Treason Trials

Historical Context Note

Litencyc Editors (Independent Scholar - Europe)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.4: Irish Writing and Culture, 400-present.
Vol. editors: Paul Delaney (Trinity College Dublin), Anne Markey (Dublin City University), Ian Campbell Ross (Trinity College Dublin), Sinéad Sturgeon (Queen's University Belfast)

Domains

Trials and major cases

Dates

Date of occurrence 1794

Places

Ireland, Republic of (Eire) (Location)
United Kingdom (Location)

Resources

Save to Bookshelf

The conservative reaction to the French revolution grew solidly from 1792 and reached a watershed in the summer and autumn of 1794 with the arrest in May and the trial in October for High Treason of Thomas Hardy, who founded the London Corresponding Society in 1792, John Horne Took (1736-1812), who founded the Society for Constitutional Information in 1790, and in November of the radical orator John Thelwall (1764-1834). The charge of High Treason carried a penalty of death by hanging but not until death, followed by castration, the bowels to be drawn out and burned before the victim’s eyes, and the body to be quartered and usually impaled for public view in various parts of the city.

The trial of Horne Took provoked William Godwin to write his pamphlet Cursory Strictures on the Charge

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

210 words

Citation: Editors, Litencyc. "Treason Trials". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 21 January 2006 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=1136, accessed 25 April 2024.]

Save this article