Treason by Women Act (Ireland) 1796 Treason by Women Act (Ireland) 1796 The Treason by Women Act (Ireland) 1796 (36 Geo 3 c 31 (I)) was an Act of the Parliament of the Kingdom of Ireland. It abolished death by burning at the stake as the penalty for women convicted of treason. (It therefore made equivalent provision to the Treason Act 1790 for Ireland.) This Act was repealed for the Republic of Ireland by section 1 of, and the Schedule to, the Statute Law Revision (Pre-Union Irish Statutes) Act 1962 This Act was repealed for Northern Ireland on 30 September 1998 by section 120(2) of, and
High treason in the United Kingdom with a strict requirement for a minimum of two witnesses to the crime. In 1832 the death penalty was abolished for treason by forging seals and the Royal sign manual. In 1870, attainder was abolished. In the same year in England, and in 1949 in Scotland, posthumous drawing and quartering was abolished, and so the sole punishment was hanging. Beheading was abolished in 1973, by which time it had long been obsolete. By 1965, capital punishment had been abolished for almost all crimes, but was still mandatory (unless the offender was pardoned or the sentence commuted) for high treason until