The Rest Is History - 249. Treason in Modern Britain

Episode Date: November 3, 2022

Join Tom and Dominic for the second part of their exploration of the history of treason. How has the 1351 treason act impacted Britain and the world since the 17th century? This will be answered as they discuss seismic events such as the trial of Charles I, American independence, and the Easter Rising.  Treason: People, Power and Plot opens at The National Archives on 5th November and runs until 6th April. It is free to all. For all information and to delve deeper please visit nationalarchives.gov.uk/treason. This episode is sponsored by the National Archives. Join The Rest Is History Club (www.restishistorypod.com) for ad-free listening to the full archive, weekly bonus episodes, live streamed shows and access to an exclusive chatroom community. *The Rest Is History Live Tour 2023*: Tom and Dominic are back on tour this autumn! See them live in London, New Zealand, and Australia! Buy your tickets here: restishistorypod.com Twitter:  @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Thank you for listening to The Rest Is History. For weekly bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to series, and membership of our much-loved chat community, go to therestishistory.com and join the club. That is therestishistory.com. Thanks for listening to The Rest Is History. For bonus episodes, early access, ad-free listening, and access to our chat community, please sign up at restishistorypod.com. Or, if you're listening on the Apple Podcasts app, you can subscribe within the app in just a few clicks. This episode of The Rest Is History on treason in modern Britain

is sponsored by the National Archives. Enjoy the show. Hello, welcome to The Rest Is History. And Tom, we are here again at the National Archives for their amazing exhibition, Treason, People, Power and Plot. And last time, we were talking about the Tudors and the medieval period and this time we've reached a real favorite of yours you love the the sort of 17th 18th centuries don't you I do and um I think we're going to be kicking off with um a subject that has already provided us with two episodes namely the the trial of Charles I. But we are actually looking at some of the documents that relate to that. We are. It's an amazing privilege, actually, to see these genuine, you know, the stuff of history without resorting completely into cliches. And this time we're joined by Neil

Johnston, who is absolutely top brain behind this exhibition, the head of the early modern archives here, I think. And Neil, sort of a dream of yours to see all this stuff out on public consumption? Oh, it's really wonderful to be able to put so many aspects of the collection together. Because archives are, you know, they're sort of abstract notions for people. What are they? Well, they're collections of records. And how do you try to explain it to people? And this collection is really, really remarkable. You know, where I'm from, the equivalent collection was blown up 100 years ago. So this to me is really, really special. Being able to go back to the 1352 Act, the treason act as it is, and even

before that, as you can see in the exhibition, and then bring it all the way forward to the modern day. So the collection here in Britain is really, really special. It's remarkable. Well, but Neil, just before we recorded this, you showed us the record of parliamentary proceedings written in late 1649, 1650, detailing the events of the trial of Charles I. And it's in a kind of little brown book. And on the cover, it's got the trial of the king just in case anyone is any doubt as to it i mean it is incredible to see the physical documents that relate to this subject that dominate you and i you know we did these two episodes on absolutely up close i mean how does it make you feel when you look at you know it has the column of the people who are sitting in judgment on the king i mean how does it make you feel to see those names written down in ink on paper? Well, if you think of the importance of that event, in terms of legal

history, in terms of political history, going and executing a monarch is an extremely rare event in any circumstances. So I wouldn't say, I wouldn't go so far to say it's quite moving, but you know, you can feel the importance of the event nearly coming off the page. You can see, like the journal is very, very detailed. It was written by the clerks who were there on each day during the trial of the house of commons and it authorizes and empowers itself to put the king on trial for treason so so could we look at it specifically in the context of treason the act of treason that we began the previous episode with 13 51 52 depending where you're coming from it the definition of treason is plotting against the king, not just compassing the death of the king, but imagining the death of the king. 1649, they're putting the king on trial. So presumably Edward III's act is hopeless for that because it brands them as traitors.

Well, it depends on how you view sovereignty. And the Commons claims sovereignty. It also has de facto authority because it's won the two civil wars. So it reverses the previous understanding of what treason is. Legally, yes, they are acting. It's extrajudicial, let's say. What they've done is illegal. Charles doesn't recognize the court, does he? The king refuses to recognize the authority of the courts to put him on trial.

And he won't plead. And you can see that the court solicitors, John Cook, is almost barracking him to enter a plea because a case cannot initiate. So the court is very, very careful to follow the procedures that would ordinarily have been followed, say, for a treason trial or a murder trial. They are very, very clear on the proceedings proceedings but the king won't enter a plea so the case shouldn't actually continue but they ignore this. But what law would they, I mean what law can they bring? There is no law to bring.

So they claim authority. They claim that under the treason act the king by raising his banners he levied war on the people and the commons claimed that it was sovereign within the people. And the king had lost the right to claim this. So the pages you've chosen for us, is that what they're arguing, basically?

