Treason Act 1842
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| Long title | An Act for providing for the further Security and Protection of Her Majesty's Person. |
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| Citation | 5 & 6 Vict. c.51 |
| Territorial extent | United Kingdom |
| Dates | |
| Royal assent | 16 July 1842 |
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Status: Amended
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| Text of statute as originally enacted | |
| Text of the Treason Act 1842 as in force today (including any amendments) within the United Kingdom, from legislation.gov.uk | |
The Treason Act 1842 (5 & 6 Vict. c.51) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It was passed early in the reign of Queen Victoria. It was last used in 1981 to prosecute Marcus Sarjeant.
On 29 May 1842, Victoria was riding in a carriage along The Mall, London, when John Francis, described by Victoria's husband Prince Albert as a "little, swarthy, ill-looking rascal ... of the age of twenty-six to thirty, with a shabby hat and of dirty appearance", aimed a pistol at her but did not fire. The following day, Victoria drove the same route, though faster and with a greater escort, in a deliberate attempt to provoke Francis to take a second aim and catch him in the act. As expected, Francis shot at her, but he was seized by plain clothes policemen, tried, and convicted of high treason. Francis's death sentence was commuted to transportation for life on 1 July. Two days later, in a similar attack, John William Bean fired a pistol at the Queen, but it was loaded only with paper and tobacco.
Edward Oxford, who had shot at Victoria in 1840, felt that the attempts were encouraged by his acquittal on the grounds of insanity two years before. Bean's assault, though physically harmless, was still punishable by death. Feeling that such a penalty was too harsh, Albert encouraged Parliament to pass a law recognising lesser crimes against the monarch, such as intent to alarm. Bean was sentenced to 18 months in jail.
In 19th century Britain, treason had its own special rules of evidence and procedure, which made it difficult to prosecute traitors successfully, such as the requirement that the prosecution produce two witnesses to the same overt act, or that three judges preside at the trial. (See Treason Act 1695 for details.) The Treason Act 1800 relaxed these rules in relation to attempts on the King's life, bringing the rules in such cases in line with the less restrictive rules which then existed in ordinary murder cases. Section 1 of the 1842 Act went further, removing the special rules in all cases of treason involving any attempt to wound or maim the Queen.
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