A new exhibition at the National Archives in Kew, Treason: People, Power & Plot, opens today.
It explores how the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade, the establishment of the Church of England, the creation of the United States of America and even the extension of UK voting rights, all share links with acts of treason.
First defined in law in 1352, treason remains one of the most serious crimes a person can commit. Remarkably, the core of the original Treason Act is still in force and relatively unchanged today.
Firework by Angela Corbett and Prestwich Creative Living Centre © Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust
Treason: People, Power & Plot offers a unique selection of letters, pamphlets, posters, maps and trial papers to reveal the motives, actions and consequences of those accused of being traitors, many of whom paid the ultimate price for their cause.
Emmajane Avery, director of Public Engagement at The National Archives, said: ‘Treason: People, Power & Plot allows us to consider the changing nature of justice through the ages.
‘Through some genuinely history-defining documents, such as the original 1352 Treason Act and the Monteagle Letter, suggesting the recipient should not attend parliament on 5 November 1605, visitors will come face to face with 700 years of history in this thought-provoking exhibition.’
Fireworks by Wilhelmina Barns-Graham © Wilhelmina Barns-Graham Trust
Treason: People, Power & Plot explores stories as diverse as the charges brought against Anne Boleyn in 1536 and the trial and execution of Charles I in 1649, to the efforts of enslaved Baptist preacher Samuel Sharpe and his support for emancipation in Jamaica in 1832, and the work of John Frost and the Chartist movement leading ultimately to the extension of voting rights.
The question of perspectives is raised in terms of British reaction to the Boston Tea Party in 1773, George III’s Proclamation of Rebellion following Congress’s initial petition for independence in 1775, and the subsequent 1776 American Declaration of Independence, accusing the King of being the traitor.
Fireworks by Wilhelmina Barns-Graham © The Barns-Graham Charitable Trust
As well as the exhibition, The National Archives’ Treason season will see a variety of on site and online events and activities planned until April 2023, including talks, films, document displays and podcasts.
Hi Jo! Sorry it’s taken me so long to respond to your blog. Fascinating as ever and I very much enjoyed the group’s varied and insightful comments and your often very witty ripostes. I especially was intrigued by the thought of the entire present day government going up in smoke. For me what happened when we left the EU and the last three years with all the subterfuge and fumbling on the part of the government have merely served to confirm my opinion that the current lot have a great deal to answer for. Treachery or not, the idea of a bomb is tempting….
Well, maybe not literally, but I am very heartened by Keir Starmer’s proposal to do away with the House of Lords – a totally corrupt peerage system which costs us a fortune! I hope all the iniquities will be exposed in the debates.
A fascinating blog Jo, such a subject to explore. Perhaps you will add more of your own take on the subject in the reply section?
At the risk of sounding flippant, I like to think that the current, and immediately previous, PM preventing the King from attending COP27 could be a form of treason. Preventing the man who has been unjustly reviled for so long, for his foresight on the matter of climate change, from attending this important event intended to save the planet and its inhabitants, not just individual countries, from a most difficult future – is an astounding act of ignorant short-sightedness and lack of care for the children and grandchildren of their own as well as everyone else’s.
Perhaps a virtual gunpowder plot please, in the form of a general election, could blow up this incompetent government (but not the King) and hopefully allow a more intelligent government to take over.
It’s a great shame that by the time the Streng Verboten order was lifted, it was too late for the king to go. Is populism anti-monarchy? Obviously it’s anti-environmental.
A fascinating theme, Jo, and thank you for it. As you remark, so much depends on perspective. I am currently reading – and greatly enjoying – John le Carre’s newly published “Letters”. He touches a number of times on the person and fate of Kim Philby, partly through correspondence with Graham Green. Le Carre has no doubt about the extent of Philby’s treachery, his culpability and the effects of his actions on the lives of many in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Greene took a different view and was prepared at least – unlike le Carre – to meet Philby in Moscow. In judging Philby it is clear that le Carre’s moral compass is differently ordered to Greene’s. Both writers were men who saw their writing as having a moral purpose, an ethical dimension, what le Carre at one point characterises – though I slightly paraphrase – as the need in literature for good to be geared to triumph over evil. Was Philby’s – undoubted – betrayal of his country, of the nation that employed him to defend it, excusable? Was the nature of such an “excuse” to be found in his commitment – by his lights at least – to a “higher” calling, ie Communism? Doubtless the NA exhibition throws up many instances of conflicts between the claims of one’s country and the claims of one’s conscience or “higher” calling, including in the cases of Guy Fawkes and Co. But it seems to me that spades need to be called spades and betrayal of one’s country is treachery, even if the individual traitor sees his own priorities differently.
Thanks for this, John. I do love a moral compass and wish that our MPs had one; perhaps they might be given one for Christmas.
Philby is an interesting case in point; he supported internationalism as opposed to nationalism. He did know it was treachery and he did know the consequences for him, if caught; but, as you say, he felt he was serving a higher purpose. What we are looking at with COP27 is a last-ditch attempt to get nation states to act in the interests of the whole world, not of their own particular patch of it.
Protestantism is the religion of nationalism in the West; a major thrust at the start was its violent opposition to the supra-nationalism of Catholicism. I was brought up as a Strict Baptist believing that my moral compass was much shinier than most other people’s; it’s quite a difficult kind of arrogance to shake off!
Thank you John for your comments brought up by your reading of John le Carre’s letters, most interesting. I read Adam Sisman’s biography of le Carre when it came out, and almost immediately afterwards “The Pigeon Tunnel”, le Carre’s reposte to Sisman. Then I was lucky enough to hear Sisman talking about his book, clearly upset,it seemed to me, by le Carre feeling he had to come out so soon with his own version of his own life. An intriguing tension between a biographer and his highly literate subject.
Wonderful paintings and intriguing series of connections, Jo. Every sympathy with the plotters’ desired ends, but not the means. Given the time, were they all that mores fanatical than many other believers, witch burners, etc.
would have liked the blog to be longer!!
Both Protestant and Catholic fanatics were equally zealous, Lyn, in my opinion. Are you on Facebook? I’ve posted some longer pieces (written by other writers) on the Huguenot Jo Facebook page. Lots of intriguing facts there.
Once again your piece draws me in to a subject I had noted in passing. You rightly show it is a very intriguing exhibition and one I must devote diary time to exploring.
I love the paintings you have chosen to illustrate your piece. Are they part of the exhibition?
I hadn’t heard of the Monteagle letter. Was it what exposed the plotters? I am ashamed to admit I know so little about a festivity I have celebrated my entire life…even if only to the extent of watching magnificent municipal fireworks (this year from a sick- bed window)
Yes, the Monteagle letter gave the game away. It always seems a sad story to me, because of course the plotters were religious fanatics, fully convinced that their cause was just. To be betrayed by a piece of paper!
The paintings are not part of the exhibition, but are part of the Art UK collection of pictures. I was very struck by their beauty.
https://artuk.org/
And that they were betrayed by trying to save friend. But yes..they were religious fanatics.
Imagine if they had succeeded! All the lords, the king, I believe quite a few of the royal family, all the MPs – all up in smoke!