Edmund Dudley was found guilty of constructive treason (an extension of the original treason laws enabling the term to cover even implicitly treasonable offences), on the grounds that he had ordered his friends to arm themselves and gather together while the king lay dying, but the trial was really fuelled by his unpopularity and Henry VIII's desire to appoint a scapegoat for the mistakes of his father's reign. Both Dudley and his fellow minister, Empson, were attainted by Parliament in 1510 and executed.