Imaginary Betrayals: Subjectivity and the Discourses of Treason in Early Modern EnglandUniversity of Pennsylvania Press, 2013 M05 29 - 224 páginas In 1352 King Edward III had expanded the legal definition of treason to include the act of imagining the death of the king, opening up the category of "constructive" treason, in which even a subject's thoughts might become the basis for prosecution. By the sixteenth century, treason was perceived as an increasingly serious threat and policed with a new urgency. Referring to the extensive early modern literature on the subject of treason, Imaginary Betrayals reveals how and to what extent ideas of proof and grounds for conviction were subject to prosecutorial construction during the Tudor period. Karen Cunningham looks at contemporary records of three prominent cases in order to demonstrate the degree to which the imagination was used to prove treason: the 1542 attainder of Katherine Howard, fifth wife of Henry VIII, charged with having had sexual relations with two men before her marriage; the 1586 case of Anthony Babington and twelve confederates, accused of plotting with the Spanish to invade England and assassinate Elizabeth; and the prosecution in the same year of Mary, Queen of Scots, indicted for conspiring with Babington to engineer her own accession to the throne. |
Dentro del libro
Resultados 1-5 de 46
... interpretation of the law of treason between 1352 and 1485 concerned the clause in the Edwardian act about imagining and compassing the king's death. Apart from those based on the offence of levying war against the king, . . indictments ...
... interpreted—in indictments, in trials, in informal and formal comments by judges, justices, ministers, and defendants—was as important as any statute in making treason. Side-by-side with the proliferation of laws was the development of ...
... interpretations of the “overt act” necessary for proving treason: to what, exactly, were the accusers or witnesses testifying? The 1352 act did not require an overt deed for imagining or compassing the king's death, but it did require ...
... interpretation of its signs, was aggravated by the loose evidentiary rules of the lawcourt. Moreover, since the thing to be proved was an idea or act of intellection, rhetorical strategies weighed heavily in the courtroom.''9 Over and ...
... interpretation of statutes; inserted personal annotations and glosses within the body of various reports; and acknowledged the problem of inscribing what one had heard in oral arguments. If he were unable to be present at a particular ...
Contenido
1 | |
Imagining the Realm | 23 |
2 Female Fidelities on Trial | 40 |
3 Masculinity Affiliation and Rootlessness | 77 |
4 Secrecy and the Epistolary Self | 110 |
Conclusion | 141 |
Notes | 145 |
Works Cited | 187 |
Index | 203 |
Acknowledgments | 215 |
Otras ediciones - Ver todas
Imaginary Betrayals: Subjectivity and the Discourses of Treason in Early ... Karen Cunningham Vista previa limitada - 2002 |
Imaginary Betrayals: Subjectivity and the Discourses of Treason in Early ... Karen Cunningham Sin vista previa disponible - 2002 |