So this is, you can see Cook and the king arguing back and forth. The king refusing to accept that he had levied war, that he had committed treason. And Cook demanding, absolutely demanding that he enter levied war, that he had committed treason. And Cook demanding, absolutely demanding, that he enter the plea. Are they framing the idea of treason in a biblical context, a Roman context, an Anglo-Saxon context? I mean, where are they getting the idea that there is a case for the king to answer from? What's the legal underpinning for that case? The 1352 Act, the idea of levying war against the king,

is really what they're, against the people is what they're saying. But what they've tried to do is they've tried to perform this sort of jump to move, to shift the centre of authority from the crown, from the person of the king to the state. And that they say, as the commons of England, they are the true representatives of the people not the monarch and this is how they go forward and create a republic and that they say that they, it is the commons that is sovereign not the king. Now I'm not going to say it's not true

because they have the authority to do, they have defeated the royalist forces and so it's really about power and treason is theatre. Treason trials are generally theatre trials. So in the early modern period, the verdict is almost a foregone conclusion. So this wasn't, this was different. This was so unprecedented. It's not that they were making it up as they were going along, but they were adapting throughout the trial. But I suppose in a way they are the representative of the future

because the idea that treason can be acted against an entire people, against a nation, is the future, isn't it? I mean, that is the understanding probably that most people have of it now. It's not specifically directed against the monarch. It's not against the person of the monarch necessarily anymore. And what we see here now is this shift into a more, both a more modern understanding of treason and also the beginning of the redundancy of the Treason Act as it was framed in 1352. So they have to adapt. And the commons or the rump of the long long parliament as it was who prosecuted the king they weren't the first or the last power we can say or government if we want to call them a government to adapt the

treason laws to their own circumstances so just on the document so when people come to the exhibition what they're actually seeing is something written not on the day but afterwards from from reports is that right there you write up the reports afterwards so the clerks within the commons will have been taking notes contemporary notes as events happened and then they will have written them up afterwards they were instructed by the house of commons to do this in february 1649 and it took about a year for that volume to emerge there's two or three volumes and they were they're heavily disputed but they are keenly important and they become even more important well i was about to say so fast

forward to 1658 59 60 when you've got so much turbulence all the other alternatives exhaust themselves so suddenly becomes obvious that charles ii is basically the only alternative left is there no discussion about destroying these documents which actually are quite incriminating? The power has shifted. You know, Cromwell dies, Oliver Cromwell dies in September 1658 and his son takes over. But he doesn't have that authority to deal with the huge competing interests within the army, the Puritans within the army, within Parliament. Parliament itself doesn't want the army dictating to civilians.

The army doesn't want to be dictated to by civilians. So a form of political anarchy breaks out. And eventually, the last person who has legitimacy really to rule is Charles Stuart. He sidesteps very, very cleverly in 1660, the arguments that had been put forward in the 1640s that caused civil wars and the execution of his father. And as a new parliament emerges in 1660, in March and April 1660, they cannot agree on what's to happen. And an unlikely source had almost ended the republic which is general

george monk who was the commander of the army in scotland his march on london in january february 1660 virtually ends the republic and a new parliament is assembled in march it was voted for in march 1660 and it meets the convention parliament meets in apr 1660. And Monk effectively says, anybody who is not for Charles Stuart, be silent. And this gives the king, the king had been in exile for 11 years at this point, Charles Stuart, who becomes Charles II, he sends his emissary, Sir John Grenville, on the 1st of May, 1660,

he hands in what's called his Declaration of Breda. And with this document, the king sidesteps everybody. It's a very, very clever piece of politics where he says, I will not refight the civil wars. I'm going to make parliament responsible for deciding who wins and loses about land that has exchanged hands over the last decade. And that's, it's a question they can't resolve. They tried to resolve it in ireland and it goes completely wrong for um almost three decades but thirdly and most importantly in many ways he says i will allow people to have liberty of conscience once they are not harming the kingdom so everybody who wants to conform to the teachings of the church of england they seem to be happy the puritans seem to be happy. They think they'll be okay.

Baptists and independents. So in this swoop, he sort of dismisses fears or grievances about him returning. But he also does something else very, very clever. He says, I will introduce an act of general pardon and indemnity and oblivion. I will indemnify people from being prosecuted for their actions in the 1640s, except for the 59 men who become known as the regicides. So that's what we have here. That's this act right here.

That's the act of indemnity and oblivion. And pardon. Everybody except the 59 names on the previous document. Except, Neil, that they are not defined as regicides, are they? Regicide cannot be a crime. They're condemned as traitors. Yes. They, if we go back to the terms of the Treason Act, this 1352 Act, they compassed and imagined the death of the king in 1649. So what the law, as it is written

in front of us, says those who were present on the the 27th of January 1649, the day sentence was passed on Charles I, and they're listed in front of us, these men are now guilty of treason. So this is the theme of Robert Harris's latest novel that's just come out about the hunt for the regicide. Lots of them get, is it 10, get rounded up and executed fairly briskly? So there's several phases. There's a proclamation issued in June 1660 saying all regicides are to hand themselves in. Some do, some don't. Some go on the run.

Some are just detained by the Sergeant at Arms of Parliament and the Crown's authorities. And there's 19 trials in October. A special court is set up under the authority of the court, the King's Bench. And that's the one that includes Thomas Harrison who peeps and watches and he looked as cheerful as could be expected under the circumstances.

