T
he mid-17th century was a violent
age across Britain and Ireland,
illustrated by the execution of
King Charles I for treason. But how was
this possible, when treason in law had
always been a crime against the monarch?
The trial in January 1649 was the
culmination of a decade of conflict be-
tween Charles and his parliament, with
200,000 people dying in England and
Wales in the civil war. Parliament in the
1640s had also radically reinterpreted
treason law, making it more of a crime
against the state, in order to execute some
of Charles’s key advisers. To prosecute the
king himself, they accused him of “levying
war” against his own people. The legal
basis for this could not be the 1351 Treason
Act. Instead, the court charged him under
the ancient traditions of Roman law –
which held that a ruler who was a “tyrant”
could face justice.Charles’s trial was a “show-trial”, for the
victorious army leaders were determined
to execute him for treason. They created a
special High Court of Justice in Westmin-
ster Hall and carefully vetted the MPs
who could attend. But they still wanted a
show of legality for the public, so a formal
procedure was followed and the king was
instructed to plead. Yet Charles denied the
army their propaganda coup by refusing to
recognise the court. It meant that, al-
though he was found guilty as a “public
enemy to the Commonwealth of England”,
he had rejected the way that treason was
being interpreted.
More than a decade after his execution,
following the restoration of the monarchy
in 1660, the regicides themselves would be
put on trial for treason. They were charged
and executed under the 1351 Treason Act,
as proof that the previous era had been one
of gross illegality.5 A king at war with his people
To secure the conviction of Charles I, his accusers
had to turn to the ancient traditions of Roman law
10 treason trials
Pride before a fall
Charles I shown in a portrait from c1638.
His trial saw treason being interpreted as a
crime not against the king, but the stateGETTY^IMAGES/ALAMYT
he gunpowder plot was the most
notorious treason in British
history. The public reputation of
Guy Fawkes would endure for centuries but,
unlike Campion, that reputation was
wholly negative, perpetuated annually in
popular culture on bonfire night.
This demonisation was fully on
display at Fawkes’s trial in
January 1606. There was no
doubt about his guilt: he had
been arrested in the cellars
underneath parliament, next
to the barrels of gunpowder
intended to blow up both king
and parliament. Leading the
prosecution case, Sir Edward Coke
(pictured) gave a speech full of
hyperbole, exclaiming that “these are the
greatest treasons that ever were plotted in
England”. Coke portrayed treason like a
tree: the “powder treason” had deep roots
and had arisen “out of the dead ashes of
former treasons” – in other words, out of
Catholic treachery in the reign of Elizabeth.
While Fawkes’s guilt was clear, the
authorities were less sure about his motiva-
tion. Historians agree that the plotters
especially wanted revenge against an
anti-Catholic regime. From 1603 they had
expected toleration from the new Stuart
king, James VI & I, and felt betrayed when
this did not occur.
Fawkes, who had served as a Catholic
mercenary abroad, felt that the violence of
the regime should now be answered with
violence. And he had an extra motive: his
English patriotism and hatred of the
“Scottish invasion”. The Scottish king James
had united the crowns of Scotland and
England and, as Fawkes told his Scottish
interrogators, “his intent was to have blown
them back into Scotland”. Fawkes’s fiery
voice emerges from his interrogation. But it
is Edward Coke’s version of events that has
endured in English popular culture.4 Guy Fawkes’
“greatest
treason”
The gunpowder plot was
cast as the ultimate act
of Catholic treachery