Book Chapter

The English and Scottish Trials of the 1790s Compared

Details

Citation

Macleod E (2019) The English and Scottish Trials of the 1790s Compared. In: Davis M, MacLeod E & Pentland G (eds.) Political Trials in in an Age of Revolutions: Britain and the North Atlantic 1793-1848. Palgrave Histories of Policing, Punishment and Justice. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 79-107. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98959-4_4

Abstract
Historians have tended to compare the English and Scottish state trials of the 1790s only superficially, concluding that the Scottish courts treated radical reformers much more harshly than the English courts did. However, that assessment relies on virtually equating trials in Edinburgh for the lesser crime of sedition with the trials in London for the capital charge of high treason. This chapter compares various elements of both sets of trials, and suggests that examining the similarities between these trials sheds as much light on the state side of the prosecutions as does dwelling on the headline contrasts.

StatusPublished
FundersThe Carnegie Trust
Title of seriesPalgrave Histories of Policing, Punishment and Justice
Publication date31/12/2019
Publication date online31/12/2018
URLhttp://hdl.handle.net/1893/28613
PublisherPalgrave Macmillan
Place of publicationBasingstoke
ISBN978-3319989587

People (1)

People

Dr Emma Macleod

Dr Emma Macleod

Senior Lecturer, History