affair with [[Princess Diana]] whilst she was married to [[Prince Charles]] had been substantiated, it would have amounted to the crime of treason. Queens [[Anne Boleyn]], [[Catherine Howard]] and [[Caroline of Brunswick]] were prosecuted for treasonable adultery.</ref><ref>{{cite news|last=Ipsen|first=Erik|title='Kiss and Tell' Officer Draws Heaps of Scorn|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1994/10/05/news/05iht-royale.html|access-date=17 November 2012|work=The New York Times|date=5 October 1994}}</ref> (following the [[Succession to the Crown Act 2013]] this is read to mean the eldest son if the heir);
* "if a man do levy war against our lord the King in his realm, or be adherent to the King's enemies in his realm, giving to them aid and comfort in the realm, or elsewhere"; and
* "if a man slea [slay] the [[Lord Chancellor|chancellor]], [[Lord High Treasurer|treasurer]], or the King's justices of the one bench or the other, [[Justice in eyre|justices in eyre]], or justices of assise, and all other justices assigned to hear and determine, being in their places, doing their offices".

Another Act, the [[Treason Act 1702]] (1 Anne stat. 2 c. 21), provides for a fifth category of treason, namely:

* "if any person or persons ... shall endeavour to deprive or hinder any person who shall be the next in succession to the crown ... from succeeding after the decease of her Majesty (whom God long preserve) to the imperial crown of this realm and the dominions and territories thereunto belonging".

By virtue of the [[Treason Act 1708]], the law of treason in [[Scotland]] is the same as the law in England, save that in Scotland the slaying of the [[Senator of the College of Justice|Lords of Session]] and [[Senator of the College of Justice|Lords of Justiciary]] and counterfeiting the [[Great Seal of Scotland]] remain treason under sections 11 and 12 of the Treason Act 1708 respectively.<ref>{{cite web|title=Treason Act 1708|url=http://www.legislation.gov.uk/apgb/Ann/7/21/contents|publisher=legislation.gov.uk|access-date=17 November 2012}}</ref> Treason is a [[reserved and excepted matters|reserved matter]] about which the [[Scottish Parliament]] is prohibited from legislating. Two acts of the former [[Parliament of Ireland]] passed in [[Treason Act (Ireland) 1537|1537]] and [[Crown of Ireland Act 1542|1542]] create further treasons which apply in [[Northern Ireland]].

The [[Treason Act 1814|penalty for treason]] was changed from death to a maximum of imprisonment for life under the [[Crime and Disorder Act 1998]].<ref>{{cite web|title=Crime and Disorder Act 1998|url=http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/37/contents#pt2-pb3-l1g36|publisher=legislation.gov.uk|access-date=17 November 2012}}</ref> Before 1998, the death penalty was mandatory, subject to the [[pardon|royal prerogative of mercy]]. Since the abolition of the [[Capital punishment in the United Kingdom|death penalty]] for murder in 1965 an execution for treason was unlikely to have been carried out.

Treason laws were used against Irish insurgents before [[Anglo-Irish Treaty|Irish independence]]. However, members of the [[Provisional Irish Republican Army|Provisional IRA]] and other [[Irish republicanism|militant republican]] groups were not prosecuted or executed for treason for levying war against the British government during [[the Troubles]]. They, along with members of [[Ulster Loyalism|loyalist]] paramilitary groups, were jailed for [[murder]], violent crimes or [[terrorist]] offences. [[William Joyce]] ("[[Lord Haw-Haw]]") was the last person to be put to death for treason, in 1946. (On the following day [[Theodore Schurch]] was executed for [[Treachery Act 1940|treachery]], a similar crime, and was the last man to be executed for a crime other than murder in the UK.)
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-J16796, Rommel mit Soldaten der Legion "Freies Indien".jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|The ''[[Indische Legion]]'' attached to the [[German Army (Wehrmacht)|German Army]] was created in 1941, mainly from disaffected Indian soldiers of the British Indian Army.]]

As to who can commit treason, it depends on the ancient notion of [[allegiance]]. As such, all [[British national]]s (but not other [[Commonwealth citizen]]s) owe allegiance to the sovereign in right of the United Kingdom wherever they may be, as do Commonwealth citizens and aliens present in the United Kingdom at the time of the treasonable act (except diplomats and foreign invading forces), those who hold a British passport however obtained, and aliens who have lived in Britain and departed, but leaving behind family and belongings.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/law/2014/oct/17/treason-act-facts-british-extremists-iraq-syria-isis|title=Treason Act: the facts|last=Gani|first=Aisha|date=2014-10-17|work=The Guardian|access-date=2019-04-03|language=en-GB|issn=0261-3077}}</ref> {{Failed verification|date=February 2023}}

====International influence====
The [[Treason Act 1695]] enacted, among other things, a rule that treason could be proved only in a trial by the evidence of two witnesses to the same offence. Nearly one hundred years later this rule was incorporated into the [[Constitution of the United States|U.S. Constitution]],<ref>[[Joseph Storey|Storey, J.]] (1833) ''[[Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States]]'', [https://lonang.com/library/reference/story-commentaries-us-constitution/sto-339/ §1796]</ref> which requires two witnesses to the same [[overt act]]. It also provided for a three-year time limit on bringing prosecutions for treason (except for assassinating the king), another rule which has been imitated in some common law countries.

The [[Sedition Act 1661]] made it treason to imprison, restrain or wound the king. Although this law was repealed in the United Kingdom in 1998, it still continues to apply in some [[Commonwealth of Nations|Commonwealth]] countries.