Harrison is executed in October 1649 because he's accepted from the act of indemnity and general pardon. And also what they do is they dig up Cromwell and Henry Art and his son-in-law and various other figures who've died. And the president of the court, John Bradshaw. Yeah, and they kind of chop their heads off and stick them on spikes and things. John Bradshaw's steel hat, Tom, that we talked about in that podcast, availed him naught in the end. Yes, and then two escape to America, and that's the theme of Robert Harris' novel. Yeah, that's the theme of...

But they kind of get bored of it, don't they? america and that's the theme of robert harris is normally yeah yeah that's the theme of but they kind of get bored of it don't they um after you know after a while they um so there's a spy master um what's his name the guy who founds downing college yes um and he's very treacherous and he's the ambassador in the hague and he persuades three um of the regicides to come under the under the pretense that he will pair them up with their wives arrests them takes them back to london and people are revolted essentially by the um by the display of execution about that do you think among the public at large i know it's impossible to say with any degree of certitude but do you think there was among the public at large there was a

sense you know they had it coming you know what comes around goes around you know that's or do you think people thought that this was vindictive on the bath of charles the answer is actually both those who witnessed the executions when you read peeps's diaries and the diaries of others contemporary at the time in the correspondence such was the gore of the executions in october 1660 after these trials these treason trials trials. You know, being hung, drawn and quartered, disemboweled, the intestines being thrown onto a barbecue for all intents. And the smell seemingly around Charing Cross

was disgusting. And people who had been, the tide very quickly turns and the crown on the authorities had to be very, very wary of this. You know, people are having their heads chopped off. There's blood everywhere in and around Charing Cross where the execution's looking down towards Banqueting House where the king has been executed. And as the rich sides themselves knew that large congregations of people meeting to watch executions are potentially very dangerous.

Absolutely. So on the issue of hanging, drawing and quartering male traitors. You are absolutely obsessed with this. No, I'm not, Dominic. And burning female traitors. When does that finish? So when do people start to think, okay, we should deal with traitors,

but we're not going to ritually torture them to death in the way that we had been doing? When does that? As far as I'm aware, Peter's out in the 18th century. It just becomes unpalatable. For kind of enlightenment reasons? Well, I was about to say, in some ways you could argue this is a pretty extraordinary document.

The act of indemnity and oblivion. Because couldn't you make the case that there is clearly a tipping point after which it no longer is really the done thing to execute your enemies. To accuse your enemies of being traitors. There's a move towards,

I guess, I know this is very anachronistic, but a more pluralistic kind of political arena where ministers rise and fall, where your opponents may be a first of all, they go into exile like Bolingbroke did, um, at the end of the reign of Queen Anne, but he then comes back.

He's not beheaded. There's a sort of move away from spectacular violence I suppose but also the idea of you know his majesty's loyal opposition I suppose comes in

well yeah you get kind of competing parties so in that I think that's we're maybe getting slightly ahead of ourselves but just by a couple of decades

right at this point the king knows he has to limit very very clearly Charles is much I would say he's much more politically astute than his father.

He's less dogmatic. He could hardly be less astute, right? Well, yeah, he's less dogmatic than his father. And that's certainly true. And he's probably more wily. And he doesn't stand on ceremony the way his father did. So he was willing, we presume, you know, the king didn't write these things down,

but we presume he was willing to accept a limited form of retribution. Because how does someone whose father has been executed and been forced into exile for over a decade, how do they respond? And this is how he responds. He never would have been effectively summoned back if he had said, I'm coming in with an army. And what army would have fought for him necessarily too? So it's at the end of his reign, we see the emergence of proto-political parties.

Yeah. The Whigs and the Tories. But this has got a treason connection too, right? It certainly does. So you've got a document here. I think this is, of all your documents, this is one of my absolute favorites because it's one of, I mean,

we haven't covered this in the rest of history. We touched on it. As much as we should have. It's a title out. Because it is one of, I mean we haven't covered this in the rest of history. We touched on Titus Oates. Because it is one of the great stories in all English history. Which of course relates to the porridge murderer that we mentioned in the... Porridge. Yes, porridge. Unexpected theme. Talk to us about the

Popish Plot. Popish Plot is this remarkable episode or event in English and British and Irish history whereby this man Titus Oates concocts a series of lies about Jesuits, about Catholics

it's his macabre fantasy really that emerges. It's a kind of late 17th century QAnon perhaps Conspiracy most certainly it's hard to get your head around it. Oates had tried to train at Cambridge in the Church of England.

He was thrown out of Cambridge. He lies and says that he was successful and he graduated and he's given a living in the Church of England. He's thrown out of that. He has to run away. He becomes chaplain to the garrison of Tangier in the 1670s. He's thrown out of there. He then, he's sent back, he arrives back in London destitute and he falls in with Catholics in London and he starts to learn about the activities of the Jesuits. He's sent then by

the provincial of the Jesuits to train as a Catholic priest first of all to Spain, to Salamanca. He's thrown out of there. His behavior is terrible. He's no Latin. He keeps getting drunk. He's fighting with people. He's very father-tongue. If you want to put it that way, yes.

