Capital punishment in the United Kingdom espionage from "all spies for the enemy" to spies on naval ships or bases. Later, the Armed Forces Act 1981 abolished the death penalty for espionage. (The Official Secrets Act 1911 had created another offence of espionage which carried a maximum sentence of fourteen years.) Beheading was abolished as a method of execution for treason in 1973. Hanging, however, remained available until 1998 when, under a House of Lords amendment to the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, proposed by Lord Archer of Sandwell, the death penalty was abolished for treason and piracy with violence, replacing it with a discretionary maximum
High treason in the United Kingdom King subject to the same rules of procedure and evidence as existed in murder trials (which did not require two witnesses). This change was extended to all assaults on the Sovereign by the Treason Act 1842. Finally the special rules for treason were abolished by the Treason Act 1945 when the rules of evidence and procedure in all cases of treason were made the same as for murder. However, the original three-year time limit stated above survived into the present day. This meant that when James Hewitt was accused of treason in 1996 because of his affair with the Princess