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"“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)."

“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)

"“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 is a sweeping history of treason, which starts with its origins and takes the reader right up until the 2020s…” James Sewry, The Historian (In Conversation with Mark Nicholls, August 2024)"

Author Information

Allen Boyer is a graduate of Vanderbilt University and the University of Virginia School of Law, and he earned his doctorate at the University of St Andrews. As a lawyer, he served as senior appellate counsel at the New York Stock Exchange Division of Enforcement. In a parallel career, he has published numerous articles on legal history, and five books, notably Sir Edward Coke and the Elizabethan Age and Rocky Boyer’s War. Mark Nicholls is a Fellow, and former President, Librarian and a Tutor of St John’s College Cambridge. He has published extensively on British conspiracies and succession politics. His books include Investigating Gunpowder Plot (1991), A History of the Modern British Isles 1529-1603 (1999) and, with Penry Williams, Sir Walter Raleigh in Life and Legend (2011).

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