He's drinking the toilet duck. And he comes back to England and then he's sent to Northern France to train again. This falls apart and the principals in the college in Saint he's sent to Northern France to train again. This falls apart and the principles in the college in Saint-Omer in Northern France say, be gone. He arrives back in London.

Again, he's destitute. But what he actually has now is just enough knowledge of what may be seen as a Catholic conspiracy. The infrastructure of the Jesuits in London. So when we look back to the Popish plot and the plots against Elizabeth's reign, these Reformation, counter-Reformation plots

that were happening in the 16th and very early 17th centuries, this is kind of, this revives all that, this fear of encirclement. But it also happens during a time when Charles II's religious policies, which were never properly determined after the Restoration, rise again because his brother, James, the Duke of York,

is outed effectively from the mid-1670s as a Catholic. The Test Act in 1673 demanded that everybody who holds office in England must take communion within the Church of England, and he refuses to. So all of a sudden, there's a crisis at the top of government because a Catholic may be about to succeed. So Oates' concoctions, his lies, his fabrications, his conspiracy theories are brought to the fore by men who want to embarrass Charles II

and exclude his brother James from the succession. And the Popish plot is part of a larger crisis that we call the exclusion crisis. And so what's this document here? So this is an amazing kind of book. Again, it's like a massive journal, handwritten, ink on parchment. Ink on paper. Ink on paper. This is paper.

And what is it? So Oates is summoned. He brings his allegations. He has them notarized, and he brings them to the attention of the Privy Council. The king himself kind of dismisses it. Charles says, no, this is nonsense. But he asks his chief minister, the Earl of Danby, to investigate.

Danby can't turn up anything, but still they are worried that it might be true. So Oates himself is brought before the Privy Council at the end of September 1678 and into October when he unleashes his allegations. And the ministers and the councillors who really, to be honest with you, should have known better

run with this. Because as I say, he has just enough knowledge. And he makes allegations against Jesuits who he knows. The cornerstone of the Popish plot is... And presumably people want to believe this. Yes. I mean, you know, he's pushing against an open door in terms of... And he makes allegations that a conspiracy was hatched in May 1678

at the White Horse Tavern on the Strand, and that Jesuits were there, Louis XIV, the French king who Charles II is effectively in league with now. Louis is going to pay for an invasion force to overthrow the Protestant succession and place James on the throne. That's the corner of it. It's nonsense.

But he gets a couple of things right by fluke or whatever, doesn't he? Two things in particular. So he makes all these allegations and the notebook is, it's the clerk for the Privy Council trying to keep track of the allegations that are being made

and those who are being detained and arrested and charged with treason. And it runs for 70 or 80 pages of warrants are issued for so-and-so's arrest. But the two things that Oates, I'm not going to say gets right, but he gets lucky with. The first one is Edward Coleman. Edward Coleman was in James's entourage

and he had corresponded in 1673 and 74 with one of Louis XIV's confessors, Mr. Le Chasse, his name was. Coleman is detained. An order goes out to search for his papers. And in these papers, we see Coleman saying, I could facilitate the overthrow of the Protestant crown.

Oh, my God. Yes. So that is lucky for Oates, right? I guess a stuck clock tells the right time to stay. To give you a parallel, it's like a 1950s McCarthyite saying that 100 members of the State Department are communists, and one of them turns out is a fellow traveller. You know, that's not insight. That's just pure luck and coincidence.

That's what happens here. And what we see happening is everything else seems to fall into place then for Oates. And he is sort of emboldened by this. And he makes more and more outlandish accusations. The second thing that happens is that Justice Berry, who notarized the initial allegations, he's found dead. And it's still an unexplained murder. So all of a sudden, Oates becomes the saviour of Protestant England, and the justice becomes a martyr from Protestant England. We also get the Polish plot moving from the private political arena, from the private arena into the political parliament.

The House of Commons and the House of Lords starts to champion Oates, and Oates all of a sudden has an audience of the most powerful people in the realm. And this book is the clerks in the council. And it's one of the wonders of this archive because we have all the major papers, like the Acts of Parliament and whatnot. But we also have the official papers of the men who worked for the government. And it's how we try to rebuild this story. But to put this on the

sort of biggest stage of all you could argue that from for example that book we get politics because the wigs and taurus you know a lot of historians would trace them back to the arguments following the popish plot about if james duke of york should be excluded from the throne correct the succession crisis that happens as they try to embarrass the king. And as Shaftesbury, the Earl of Shaftesbury, Anthony Ashley Cooper, the Earl of Shaftesbury, he champions Oates. Now, the trials proceed from late 1678.

Oates moves from the political arena into the legal arena, and his story really falls apart then. And we can see the Lord Chief Justice of the Court of Kings bench and the legal officials nearly aiding and assisting him in corroborating these stories, these allegations against these Catholics, these Jesuits who are really not guilty of treason. But they're charged, they're condemned, and they're executed. And those records all exist within within the collection so we can follow this trial these trials but it becomes publicly apparent that oats is a liar i mean he ends up in the pillory doesn't he and we have trial by propaganda here he does eventually yeah he he perjures himself and james pursues him so in the long run i mean does that leave people embarrassed?

