Buch, Englisch, 756 Seiten, Format (B × H): 165 mm x 244 mm, Gewicht: 1417 g
Figurative Treason, Fantasies of Regicide, 1793-1796
Buch, Englisch, 756 Seiten, Format (B × H): 165 mm x 244 mm, Gewicht: 1417 g
ISBN: 978-0-19-811292-1
Verlag: Oxford University Press
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.
Autoren/Hrsg.
Fachgebiete
Weitere Infos & Material
- Introduction
- Part One: Sad Stories
- The Last Interview
- 'When Kings Are Hurled From Their Thrones'
- Part Two: The Invention of Modern Treason
- Convention and Conspiracy
- The British Convention
- The Trial of Thomas Walker
- Secret Committees
- The Arming of the L.C.S.
- Parliament and Prejudication
- The Trials of Watt and Downie
- The Charge to the Grand Jury
- The Trial of Thomas Hardy
- The Trials of Tooke and Thelwall
- 'A Conspiracy without Conspirators'
- Part Three: Alarms and Diversions
- The Pop-Gun Plot
- Traitor or Lunatic: The Arrest of Richard Brothers
- Part Four: Phantoms of Imagination
- The Treasonable Practices Act
- King Killing
- Epilogue: 'Fire, Famine, And Slaughter'
- Appendix
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
