STATE TRIALS

This article appears in Volume V25, Page 806 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: SOU-STE

STATE TRIALS , in English law, a name which primarily denotes all trials relating to offences against the state, but in practice is often used of cases illustrative of the law relating to state

officers

OFFICERS

or of

international

INTERNATIONAL, THE

or constitutional law. The first collection of accounts of state trials was published in 1719 in four volumes. Although without an editor's name, it appears that

Thomas

Salmon (1679-1767), an historical and geographical writer, was responsible for the collection. A second edition, increased to six volumes, under the editorship of Sollom Emlyn (1697-1754), appeared in 173o. This edition contained a lengthy

preface

PREFACE (Med. Lat. prefatia, for classical praefatio, praefari, to speak beforehand)

critically surveying the

condition

CONDITION (Lat. condicio, from condicere, to agree upon, arrange; not connected with conditio, from condere, conditum, to put together)

of English law at the time. A third edition appeared in 1742, in eight volumes, the seventh and eighth volumes having been added in 1835. Ninth and tenth volumes were added in 1766, and a fourth edition, comprising ten volumes, with the trials arranged chronologically, was published the same year. A fifth edition, originated by William Cobbett, but edited by

Thomas

Bayly

BAYLY, THOMAS HAYNES (1797–1839)

Howell (1768-1815) and known as Cobbett's Complete Collection of State Trials, was published between 1809 and 1826. This edition is in thirty-three volumes; twenty-one of them, giving the more important state trials down to 1781, were edited by T. B. Howell, and the remaining volumes, bringing the trials down to 182o, by his son Thomas Jones Howell (d. 1858). A new

series

SERIES (a Latin word from serere, to join)

, under the direction of a parliamentary committee, was projected in 1885, with the object of bringing the trials down to a later date. Eight volumes were published in 1888-1898, bringing the

work

WORK

down to 1858. The first three of these were edited by Sir J. Macdonell, the remaining five by J. E. P. Wallis. Selections have also been edited by H. L. Stephen and others. The trials are invaluable not only for their reports of criminal cases, in which the whole course of criminal

procedure

PROCEDURE (Fr. procedure, from Lat. procedere, to go for-ward)

and evidence may be traced, but for their historical information.

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