170 Records of the Rising in the West, A.B. 1655. 



and moderne, was adjudged treason to leavy warre against the chiefe magistrate; 

 aggravating the same with the circumstances of tyme, place, and persons of 

 the judges ; the delay of justice, and the damage of the people, and taking 

 away the commissions from the judges. Hee likewise declared the great obligation 

 lying on the people to his highness, for directing this offence to be tryed by 

 commission in the ordinary legall way, and not by extraordinary commissions, 

 as he might have done in such tymes of such imminent danger ; wherein hee 

 manifested his carefull desire to maintayne the lawes. 



It is a convenient time to say a few words on the law as above 

 enunciated, which is replete with interest and difficulty. 1 The length 

 and breadth of treason till the time of King Edward III, the 

 Judges themselves only knew ; founding, so they said, their decisions 

 on the common law of the land. A vast, expanding ocean was the 

 common law ; and during that King's reign it burst in, so some 

 thought, upon the liberties of the subject. The King was petitioned 

 to stay the waves, and he set up the Statute of Treason, as a barrier 

 against further encroachments. 



It declares 



" That it shall be treason when a man doth compass or imagine the death of 

 our Lord the king or of our Lady the Queen his wife, or of their son and heir 

 &c. . . . or if a man do levy war against our Lord the King in his realm, 

 or be adherent to the king's enemies, in his realm, giving them aid and comfort 

 in the realm or elsewhere, and thereof be provably attainted of open deed by 

 the people of their [own] condition." 



There are other provisions one of which makes it treason to kill 

 the king's judges. 2 Of course this statute did not abolish, but 

 only more clearly defined the common law, which still existed where 

 it was not inconsistent. 



The Parliaments of Henry VII. and Elizabeth added somewhat ; 

 but it is unnecessary to set their enactments out here, as they did 

 not repeal the above provisions. It may be well to say, however, 

 that the statute of Henry VII. (11. Hen. VII. c. i.) protected those 

 who served a king de facto from penalties and forfeitures. 



1 Whether what happened at Salisbury was treason or riot I reserve till Pen- 

 ruddock's trial, as he discusses it. It was treason against the State, according 

 to modern American authorities, as the subversion of its government, as then 

 constituted, was contemplated. 1 Kent's Com., 451, and American Law Mag., 

 Jan., 1845. 



2 There was no discussion on this section. 