Do they feel, oh God, we believed all this rubbish? And does that have a kind of knock-on effect on the readiness to believe accusations of treason and perhaps undermine the very concept of treason, do you think, through the late 17th going into the 18th century? Well, it certainly emboldens Charles II and it consolidates his position. And in reality, it emboldens James's position too. They ride this out. As he becomes James II, his own political mistakes, let's say,

continue to revive these fears of Catholic threats. And he is undone by his own government and he's forced into exile. But he's not called a traitor, right? James II is not called a traitor when he leaves. He's just, the fiction is created that he had fled his... Well, he'd thrown away the Great Seal, hadn't he? Right, abandoned his post, yeah, effectively.

That's one of the things that you're not allowed to do. I mean, that's the treason under the original Treason Act. You're not allowed to put seals in the river. You're not allowed to put seals in the river, no. So I don't know whether that had any... It never needed to because he was gone. You know, gone from England. Not the river, no. So I don't know whether that had any... It never needed to, because he was gone. You know, gone from England, not gone from, let's say, Ireland, where we know what happened there,

and the consequences of the fighting that happened in Ireland that still permeates to this day. Well, perhaps I think we should have a break at this point, but when we come back, we could look at the implications of the Treason Act for Ireland, but also um for the the the colonies um in north america and the terrible treasonous activity that breaks out there towards the end of the 18th century so we will see you back very soon bye i'm marina hyde and i'm richard osmond and together we host the rest is entertainment

it's your weekly fix of entertainment news reviews reviews, splash of showbiz gossip. And on our Q&A, we pull back the curtain on entertainment and we tell you how it all works. We have just launched our Members Club. If you want ad-free listening, bonus episodes and early access to live tickets, head to therestisentertainment.com. That's therestisentertainment.com. Welcome back to The Rest Is History. We are talking about all kinds of treasonous behaviour.

And Tom, we are reaching perhaps the worst episode. The most shocking example. Of treachery. And treachery, it's not just treachery, it's treachery and tax evasion, I think we can safely say. Terrible behaviour. In British history. Because you have here, Neil, so Neil is with us from the National Archives talking about their amazing exhibition. You have here a copy of the ultimate treasonous document, which is, of course, the Declaration of Independence.

There it is right in front of you. And again, it's another one of these real turning points in the exhibition as we were thinking about how we would draw in material from the 18th century. We're further moving the story along by thinking about how we're moving away from the person, again, of the monarch under the Treason Act and into the state. So we can see here, the document is obviously 1776, but we have wonderful materials that surround it from the mid to late 18th century that show us the change in society that is emerging, these Enlightenment ideas, these ideas of independence, of moving away from monarchy, of moving, of self-determination. And we know that the Americans, the colonists, let's call them, initially in the 1750s and 1760s, their disgruntlement was with taxation, with not

having representation at Westminster, but yet taxes were being levied on them. And so these were economic frustrations rather than Republican ideas. And it was the escalation of this argument between the Crown and the colonists over who had the right to self-determination, the Americans arguing that they should be allowed to tax themselves, they should be allowed justice. It really got difficult when the Crown legislated that anybody who was deemed to be a traitor in the Americas should be brought to England for trial.

The Americans arguing that they should have trial by their peers. The colonists arguing this. Just to be absolutely clear, the provisions of the 1351 Act of Treason apply in British North America. So when they take a stand against their rightful king, they are traitors. It's in the charters.

The charters that created the colonies, yes. But when they declare independence, then suddenly people who are keeping loyal to the king are becoming the traitors. So it's a kind of replay of what happens when Richard II gets deposed and suddenly people who'd been loyal to Richard II are the

traitors and are condemned as such by Henry IV. And you're seeing the same kind of drama playing out at the end of the 18th century but on an Atlantic scale. The Americans legislate for it and they incorporate the Treason Act into their constitution. That's the only criminal law

in the US founding document. That's right. The Treason Act is the only criminal law in the US founding document. That's right. The Treason Act is the only criminal law at the dawn of the United States. But they say

it's not against the monarch. They rephrase it to be levying war against the Republic. I think that's the term they use. Right. And so do you think that's a slight...

Can we trace a thread from the trial of Charles V? Certainly. They directly reference it. And they say that Parliament imposed itself on the monarch and we're going to do the same. But again, we compared the original Treason Act to Magna Carta.

And I guess it's faintly similar, the way that Magna Carta underpins a lot of American constitutional legal understanding. The Treason Act presumably is playing the same, it's a kind of disguised foundation stone for how the American state comes to define and oppose what it calls treason. Well, it's less prominent, but yes, things like, you know, the continuation of the idea of habeas corpus and that, you can't be detained without just cause cause for instance you can't just be randomly detained you know and it's it is the suspension of things like the habeas corpus act

in north america that caused such frustration that caused such anger amongst the colonists and that but they then incorporate all these ideas into their own constitution and so we talked about america but i'm guessing that guessing that you as a Dubliner would have a particular interest in another fracture point of British, the writ of the British treason law, which would be Ireland. Which, and as I understand it,

the provisions of Edward III's Treason Act applied to Ireland from 1495, is it? That's right, yeah, there is the Treason Act from then. So Ireland, if we're talking about the late 18th century, the movements for determination in Ireland kind of mirror what happened in the United, what becomes the United States and are heavily influenced then by the French Revolution, these ideas of liberty. In Ireland, there is from the late 1780s into the 1790s, there's this idea of

some sort of self-determination. And we witnessed the propagation of ideas around not yet the creation of a republic, not initially the creation of a republic, but parliamentary reform, allowing Catholics to sit as MPs, allowing the complete revocation of what are known as the penal laws that stipulated that Catholics couldn't be represented in Parliament by their own peers. They had to, it was Protestant. So the complications of ascendancy Ireland,

