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Treason and the State
This study traces the transition of treason from a personal crime against the monarch to a
modern crime against the impersonal state. It consists of four highly detailed case studies
of major state treason trials in England beginning with that of Thomas Wentworth, First
Earl of Strafford, in the spring of 1641 and ending with that of Charles Stuart, King of
England, in January 1649.
The book examines how these trials constituted practical contexts in which ideas of
statehood and public authority legitimated courses of political action that might ordi-
narily be considered unlawful – or at least not within pass of the foundational
statute of 25 Edward III. The ensuing narrative reveals how the events of the 1640s
in England challenged existing conceptions of treason as a personal crime against the
king, his family and his servants, and pushed the ascendant parliamentarian faction
toward embracing an impersonal conception of the state that perceived public authority as
completely independent of any individual or group.
d. alan orr was educated at Queen’s University at Kingston, the University of Glasgow
and the University of Cambridge, where he received his . in 1997. He has taught
subsequently at Carleton University in Ottawa and Queen’s University at Kingston.
Cambridge Studies in Early Modern British History
Series editors
anthony fletcher
Victoria County History, Institute of Historical Research, University of London
john guy
Professor of Modern History, University of St. Andrews
and john morrill
Professor of British and Irish History, University of Cambridge,
and Vice-Master of Selwyn College
This is a series of monographs and studies covering many aspects of the history of the
British Isles between the late fifteenth century and the early eighteenth century. It
includes the work of established scholars and pioneering work by a new generation of
scholars. It inc