Imagining the King's Death: Figurative Treason, Fantasies of Regicide, 1793-1796Oxford University Press, 2000 - 737 pàgines It is high treason in British law to 'imagine' the king's death. But after the execution of Louis XVI in 1793, everyone in Britain must have found themselves imagining that the same fate might befall George III. How easy was it to distinguish between fantasising about the death of George and 'imagining' it, in the legal sense of 'intending' or 'designing'? John Barrell examines this question in the context of the political trials of the mid-1790s and the controversies they generated. He shows how the law of treason was adapted in the years following Louis's death to punish what was acknowledged to be a 'modern' form of treason unheard of when the law had been framed. The result, he argues, was the invention of a new, an imaginary, a 'figurative' treason, by which the question of who was imagining the king's death, the supposed traitors or those who charged them with treason, became inescapable. |
Continguts
I The Last Interview | 41 |
When Kings are Hurled from their Thrones | 79 |
Convention and Conspiracy | 102 |
The British Convention | 118 |
The Trial of Thomas Walker | 146 |
Secret Committees | 158 |
The Arming of the LCS | 186 |
Parliament and Prejudication | 207 |
The Trial of Thomas Hardy | 290 |
The Trials of Tooke and Thelwall | 338 |
A Conspiracy without Conspirators | 360 |
The PopGun Plot A Tragicomedy by Thomas Upton | 403 |
Traitor or Lunatic The Arrest of Richard Brothers | 462 |
The Treasonable Practices Act | 505 |
King Killing | 558 |
Fire Famine and Slaughter | 577 |
Frases i termes més freqüents
25 Edward acquittal act of imagining alleged appeared argued argument arrest attempt authority bill Britain Brothers Brothers's Burke Burke's charge claimed Coleridge compassing and imagining conspiracy to levy conspiring constitution crime Crosfeild Crown Daniel Isaac Eaton declared defence doctrine Eaton Edinburgh Erskine evidence Eyre Eyre's French French Revolution George George III Government Hardy Higgins high treason Ibid imagining the king's indictment insisted intention J. S. Jordan John John Horne Tooke John Thelwall jury king's death law of treason Lemaitre letter Liberty London London Corresponding Society Lord loyalist Mitford overt act pamphlet parliament person Pitt plot political Privy Council prosecution published radical Reeves Reeves's regicidal Report republican Revolution Richard Richard Brothers Scott secret committee seditious libel Sheridan Smith speech statute suggested Thale Thelwall Thelwall's Thomas Thomas Hardy tion trial universal suffrage Upton verdict Watt William words writing