18th century Ireland, really come to a head at the end, inspired by France, inspired by America. And men like Theobald Wolftone, they establish in October 1791 the Society for the United Irishmen. Just a month before here in London, Thomas Hardy establishes the London Correspondence. Not the novelist, the polemicist, let's say, Thomas Hardy. And these ideas, these radical reforming societies, popular political organisations that are seeking to really expand the franchise and allow much more self-determination. These ideas that emerge in America and France and then, of course, are seeping into England, but they are a huge threat to the British establishment. Well, okay, but Thomas Hardy, he's what?

He's a shoemaker, is he? So he's brought to trial on the charge of treason. But basically, he's just arguing for radical change, isn't he? I mean, he's not arguing for the overthrow of the monarchy. But the argument against that, not the counter-argument, would be it's taking place at a time of tremendous international turmoil. So in other words, those ideas are identified with the enemy that Britain is fighting. Yeah, I absolutely see that.

I mean, I see why the charge is brought against him. But the fact remains that in the end, he gets acquitted, doesn't he? Well, you need to rewind a little bit. And Hardy and his associates in the reforming societies, as they were known, were very, very careful not to commit treason. They didn't commit treasonous acts, but they did commit seditious acts. So they were encouraging sort of a rebellion against authority. So that's a good question. Just to focus in on that for a second.

Is there a point, I guess this would be the point, that treason and sedition become muddled in the public mind? Hardy is accused of not directly threatening the person of the king, but he wants to radically reform Parliament. The charge against him is that this will inevitably lead to the death

of the king, so his actions are indirectly treasonous. And of course it completely falls apart in court. Which is why it doesn't win. Which is why the prosecution doesn't win. Correct, yeah. So it falls apart. Now they do legislate subsequently, they re-update the treason laws again. Not the Treason

Act of 1352, but they do, the government does update treason laws to try to prevent them losing cases like that again. But the ideas are out there now, and across the 1790s, the thing that makes it very, very difficult for Paine and his colleagues is, of course, war breaking out with France in 1793. So all of a sudden, the ideas they're propagating are in support of an enemy state.

They're the enemy's ideas, basically. Just on the documents, you've got this sort of, I don't know, it's like a cardboard tray full of stuff. Is that the historian's term, stuff? The cardboard tray full of stuff is the technical, I think you'll find it's the technical, it's the archival term, isn't it, Neil? So these are the papers, these are all the trial papers. This is the evidence that was being gathered against Hardy, and we can see the Treasury Solicitor underlining what they believe to be treasonous,

or most certainly the seditious paragraphs in Thomas Paine's Rights of Man which is in this pile in front of us and these are read out

and the correspondence of the London Corresponding Society and they're read out full of, the trial takes several days which is longer

than a treason trial usually takes at the time but we're starting to see the vague emergence of the modern conception of the rule of law. So while they flood the court with what they claim, what the Attorney General claims are treasonous actions

and treasonous words, they're not. And the case does fall apart. But they try to overwhelm nearly the court. But in Ireland it's different because there you have the further dimension of an independence campaign. So in 1798 where you have Irish Rebellion you have Lord Edward Fitzgerald

who I gather is the last person to be attainted. That's right. So it's a posthumous act of attainment, isn't it? The goals didn't start out that way. As I say, initially it was the idea for parliamentary reform, but the leaders of the United Irishmen were politically neutered in the mid-1790s and Tone

is accused of treason. The government in Dublin can't make the charges stick, but he's allowed to go into exile. He goes to the United States in the hope of encouraging American support for an Irish movement. What becomes a Republican movement. It's not initially, but this is what it becomes.

And Tone is deeply disappointed in what he sees as the mercantilism of the Americans. He's deeply disappointed in George Washington himself and Jefferson. So he goes to France and he seeks help from Britain's other enemy, Napoleon Bonaparte at this point.

And we find Tone seeking and pleading. He becomes an officer in the French army. He's given French citizenship and he's hoping... That is, from the standards of London, pretty treasonous behavior. Most certainly.

