Treason Act 1554
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| Citation | 1 & 2 Ph & M c 10 |
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Status: Repealed
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The Treason Act 1554 (1 & 2 Ph & M c 10) was an Act of the Parliament of England. It is not to be confused with two other Acts about treason passed in the same year, 1 & 2 Ph & M c 9 and 11 (summarised below).
The long title was "An Acte wherby certayne Offences bee made Treasons; and also for the Government of the Kinges and Quenes Majesties Issue." The words in the long title of the Act from "and also" were repealed on 30 July 1948 by the Statute Law Revision Act 1948.
The Act provided legal protection to King Philip, who had married Queen Mary I on 25 July 1554 and became co-monarch of England and Ireland. It became an offence to "compass or imagine to deprive the King's Majesty from the having with the Queen the style, honour and kingly name, or to destroy the King, or to levy war within this realm against the King or Queen," or to say that the King ought not to have his title. The penalty for a first offence was forfeiture of goods and "perpetual imprisonment." A second offence was high treason. However to "compass or imagine the death of the King" or to remove him from government was high treason on a first offence.
The Act also declared that if Mary died and her heir was not yet 18 if male, or was under 15 and unmarried if female, then Philip would govern the realm until the heir to the throne came of age (or was married, if female). In that event, it would be treason to "compass, attempt, and go about to destroy the person of the King, or to remove his Highness from the government".
Section 7 required trials for "any treason" (not just treason under this Act) to be conducted in accordance with the common law, "and not otherwise".
Section 8 provided that the concealment or keeping secret of treason constituted misprision of treason but not treason:
Section 9 preserved privilege of peerage — the right of peers of the realm to be tried by their peers. Section 10 stipulated that offences against the Act which were committed "only by preaching or words" must be prosecuted within six months.
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