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 treason trials, and replaced them with the rules applicable to murder trials, to simplify the law. As discussed above, the last treason prosecutions occurred later that year. From 1945, treason consisted of the offences which are treason today (see above), plus two other kinds. The Succession to the Crown Act 1707 made it treason to affirm that any person has a right to succeed to the Crown otherwise than according to the Act of Settlement and Acts of Union, or that the Crown and Parliament cannot legislate for the limitation of the succession to the Crown. This was abolished in