To be fair. And he's... It's almost one in the eye. That is, from the standards of London, pretty treasonous behavior. Most certainly. To be fair. And he's, it's almost one in the eye. Yeah. And he is trying to secure a French invasion force. At the same time, the United Irishmen in Ireland has become a secret organization, and it's trying to create an underground movement that when the French arrive, there will be, the British government will be overthrown and Ireland will become a republic

a self-determining republic and Tone is caught he's caught on the hop effectively in the summer of 1798 when the rebellion does break out led by Fitzgerald and his accomplices in the United Irishmen but it's

quickly quashed. The French had tried to invade at the end of 1796 but they couldn't land. In December 1796 a fleet had been sent from Brest to land at Bantry Bay but the seas were too high, the storms were too big

so the fleet had to abandon and the British then made every effort to ensure that a fleet couldn't sail directly to Ireland again without being known about and that as I say the United Irishmen

had been neutered as a political organisation. So could I, just on the theme of republicanism I mean to argue for a republic is by definition I guess to be hostile to a monarchy and therefore inherently treasonous. At what point does arguing for a republic

cease to be seen as treasonous by the government? It doesn't really. You know, if we look at 1916, the men who fought, men and women who fought in the 1960s to rising in 1916, they're all so... But I'm not talking just specifically in the Irish context, more generally in the British context.

But some in the reign of Queen Victoria, there are lots of Republicans. There's a lot of Republicans. Presumably anyone who's arguing for a republic in the reign of Queen Victoria, say, is committing treason, aren't they? Under the wording of the Act, yes. But it's much more difficult to prosecute. So the crown shies away from it in many ways.

Not entirely, but these ideas are out there now. There's so many people. So there's an acceptance that basically it's simple practicality, that there's so many people believe in the republic now in republicanism now that it's simply there's there's no way you can prosecute everybody who believes that to a point yes and also the loyalism in in britain loyalty to the crown is also a hugely powerful political uh hugely powerful political force so it's it's it's a real dichotomy. If we look at the risings that happen, or the attempted risings, and the conspiracies, the Cato Street conspiracy, the Newport Rising,

1848 in France, and then how it spills over into Britain, these fears of monarchical overthrow, they don't go away, and people are prosecuted. But it continues to be propagated by the ideas of the French Revolution and by Paine and by Hardy.

But there's a general sense that the act of treason, although it remains on the statute book, is becoming, it's too kind of nebulous a thing to hold legal water. And is that why over the course of nebulous a thing to to help to hold legal water and is that why over the course of the 20th century even against the backdrop of growing republicanism of ireland becoming independent and so on that you see the the um the act of treason used less and less and i'm right that the very last person to be executed for treason in britain is william

joyce better known as lord hor haw is that right that's correct yeah so what's about what's and that is done essentially on a legal technicality isn't it because it turns out he's not even a british citizen so joyce was born in brooklyn but he falsified documents to get a british passport so this was how the court in taking out a passport you are claiming allegiance to the crown and we should we should just say for those who don't know about him that he he goes to nazi germany and he broadcasts to britain from germany throughout the war and so when he's captured after the war it looks a kind of open and shut case it must have done well he disputed that he said he hadn't committed treason

but of course he had you know so it's the treason legislation, the 1352 legislation becomes much, much harder to prosecute people under. There's also the peril for a government of conducting a trial in open court because it allows people to defend themselves and produce their own evidence under the. Because there are no bills of attainder. I mean, is that simply because they have become illegal? I mean, no one would dream of bringing an attainder. I mean, is that simply because they have become illegal? I mean, no one would dream of bringing an attainder against someone now. I can think of loads of people

who would bring a bill of attainder against. I mean, is the opportunity to do that still on the statute book? As far as I'm aware, I think the last, you know, people like Churchill during the war and as the tide of the war was turning during the Second World War,

Churchill, they were trying to deal with the question of what on earth are we going to do with the Nazi leaders? How are we going to deal with these men if we capture them? What will we do with Hitler? What court can try Hitler? So initially it was put to Churchill that, well, we could attain to him. And of course he scoffed at it. He dismissed the idea. Could the British Parliament attain to Hitler?

Yes, it could. Wow. Yeah. I think in the eyes of the world, that might loom. So we've got one last document, which I know you picked out for us. So we just need to rewind a little bit from Lord Haw Haw. So in the First World War, again, from London's perspective, this looks like a real open and shut case of treason.

But I'm imagining you're going to see it differently, which is why you picked it out. So this is the Easter Rising, 1916. And obviously, as a Dubliner, you've got a particular stake in this. I'm also a historian, and I can distance myself from it in some ways. But what we have in the collection that we found is the bottom half of the proclamation, the 1916 proclamation that Patrick Pearce read out from the steps of the GPO, the General Post Office on Sackville Street, what's now O'Connell Street in Dublin.

And there's a wonderful story about this document in that the type had been confiscated to print the document a few days before the Rising was to break out. So they had to quickly get another set of type, but they only had enough to print the top half of the document and they reamed off how many copies of everything they did and then they reset the type and printed the bottom half and they left the type in the machine and they ran around the corner and that was printed in liberty hall in dublin right on the liffey the very tall building now on the liffey and uh when the brit forces re-secured Dublin a few days later, they go into Liberty Hall and they find the printing press

that the 1916 proclamation was produced on. And they produce several more copies. And that ended up in Sean McDiarmid's court martial. So martial law is imposed upon Ireland after the Easter Rising breaks out, which is why the rebels, the leaders as they were, are tried by court martial. And they're tried and executed in secret as opposed to giving them an opportunity to air their views in public or their raison d'etre or their reasons for rebelling. And the papers there you can see in front of you are from the courts, Marshall, that were conducted against the rebel leaders. So these are the official records.

Most certainly, yeah. And the handwriting. So some of them are typed and there's handwriting scribbled on this one that you've got to open at. So what's the handwriting all about? The writing is just, you know, the court, the court, Marshall, gathering evidence as quickly as it can

and drawing in all the intelligence reports that had been produced in the months and years subsequent um uh i mean previous and um they're being laid out for the court yeah so to overwhelmingly prove guilt yeah i mean no one we wouldn't i mean no one normally no no reasonably sane person would think of this as a case of treason now, I suppose, would they? Well, this is something that we see certainly with those who had rebelled in Ireland. They see themselves as fighting a war. That they weren't loyal to the crown, so they weren't committing treason.

They were seeking independence. So, I mean, one case I do know, I mean, in 1981, the Queen is doing the trooping of the color and a man comes out of the crowd and fires six blank bullets at her. And he is charged with treason, isn't he? And that is presumably because he is directly targeting the figure of the monarch. So in a way, we're going back to the medieval understanding that actually treason laws can be applied when the subjects of a monarch are targeting the person of the monarch. Intercharging under the 1352 legislation, yeah. But otherwise it's too cumbersome a mechanism to apply.

It's nebulous. It's not guaranteed to return a verdict of guilt. And there is also other legislation that can be used at this point. So the Crown doesn't... Can I ask you a question? You may not want to answer this question, but right at the beginning of these two episodes,

I read from an article that the government is planning to refine and reframe the treason law. Do you think that the treason law is redeemable, that it can be changed adequately? Or is that not a question that you can answer? I wouldn't feel I'm qualified to answer it. What I can say, it won't be the first time

that a government has tried to not amend the original law, but update the terms in which a government makes it useful to them. So we see it throughout the century, like this act sitting here right in front of me. You know, they are... That's the Act of Indemnity, written by Charles II. Yeah, there is a law that emerges in 1661 which redefines treason that says you cannot even seek

to harm the person of the king, Charles II. So governments throughout the centuries really have have tried to do this um update the law to the circumstances of the time neil this has been absolutely fascinating and so many i mean tom you and i were looking at the documents before we before we started recording and it's it's an amazing privilege to be able to look at the sort of you know the the handwriting on the parchment or the paper um and the popish plot or whatever now when we ended the previous episode we asked ewan to identify one person whom he would save and one case of treason which you know he would definitely be the hanging judge so it would be

remiss of us not to ask you the same question, Neil. I can tell you who I'd get rid of. Who would you get rid of? Oliver Cromwell, done. Bang, gone. He's not even on trial. What are you talking about? You know. You dig him up. This is shocking. On London Bridge. In terms of saving, actually, I do think I

know who I would save. And in 1916, some men went into battle intending to die. The leaders, the signatories of the 1916 proclamation, they all expected to die should they lose. But

the president of the proclaimed republic, Patrick Pearce, his brother Willie was executed, tried and executed, and he probably shouldn't have been. So I would save Willie Pearce. Why Willie was executed tried and executed and he probably shouldn't have been so I would save Willie Pearce

why would you say why him and not the others because he was he's in the wrong place at the wrong time no he was very junior he just had the wrong surname you've only allowed him one

I haven't well I have only allowed him one I mean I'm so shocked by that Cromwell thing I can barely bring myself to but I will do it because I'm a professional I will tell people

this is a brilliant exhibition. Neely's done a fantastic tour for us. The Cromwellian heresy aside. So Tom, this is at the National Archives, isn't it? It's from the 5th of November. What other date could it be? 2022, obviously. It's amazing to see all the documents.

Tom, does it cost any money to go to this exhibition? You know, Dominic, it costs zero pounds. Do I need to book beforehand? You do not need to book. Wow, does it cost any money to go to this exhibition? You know, Dominic, it costs zero pounds. Do I need to book beforehand? You do not need to book. Wow, fantastic. Dominic, is there a book that goes with the exhibition? You know, there's a website. There is a website. Nationalarchives.gov.uk slash treason, but more

excitingly, there is a book. Are you in this book, Neil? I wrote a book. I co-wrote it. Oh, gee. Are you talking about Cromwell in it? He gets a mention, yeah you don't like dominic i i read it and it's absolutely fine does he behaves himself yeah great well so the book has the tom holland seal of approval for what that's worth uh it's called history of treason the bloody history of britain through the stories of its most notorious traitors the exhibition it's running until the end of the year. Beyond? It runs until April.

Oh my God. Is there any excuse for people to miss it? I don't think so. It's really good. It shows off the breadth and the wealth

and the depth of the collections here at the National Archives. So do come along and see. We've done our best to interpret it for you and bring you on

the journey of treason across the centuries from the 1352 Act onwards. Tom, it would be treason to miss it. Not to come. It would be on that bombshell. Thank you, Neil. Thank you to the National Archives

for having us and thank you for listening. Goodbye. Bye-bye. Thanks for listening to The Rest Is History. For bonus episodes, early access, ad-free listening, and access to our chat community, please sign up at restishistorypod.com. That's restishtertainment.com